Building an RPG system
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So as some may know I am into playing RPGs, and I have been working on my own campaign setting for a while. One of the problems I have is that I also need to invent a new magic system, and perhaps even a full RPG system, for this setting, as my concept of how magic works in the world is incompatible with how magic works in the systems I am most used to. So I am sorta looking at for the basic system using either of, or doing a "mashup" of, Drakar och Demoner and Eon.
The basics of DoD is "inverted" from D&D, with 1 being a critical success and 20 being fumble. That's because success is determined from rolling equal or below your skill in what you roll against. Eon uses the same principle, but with d6 instead of d20, with more d6 meaning more difficult and 3d6 being normal difficulty. Eon also uses infinite rolls, where any 6 is replaced with two new dice rolls.
A problem, however, is magic. Taking DoD as an example, it's very much the linear warrior and quadratic wizard problem, where magic users start out really weak but can end up really strong (if they survive) thanks to magic being VERY expensive to increase in skill. In the latest campaign I tried learning healing magic, as the group lacked a healer, and I got... a little skill in it thanks to surviving. But for any caster starting out it's sinking all your XP into one or two spells to get good at that. But the best way to get XP is to level up the most used basic skills first, like riding or detect danger, so you have a constant way of getting XP. Basically, the first successful roll against a skill for every in-game day will give one XP. And no, you can't just use every skill just for XP, it has to be motivated for the situation.
So I am looking at trying to ease being a caster without making them all overpowered. DoD has the conecpt of MP already, so can use that better methinks. In DoD a spell costs 1MP, and spending more MP will make the spell more powerful (but also harder to cast). So rank 1 healing will heal 1d6 on successful cast, and each rank added will cost 1 more MP, heal 1 extra d6 but add +2 to the roll making it harder.
I am thinking more of making distinct spell ranks, with cheap less efficient spells and expensive powerful spells, making it more of a strategical call if want to be able to cast more small ones or spend it all on a big bang. Also remove the overly harsh penalty for running out of MP that's in DoD: instant death. Just fainting would be more fair methinks...
But yeah, would be interesting to hear if anyone else has some ideas or input on this too.
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@El_Heffe I don't think I have the expertise to build one of those RPGs. But I know how to fire one. The kind that goes boom. And makes a big mess of the insides of whatever vehicle they are fired at.
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@Atazhaia first and foremost - don't let players make spells arbitrarily strong. Put a fixed damage number on each spell, maybe influenced a little by skills - to roughly match damage output of a warrior at a given level, times 2 or however much you want.
Instead of MP, it might be easier to balance spells with D&D-like spell slots - higher rank spells require higher rank slots, so you're only able to use your most powerful ones a few times, but using it doesn't impede your ability to cast lower rank spells. That way, learning a new spell doesn't turn the game upside down, nor do lower-level spells become obsolete (as fast).
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@Gąska DoD has the (unfortunate) side effect of being able to make your spells as strong as up to current MP-1. Sure, you're probably only gonna have a 5% chance of succeeding then (as rolling a 1 will count as a success regardless of penalties), but the possibility is there. Also, a failed spell cast will cost 1MP regardless of rank, so there's no way to infinitely keep trying.
I have played a mage in D&D once and I did not quite like the spell slot system due to requiring guesswork as to what spells to bring. Do I want dispel magic or open locked door? What hindrance will be in this dungeon? It felt kinda meh. Also got "fun" when I levelled up enough that I could slot rank 5 spells, but I did not know any and learning one would mean going to Magic U for a year or so. My offensive spells were also pretty much Magic Missile of which I could cast up to 4 in a day. Sure, they were guaranteed to hit but once I had cast them all I was utterly useless.
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@Atazhaia said in Building an RPG system:
I have played a mage in D&D once and I did not quite like the spell slot system due to requiring guesswork as to what spells to bring.
Later D&D editions fixed that so you have access to all your spells all the time, without the need to prepare them - you just need to have unused slots to cast them. Spell slots effectively act as MP, but it's still tiered so your "low rank MP" can't be used to cast high-rank spell.
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@Atazhaia said in Building an RPG system:
@Gąska DoD has the (unfortunate) side effect of being able to make your spells as strong as up to current MP-1. Sure, you're probably only gonna have a 5% chance of succeeding then (as rolling a 1 will count as a success regardless of penalties), but the possibility is there. Also, a failed spell cast will cost 1MP regardless of rank, so there's no way to infinitely keep trying.
You could give each spell a base MP cost (≥1) depending on its power. It feels odd to me that a spell that causes an obvious illusion for entertainment and one that wounds its target would both cost 1 MP to cast — I’d expect the former to be far cheaper than the latter.
I have played a mage in D&D once and I did not quite like the spell slot system
I’ve played a good amount of D&D and I never liked its spell slot system :)
due to requiring guesswork as to what spells to bring. Do I want dispel magic or open locked door? What hindrance will be in this dungeon?
Exactly. Unless you have a good idea in advance of what you’re going to face, you have to go with a generic selection of spells and often end up with a good deal that prove entirely useless.
FWIW, I like systems where you select a limited number of spells when making a character and can learn more as you go along, but all of those are always available — limited by magic points, fatigue, or whatever.
Also got "fun" when I levelled up enough that I could slot rank 5 spells, but I did not know any and learning one would mean going to Magic U for a year or so.
The main way to do this in D&D, in my experience, is to find somebody else’s spell book or a scroll and learn from that, via the Read Magic spell. Or, if you have two wizard PCs, borrow each other’s spell books, of course — there is literally nothing stopping you from doing this and both getting much better from it.
My offensive spells were also pretty much Magic Missile of which I could cast up to 4 in a day. Sure, they were guaranteed to hit but once I had cast them all I was utterly useless.
This is why in my group’s last AD&D campaign, the mage soon began carrying a bow — and usually shot two arrows at once with it. Sure, this meant she was at −6 to hit on a d20 roll (−5 for being a mage who’s using a weapon without having the required proficiency, −1 for shooting two arrows at a time) and −1 damage, but twice, so statistically, she came out ahead in both hit chance and average damage done.
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
Instead of MP, it might be easier to balance spells with D&D-like spell slots
Gah, no! The Vancian magic system is probably the worst thing about D&D. Almost no other game system, tabletop or videogame, that isn't an adaptation of D&D or directly inspired by it uses this system, and there are all sorts of good reasons for that.
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
@Atazhaia said in Building an RPG system:
I have played a mage in D&D once and I did not quite like the spell slot system due to requiring guesswork as to what spells to bring.
Later D&D editions fixed that so you have access to all your spells all the time, without the need to prepare them - you just need to have unused slots to cast them. Spell slots effectively act as MP, but it's still tiered so your "low rank MP" can't be used to cast high-rank spell.
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@Mason_Wheeler although I'd like to mention that Dark Souls 1 and 2 have no MP and use prepared spell slots too. Not quite Vancian system but close.
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@Gąska That helps a little bit, but it doesn't fix the more fundamental issues.
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@Mason_Wheeler I skimmed through the link, and read the "And the Wheels Come Off" section in full as it seems to be the only part that actually lists the problems, and... I'm sorry, I really tried to give them benefit of doubt, but this blogger simply has no idea about game balance.
First - let me make clear one thing. I never said Vancian system is good. I never recommended it. Hell, I only learned that word yesterday! I've only talked about spell slots. Nothing more. And 4 out of 5 issues listed are about other parts of Vancian system than spell slots, and all of them are trivially fixed by just going away with that particular aspect. Healers waste turns on healing? Make healing not waste a turn! Spell components are annoying? Don't require spell components! Spells are hard to come by? Make them easier to find, or make them readily available in magic shop! There are so many spells that a wizard can substitute any other class? Remove those spells or force the wizard to specialize! Seriously, all these problems can be summarized as "I put a nail in my hand and now it hurts" - and the solution is DON'T PUT A NAIL IN YOUR HAND.
Now, the 5th problem is real one. Somewhat. A bit. It's the problem of quadratic mage. Yes, it is hard to balance spell slots against other classes. But that's the problem with all magic. Hell, not just magic - whenever you have any kind of asymmetric gameplay (and the entire point of classes is to have asymmetric gameplay!), balancing is going to be hard. Either you make fighter and wizard identical, or balancing will be hard - there's no way around it. And making them identical would be boring. Same problem with rangers. Same problem with rogues. Same problem with every class that has some quirk that significantly alters gameplay (which is all of them because otherwise why would you have classes).
But here's the kicker. It is easier to balance magic with spell slots than it is with simple MP system. With just MP, the moment the wizard gets a new spell, it instantly makes the wizard more powerful by a huge margin - either that or they'll never move on from their old spell because it's more efficient, which effectively renders the new spell useless. To make things worse, as soon as they gain enough MP to cast their favorite spell once more, they get another sudden boost to power. And the more powerful spell, the bigger the boost (2 nukes instead of 1 is 100% more power). And at higher levels, they're going to have a lot of MP.
Ranked spell slots are different. They're kinda the same, but they give the designer much more control over the power progression by directly addressing the two issues above. First - a new, more powerful spell isn't a straight replacement of an old spell because it requires a higher rank spell slot. You will still rely on the weaker spell for a long while - and that means your damage output doesn't increase all that much. Second - because high-level spells need high-level slots, gaining one is a huge deal and a sudden increase in power, but even a very high-level character is only going to have a handful of them. They're much less susceptible to min-maxing than MP.
Would you have less issue with spell slots if I called them multiple separate, tiered MP pools? Because that's what they actually are. Low-rank MP can't be used to cast high-rank spells. And that's it, no further complications.
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@Mason_Wheeler A few years ago I was involved a big discussion about that magic system on the Phoenix Command mailing list. What I found mostly surprising, given the kind of game rules PCCS has, is that I appeared to be one of the few there who didn’t like “cast-and-forget” type of magic. This mostly devolved in me being told I was wrong, because “it’s not the game system that doesn’t work well but your group having a poor GM”, or because “one-shot spells are like ammo for a gun, and you mentioned you don’t have problems with that, so why do you with one-shot spells?” Fun. Not.
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
force the wizard to specialize
One way of doing that is by reducing the power of every spell by the number of schools of magic the wizard knows spells from (other than cantrips). That establishes quite clearly that, while you don't need to specialise, you'll be utterly fucked if you don't. Anything that lessens the penalty would be the sort of thing that wizards would start wars over, and thus a candidate for being a major maguffin.
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@dkf Or like divinity 2: original sin does, require attribute points to be spent on specific schools. You want to cast high-level fire mage spells? Then you'll have to spend a lot of points on fire magic. Want to cast lightning magic too? Then you won't be as strong a fire mage.
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
But here's the kicker. It is easier to balance magic with spell slots than it is with simple MP system. With just MP, the moment the wizard gets a new spell, it instantly makes the wizard more powerful by a huge margin
[citation needed]
either that or they'll never move on from their old spell because it's more efficient, which effectively renders the new spell useless.
Yes. Clearly there are no other possibilities whatsoever.
I would recommend you play Final Fantasy IV. Because you're talking as if you have no experience whatsoever with a well-implemented MP system.
To make things worse, as soon as they gain enough MP to cast their favorite spell once more, they get another sudden boost to power. And the more powerful spell, the bigger the boost (2 nukes instead of 1 is 100% more power). And at higher levels, they're going to have a lot of MP.
It's not nearly as significant as you're making it out to be, because if you have enough MP to cast your nuke spell twice, and you cast it twice, then you're tapped out. Meanwhile, the guy with the sword can just keep on swording for the entire battle. MP is invaluable for balancing because it does a very effective job of limiting what mages can do with their overpowered spell slinging.
Would you have less issue with spell slots if I called them multiple separate, tiered MP pools? Because that's what they actually are.
No, they really aren't, because they're missing one important feature of MP pools: the concept of MP cost. What you have with spell slots is, at best, a degenerate case of MP pools in which every spell costs exactly 1 MP.
I've seen multiple, independent MP pools done well. Phantom Brave immediately comes to mind. It used independent MP pools (as well as a handful of other very unique game mechanics!) and it was a lot of fun. Its pools were based on usage style, more or less the way "mana colors" are used in Magic: The Gathering. You had weapon technique MP, nature magic MP, attack magic MP, etc. That worked really well, and it would have worked far less well if every spell had had the same cost.
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I have been looking through the stuff written here and there is some good inputs. My DM has the idea to try and adapt the DoD system by making learning the spells cheaper by making them work more like regular skills, but increasing their MP cost to the level of the spell. I, however, don't like the magic schools and spell selection much either. But will be interesting to try his modifications too whenever we play DoD again. The next game after the current Eon campaign will be Werewolf: The Apocalypse according to the plan, though.
I have the idea of having spell ranks too, thinking about something like three magic schools and three spell ranks. And you could either focus on, let's say, fire magic and be able to learn all 3 ranks. But you want two schools? Max rank 2 in those two schools. Or you want all three schools? Just rank 1 spells for you! So if you want powerfull spells you need to focus, but if you want versatility you're limited to just the weaker or basic spells.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
But here's the kicker. It is easier to balance magic with spell slots than it is with simple MP system. With just MP, the moment the wizard gets a new spell, it instantly makes the wizard more powerful by a huge margin
[citation needed]
Math. If you can cast 33% more spells, you are 33% more powerful as mage. And that's what happens when you increase MP from (1 less than needed for three spells) to (exactly as needed for three spells). Also, personal experience with games where MP doesn't easily regenerate. In Gothic, for example, the difference between casting 2 fireballs and casting 3 fireballs is the difference between bosses being impossible and bosses being laughably easy.
either that or they'll never move on from their old spell because it's more efficient, which effectively renders the new spell useless.
Yes. Clearly there are no other possibilities whatsoever.
What are they?
I would recommend you play Final Fantasy IV. Because you're talking as if you have no experience whatsoever with a well-implemented MP system.
I don't like grinding. Can you just say what's so good there so I don't have to waste 50 hours of my time?
From my experience playing various other JRPGs, there's always 1 killer spell used all the time and 99 spellbook paddings. Plus healing and antidote.
To make things worse, as soon as they gain enough MP to cast their favorite spell once more, they get another sudden boost to power. And the more powerful spell, the bigger the boost (2 nukes instead of 1 is 100% more power). And at higher levels, they're going to have a lot of MP.
It's not nearly as significant as you're making it out to be, because if you have enough MP to cast your nuke spell twice, and you cast it twice, then you're tapped out. Meanwhile, the guy with the sword can just keep on swording for the entire battle.
If there's anything left after two nukes. Often there isn't.
MP is invaluable for balancing because it does a very effective job of limiting what mages can do with their overpowered spell slinging.
Compare to
spell slotsranked MP pools, which do the same but differently.Would you have less issue with spell slots if I called them multiple separate, tiered MP pools? Because that's what they actually are.
No, they really aren't, because they're missing one important feature of MP pools: the concept of MP cost. What you have with spell slots is, at best, a degenerate case of MP pools in which every spell costs exactly 1 MP.
1 out of 1 still hurts.
I've seen multiple, independent MP pools done well. Phantom Brave immediately comes to mind. It used independent MP pools (as well as a handful of other very unique game mechanics!) and it was a lot of fun. Its pools were based on usage style, more or less the way "mana colors" are used in Magic: The Gathering. You had weapon technique MP, nature magic MP, attack magic MP, etc.
And it has all the same problems regarding power curve as a single MP pool. It's a solution, but to a different problem.
That worked really well, and it would have worked far less well if every spell had had the same cost.
I never suggested making everything cost the same. Stop putting words in my mouth.
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@Gurth said in Building an RPG system:
Exactly. Unless you have a good idea in advance of what you’re going to face, you have to go with a generic selection of spells and often end up with a good deal that prove entirely useless.
I don't think any of my wizard's spells are entirely useless, although there are a couple I haven't had occasion to use, yet. I haven't had a need for Illusory Script or Disguise Self, and there are probably a couple of times that Feather Fall or Hideous Laughter might have been useful, but I didn't have them prepared.
The main way to do this in D&D, in my experience, is to find somebody else’s spell book or a scroll and learn from that, via the Read Magic spell. Or, if you have two wizard PCs, borrow each other’s spell books, of course — there is literally nothing stopping you from doing this and both getting much better from it.
I've gotten a couple of useful staffs from dead NPC wizards, but not spell books.
This is why in my group’s last AD&D campaign, the mage soon began carrying a bow — and usually shot two arrows at once with it. Sure, this meant she was at −6 to hit on a d20 roll (−5 for being a mage who’s using a weapon without having the required proficiency, −1 for shooting two arrows at a time) and −1 damage, but twice, so statistically, she came out ahead in both hit chance and average damage done.
Fortunately, as a High Elf, my wizard has proficiency with a number of common weapons. I started with a quarterstaff, and I don't remember whether I started with or acquired early-on a longbow. The two shortswords were acquired in the course of adventuring, and the party also discovered an old dwarven thing that we all used to enchant all our weapons to +1. Then, in our last adventure, I acquired a longsword with custom magical properties, which for some reason D&D Beyond isn't showing
; I'll have to look up the notes and enter the info again. Also, Fire Bolt and Poison Spray as cantrips. So, nicely not-useless when out of spell slots.
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
But here's the kicker. It is easier to balance magic with spell slots than it is with simple MP system. With just MP, the moment the wizard gets a new spell, it instantly makes the wizard more powerful by a huge margin
[citation needed]
Math. If you can cast 33% more spells, you are 33% more powerful as mage. And that's what happens when you increase MP from (1 less than needed for three spells) to (exactly as needed for three spells).
What you said was "the moment the wizard gets a new spell, it instantly makes the wizard more powerful by a huge margin." Now you're saying when the wizard gets enough MP to increase the number of consecutive casts they can perform, it makes them significantly more powerful.The new version actually makes sense, but it doesn't do anything to further your argument, because there's no difference. Gaining MP usually happens at level-up, which is the same time you gain new spell slots in a Vancian system. What's the difference?
Also, personal experience with games where MP doesn't easily regenerate. In Gothic, for example, the difference between casting 2 fireballs and casting 3 fireballs is the difference between bosses being impossible and bosses being laughably easy.
So Gothic is poorly balanced.
either that or they'll never move on from their old spell because it's more efficient, which effectively renders the new spell useless.
Yes. Clearly there are no other possibilities whatsoever.
What are they?
As I said, play FF4.
I would recommend you play Final Fantasy IV. Because you're talking as if you have no experience whatsoever with a well-implemented MP system.
I don't like grinding. Can you just say what's so good there so I don't have to waste 50 hours of my time?
...seriously? I wrote that as a bit of snark; are you actually saying you have never played it?!?
From my experience playing various other JRPGs, there's always 1 killer spell used all the time and 99 spellbook paddings. Plus healing and antidote.
Which ones
In a well-designed MP-based system, there isn't (and can't be) a "1 killer spell", with the frequent exception of endgame content once you've really put in the effort to earn it. Sure, it might sound cool running around casting fireballs on everything, but that's not gonna do you a lick of good against fire-element monsters with resistance, immunity or, in the worst case, absorption of fire! A proper wizard needs a wide range of abilities to handle different scenarios.
To make things worse, as soon as they gain enough MP to cast their favorite spell once more, they get another sudden boost to power. And the more powerful spell, the bigger the boost (2 nukes instead of 1 is 100% more power). And at higher levels, they're going to have a lot of MP.
It's not nearly as significant as you're making it out to be, because if you have enough MP to cast your nuke spell twice, and you cast it twice, then you're tapped out. Meanwhile, the guy with the sword can just keep on swording for the entire battle.
If there's anything left after two nukes. Often there isn't.
Once again, Gothic is a poorly balanced game.
Would you have less issue with spell slots if I called them multiple separate, tiered MP pools? Because that's what they actually are.
No, they really aren't, because they're missing one important feature of MP pools: the concept of MP cost. What you have with spell slots is, at best, a degenerate case of MP pools in which every spell costs exactly 1 MP.
1 out of 1 still hurts.
...huh?
No idea what that even means. Can you elaborate?
I've seen multiple, independent MP pools done well. Phantom Brave immediately comes to mind. It used independent MP pools (as well as a handful of other very unique game mechanics!) and it was a lot of fun. Its pools were based on usage style, more or less the way "mana colors" are used in Magic: The Gathering. You had weapon technique MP, nature magic MP, attack magic MP, etc.
And it has all the same problems regarding power curve as a single MP pool. It's a solution, but to a different problem.
Have you actually played it?
That worked really well, and it would have worked far less well if every spell had had the same cost.
I never suggested making everything cost the same. Stop putting words in my mouth.
Why are you spouting so much straight-up gibberish these last few days? I literally just explained a few paragraphs above this that that's precisely what spell slots do. All spells in each "pool" cost exactly the same as each other: one slot. (D&D has actually gotten worse about this as time goes on; in earlier editions they had other costs to differentiate them, such as EXP or spell components, but those have been phased out over the years to "simplify" the gameplay.)
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I have some thoughts about this. Some meta-system thought, some more specific.
Meta
- Decide exactly what role you want magic to play, and how "high magic" the default is. Because systems that work well for one set of parameters don't for others. Should a mage be using magic virtually all the time (ie not weapons)? Or should magic be a couple times a day, at most.
- Decide whether you want ravioli-type spells, spell chains, or open-ended spell-formation. They each have advantages and disadvantages. Ravioli-type spells let you say "these things can be done by magic, at this cost each." But also have the least thematic control, and end up with the greatest variety and the biggest chance of something being pointless. Spell chains make things more thematic, but at the cost of high specialization. Which may or may not be a cost. Open-ended spells are super flexible and you don't need many, but run high balance risks.
- Damage doesn't really unbalance things too much by itself. Unless it's enough to one-shot powerful creatures (at that power level) or AoE big enough to wipe out huge squads. The big threat to balance is the "it's magic, so it can do anything" mindset + a "I can take this defined spell and add in some (poorly-understood and language-lawyered) real-world science and now I've cast summon neutronium golem!" mindset. 5e D&D has the meta-rule that "spells do exactly and only what they say they do." If followed, this tamps down the power much more.
Specific
- I haven't really seen too much difference between a mana/spell-point system and a spell-slot system in terms of balance. It's more about quantity as a function of "adventuring day" length and ease of recovery. If there's generally only one big time to use them between resets, then being able to dump everything into high-level nukes is OP even if you only get a few. Now if you have to run an attrition game, then casters are much weaker unless they've just got metric tons of slots/mana (ie 3.5e D&D).
- "Pure" Vancian casting (preparing spells into slots, have to have the right number of the right ones prepared) sucks IMO. Badly. I hate it.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
But here's the kicker. It is easier to balance magic with spell slots than it is with simple MP system. With just MP, the moment the wizard gets a new spell, it instantly makes the wizard more powerful by a huge margin
[citation needed]
Math. If you can cast 33% more spells, you are 33% more powerful as mage. And that's what happens when you increase MP from (1 less than needed for three spells) to (exactly as needed for three spells).
What you said was "the moment the wizard gets a new spell, it instantly makes the wizard more powerful by a huge margin." Now you're saying when the wizard gets enough MP to increase the number of consecutive casts they can perform, it makes them significantly more powerful.Sorry. I messed up paragraph numbers. In my first post I talked about spells in paragraph 1 and MP threshold in paragraph 2, but somehow swapped the order in the second post.
The answer to the first part is also math. Either the new spell is more cost-effective method of dealing with monsters. Or it's not. End of story. I've done it so many times in so many games that I really cannot believe that anyone even remotely familiar with RPG genre can say it's not true. Damage per MP is like the first thing that comes to mind when selecting a spell. And with single MP pool it's a constant number, i.e. the decision which spell to use is also constant.
The new version actually makes sense, but it doesn't do anything to further your argument, because there's no difference. Gaining MP usually happens at level-up, which is the same time you gain new spell slots in a Vancian system. What's the difference?
The difference is that you can't use low-rank slots for high-rank spells, and because gaining high-rank slots are so rare compared to gaining MP, it's much harder to break the balance.
Also, personal experience with games where MP doesn't easily regenerate. In Gothic, for example, the difference between casting 2 fireballs and casting 3 fireballs is the difference between bosses being impossible and bosses being laughably easy.
So Gothic is poorly balanced.
I never said it's bad balance. It's a design choice. In case of Gothic, it plays well with the rest of the game because overpowered mage was the goal. They embraced the quadratic mage formula and made the best use of it. And simple MP system is great for that. But this topic isn't about embracing quadratic mage. It's about avoiding it. And avoiding it is much easier with spell slots than with simple MP system.
either that or they'll never move on from their old spell because it's more efficient, which effectively renders the new spell useless.
Yes. Clearly there are no other possibilities whatsoever.
What are they?
As I said, play FF4.
As I said, I don't want to waste 50 hours on a game I won't enjoy. Especially when you can say everything needed in 10 seconds.
I would recommend you play Final Fantasy IV. Because you're talking as if you have no experience whatsoever with a well-implemented MP system.
I don't like grinding. Can you just say what's so good there so I don't have to waste 50 hours of my time?
...seriously? I wrote that as a bit of snark; are you actually saying you have never played it?!?
Yes, I actually never played it. Specifically because I hate grinding. So please, tell me what makes FF4 magic system so amazing because this discussion won't get any farther otherwise.
From my experience playing various other JRPGs, there's always 1 killer spell used all the time and 99 spellbook paddings. Plus healing and antidote.
Which ones
Various. Don't remember. Mostly the cheap ones. But also FF1 and 2. Which are very much like those cheap ones, but maybe they don't represent the rest of the series well.
In a well-designed MP-based system, there isn't (and can't be) a "1 killer spell", with the frequent exception of endgame content once you've really put in the effort to earn it. Sure, it might sound cool running around casting fireballs on everything, but that's not gonna do you a lick of good against fire-element monsters with resistance, immunity or, in the worst case, absorption of fire! A proper wizard needs a wide range of abilities to handle different scenarios.
Artificial restrictions on which spell can be used on which creature are not fun. And two identical spells that only differ in their element is not an actual choice. It's just one spell disguised as two options to make it look like you're not using just one thing over and over again.
In simpler words: if I use fireball throughout the entire game start to finish, except for those three fire elementals who are immune to fire so I smited them with thunderbolt instead - that's still completing the game with a single spell in my book.
To make things worse, as soon as they gain enough MP to cast their favorite spell once more, they get another sudden boost to power. And the more powerful spell, the bigger the boost (2 nukes instead of 1 is 100% more power). And at higher levels, they're going to have a lot of MP.
It's not nearly as significant as you're making it out to be, because if you have enough MP to cast your nuke spell twice, and you cast it twice, then you're tapped out. Meanwhile, the guy with the sword can just keep on swording for the entire battle.
If there's anything left after two nukes. Often there isn't.
Once again, Gothic is a poorly balanced game.
Once again, Gothic isn't the only game where that happens. Every game - video or tabletop or whatever - where there's ultimate spell that takes most of your MP unless your MP is very high, is going to have that problem. Except for games where the ultimate spell is so weak it's not worth using even once, that is.
Would you have less issue with spell slots if I called them multiple separate, tiered MP pools? Because that's what they actually are.
No, they really aren't, because they're missing one important feature of MP pools: the concept of MP cost. What you have with spell slots is, at best, a degenerate case of MP pools in which every spell costs exactly 1 MP.
1 out of 1 still hurts.
...huh?
No idea what that even means. Can you elaborate?
1 5th rank slot out of 1 5th rank slots is still a significant cost, very comparable to using 12 out of 30 MP.
I've seen multiple, independent MP pools done well. Phantom Brave immediately comes to mind. It used independent MP pools (as well as a handful of other very unique game mechanics!) and it was a lot of fun. Its pools were based on usage style, more or less the way "mana colors" are used in Magic: The Gathering. You had weapon technique MP, nature magic MP, attack magic MP, etc.
And it has all the same problems regarding power curve as a single MP pool. It's a solution, but to a different problem.
Have you actually played it?
Okay, I admit I misread that part. I thought you're saying there's separate MP pools per spell role, not spell source. I'd like to talk more about it, but only after you stop being an idiot and stop misreading what I say and stop telling me to waste 50 hours of my life on games I won't enjoy.
That worked really well, and it would have worked far less well if every spell had had the same cost.
I never suggested making everything cost the same. Stop putting words in my mouth.
Yes, that sums up my reaction to your post very well.
Why are you spouting so much straight-up gibberish these last few days?
Because I'm angry that people keep lying about what I say. Stop lying and I'll stop being angry.
I literally just explained a few paragraphs above this that that's precisely what spell slots do.
And you completely ignored the basic fact, the very core of the entire spell slot mechanic, the entire reason I even mentioned them in this topic at all - that a 5th rank spell slot is a much higher cost than a 1st rank spell slot. So when you say all spells cost the same, either you grossly misunderstood something or are straight up lying. Which is it?
That said. There's no rule that a single spell can't consume more than one slot.
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
But this topic isn't about embracing quadratic mage. It's about avoiding it. And avoiding it is much easier with spell slots than with simple MP system.
Yes, you keep asserting that. But it runs contrary to observed reality: namely, that the concept of "linear warriors, quadratic wizards" is associated almost exclusively with D&D and games that take heavy inspiration from it.
It's not what you don't know that gets you in trouble; it's the things you know for sure that just ain't so.
As I said, I don't want to waste 50 hours on a game I won't enjoy.
And how do you know you won't enjoy it if you've never played it?
Especially when you can say everything needed in 10 seconds.
I probably could, if I had a common frame of reference. I could point to specific characters and their mechanics as examples. But if you don't understand those references, trying to explain it becomes much more complicated and involved!
Yes, I actually never played it. Specifically because I hate grinding. So please, tell me what makes FF4 magic system so amazing because this discussion won't get any farther otherwise.
It's not a grind-y game. I can think of a grand total of one place in the entire storyline where you'll have to spend any time level-grinding at all; most of the time it's quite well-balanced between character progression and monster difficulty, and this was before later games in the series introduced concepts like APs that made you grind for stuff other than levels. This is probably the worst possible game in the entire franchise to apply that particular criticism to.From my experience playing various other JRPGs, there's always 1 killer spell used all the time and 99 spellbook paddings. Plus healing and antidote.
Which ones
Various. Don't remember. Mostly the cheap ones. But also FF1 and 2. Which are very much like those cheap ones, but maybe they don't represent the rest of the series well.
Yeah, 1 and 2 were excessively grind-y. (And just to make things worse, 1 was heavily, blatantly D&D inspired, including using spell slots! It made magic ridiculously painful in that game.)
Artificial restrictions on which spell can be used on which creature are not fun. And two identical spells that only differ in their element is not an actual choice. It's just one spell disguised as two options to make it look like you're not using just one thing over and over again.
In simpler words: if I use fireball throughout the entire game start to finish, except for those three fire elementals who are immune to fire so I smited them with thunderbolt instead - that's still completing the game with a single spell in my book.
Once again, Gothic is a poorly balanced game.
Once again, Gothic isn't the only game where that happens. Every game - video or tabletop or whatever - where there's ultimate spell that takes most of your MP unless your MP is very high, is going to have that problem. Except for games where the ultimate spell is so weak it's not worth using even once, that is.
And how is that any different from having level 9 spell slots that you fill with multiple copies of the ultimate spell?
I've seen multiple, independent MP pools done well. Phantom Brave immediately comes to mind. It used independent MP pools (as well as a handful of other very unique game mechanics!) and it was a lot of fun. Its pools were based on usage style, more or less the way "mana colors" are used in Magic: The Gathering. You had weapon technique MP, nature magic MP, attack magic MP, etc.
And it has all the same problems regarding power curve as a single MP pool. It's a solution, but to a different problem.
Have you actually played it?
Okay, I admit I misread that part. I thought you're saying there's separate MP pools per spell role, not spell source. I'd like to talk more about it, but only after you stop being an idiot and stop misreading what I say and stop telling me to waste 50 hours of my life on games I won't enjoy.
Toby Faire, you probably wouldn't enjoy Phantom Brave. It's from NIS, and grinding is baked deep into their DNA.
That worked really well, and it would have worked far less well if every spell had had the same cost.
I never suggested making everything cost the same. Stop putting words in my mouth.
Yes, that sums up my reaction to your post very well.
Why are you spouting so much straight-up gibberish these last few days?
Because I'm angry that people keep lying about what I say. Stop lying and I'll stop being angry.
I literally just explained a few paragraphs above this that that's precisely what spell slots do.
And you completely ignored the basic fact, the very core of the entire spell slot mechanic, the entire reason I even mentioned them in this topic at all - that a 5th rank spell slot is a much higher cost than a 1st rank spell slot. So when you say all spells cost the same, either you grossly misunderstood something or are straight up lying. Which is it?
When all of your spells go into mutually-exclusive pools of slots, and each takes exactly one slot, they are all the same: ONE SLOT. You say a 5th rank spell slot costs more than a 1st rank spell slot; I say that's nonsense, because if you can't exchange several low-cost 1st rank castings for a higher-cost 5th rank casting, then their costs can't be compared in any objective way. The concept of const/value requires a common medium of exchange in order to be meaningful, and there is none with spell slots.
With no medium of exchange and no means to trade lesser spell slots in for greater ones, all you have are a bunch of spell slots. Some of them may be more rare than others, some of them may be more powerful than others, but all of them have precisely the same cost: one spell slot.
That said. There's no rule that a single spell can't consume more than one slot.
Maybe not explicitly, but have you ever seen any spell slot-based game, D&D or otherwise, where even a single counterexample exists?
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Edit: removed parts not about game design for the sake of people who care about the game design part of the discussion. My edit history is public, in case someone is interested in name calling.
@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
But it runs contrary to observed reality: namely, that the concept of "linear warriors, quadratic wizards" is associated almost exclusively with D&D and games that take heavy inspiration from it.
It takes exceptional cherry picking skills to say it's D&D-only problem. Just look up the TVTropes page; there are dozen of examples. And just because D&D did that very badly doesn't mean it can't be done good. And just because D&D does badly with spell slots doesn't mean it would do any better with MP.
Especially when you can say everything needed in 10 seconds.
I probably could, if I had a common frame of reference. I could point to specific characters and their mechanics as examples. But if you don't understand those references, trying to explain it becomes much more complicated and involved!
Tell me about the thought process you have for choosing which spell to use in a given situation during a battle in FF4. Tell me about when you decide to use a weaker spell for reasons other than the enemy having low HP and being a 1-hit kill anyway. I understood from what you said that it's more involved than a simple calculation of damage per MP.
Artificial restrictions on which spell can be used on which creature are not fun. And two identical spells that only differ in their element is not an actual choice. It's just one spell disguised as two options to make it look like you're not using just one thing over and over again.
In simpler words: if I use fireball throughout the entire game start to finish, except for those three fire elementals who are immune to fire so I smited them with thunderbolt instead - that's still completing the game with a single spell in my book.
Call it
if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that elemental resistances are more annoying than interesting, especially when they're not a factor 99% of the time. I care less about making logically sound argument that would score an A+ in debate class, and more about helping @Atazhaia design a good magic system.Once again, Gothic is a poorly balanced game.
Once again, Gothic isn't the only game where that happens. Every game - video or tabletop or whatever - where there's ultimate spell that takes most of your MP unless your MP is very high, is going to have that problem. Except for games where the ultimate spell is so weak it's not worth using even once, that is.
And how is that any different from having level 9 spell slots that you fill with multiple copies of the ultimate spell?
If you gain level 9 spell slots only every 10 levels or so (starting from level 30 onwards), it will take a lot of time to get to the point where it's a problem. Much more so than with MP - unless you want to make the spell so expensive that it will never be used.
Once again - I'm not talking about copying D&D. I'm talking about just the idea of tiering in general. Because I believe that, if done right (ie. completely differently from D&D), it can solve some problems that can never be solved with simple MP system.
I literally just explained a few paragraphs above this that that's precisely what spell slots do.
And you completely ignored the basic fact, the very core of the entire spell slot mechanic, the entire reason I even mentioned them in this topic at all - that a 5th rank spell slot is a much higher cost than a 1st rank spell slot. So when you say all spells cost the same, either you grossly misunderstood something or are straight up lying. Which is it?
When all of your spells go into mutually-exclusive pools of slots, and each takes exactly one slot, they are all the same: ONE SLOT. You say a 5th rank spell slot costs more than a 1st rank spell slot; I say that's nonsense, because if you can't exchange several low-cost 1st rank castings for a higher-cost 5th rank casting, then their costs can't be compared in any objective way. The concept of const/value requires a common medium of exchange in order to be meaningful, and there is none with spell slots.
With no medium of exchange and no means to trade lesser spell slots in for greater ones, all you have are a bunch of spell slots. Some of them may be more rare than others, some of them may be more powerful than others, but all of them have precisely the same cost: one spell slot.
You just finished saying in the previous paragraph that they cannot be compared in any meaningful way, and now you're back to saying the cost is equal. Please stop being an idiot and stop equating things that can't be compared.
That said. There's no rule that a single spell can't consume more than one slot.
Maybe not explicitly, but have you ever seen any spell slot-based game, D&D or otherwise, where even a single counterexample exists?
Some spells in Dark Souls take 2 slots.
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Another possibility is to balance things in different ways, such as making higher level spells take longer to cast, have some kind of cost that's paid right at the start of casting, and that anything interrupting it makes the whole lot fizzle (or even detonate, doing damage to the caster and those around them). This makes casting a high-level spell extremely risky, giving the much faster fighter and rogue classes a definite edge in combat. The whole idea would mean that the old trope of a cabal of magical types coming together to cast some uberspell in a secluded space could actually be a sensible approach, and the “Beefy McHardAbs the Barbarian Warrior blunders in and disrupts the whole lot” dumb plotline would actually work as a mechanic.
Character levels, or at least something they can slowly level up, might gradually reduce the time to cast I suppose.
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@HardwareGeek said in Building an RPG system:
@Gurth said in Building an RPG system:
Exactly. Unless you have a good idea in advance of what you’re going to face, you have to go with a generic selection of spells and often end up with a good deal that prove entirely useless.
I don't think any of my wizard's spells are entirely useless, although there are a couple I haven't had occasion to use, yet.
I meant: that you prepare spells that turn out to have no use at all during that day’s adventuring, while very likely, you’ll find yourself wishing you had prepared more of some others you know. Like, you prepare Magic Missile a couple of times, since chances are you’ll get into a fight, and then it turns out the group spends all day trying to talk their way past suspicious villagers where your Charm Person spell would have been much more useful.
This is entirely avoided by systems that let you cast any spell you know at some other cost than “forgetting” the spell.
@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
to "simplify" the gameplay.
Welcome to 21st century RPGs. There’s several reasons I prefer rules sets from the 1990s, and this is one.
@dkf said in Building an RPG system:
Another possibility is to balance things in different ways, such as making higher level spells take longer to cast, have some kind of cost that's paid right at the start of casting, and that anything interrupting it makes the whole lot fizzle (or even detonate, doing damage to the caster and those around them).
Something else that seems to be overlooked here is another principal issue with D&D-style spells: they essentially work all the time. At best, the target gets to make a saving throw, but the caster’s skill is implicitly assumed to be sufficient to cast the spell correctly every time.
Chuck that out and make spellcasting require some kind of test to do correctly, and you have another means to balance powerful spells: a higher difficulty.
I won’t claim it’s perfect, but my favourite spell system is Shadowrun’s for pretty much all these reasons: magicians learn spells and can cast them as many times as they like, but they suffer fatigue from doing so (or even actual wounds, if the spell is powerful enough); casting the spell requires a test to do correctly; the target gets to resist (save) if the spell is detrimental; and there is a spell design system to work out things like the target number and (most importantly) the fatigue of any given spell, based on what it does.
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I experimented with different game systems, one I liked was based around action points, where each action in a stressed situation used APs, such as firing of guns, movement and other. I had a list of example actions for guide in AP cost. The players could pile on as many actions as they wanted, they could also reduce the AP needed by increasing how hard a roll it'd be to perform the action. The harder the action, the greater the chance of fumbling.
The system worked really nice with experienced players, because it increased the dynamics and strategy of combat. The world I constructed around the system was a cyberpunky one, so no magic, but I did try it in a fantasy setting with magic, and it worked but needed work. The base of it there was the same, APs used for mage actions (and any other action), and the mage would combine effects and targets at the cost of APs. For instance fire, face of enemy #1, force 5, use 7 AP to do 5 of fire damage to the face of enemy #1. The AP cost of the element of choice varied by the availability of the element. Water in a desert would have been rather costly, while burning someones beard off next to a camp fire wouldn't be.
I only did it for one game night to see what work was needed, and before I got around to tweaking it people in that gaming group started moving out, and I've barely played tabletop RPGs since.
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Guessing from the downvote, I believe my argument with @Mason_Wheeler is over. I'm kinda sad since he had a few good points, but I'm also kinda glad since I got tired of repeating myself.
@dkf said in Building an RPG system:
Another possibility is to balance things in different ways, such as making higher level spells take longer to cast, have some kind of cost that's paid right at the start of casting, and that anything interrupting it makes the whole lot fizzle (or even detonate, doing damage to the caster and those around them). This makes casting a high-level spell extremely risky, giving the much faster fighter and rogue classes a definite edge in combat.
Until the wizard learns the trick to casting these spells reliably. And they WILL learn that trick. With the help of the entire party, perhaps. And then almost every battle turns into everyone else dancing to the tune of the wizard's spell. Which isn't much fun.
Also, rare resources to cast spells suck. It carries a very high risk of relegating powerful spells into "too awesome to use category", ending up never used in the entire campaign, and the entire ordeal turning out pointless.
About the only video game where I use potions is Dark Souls. It's because they regenerate at each bonfire so I don't potentially screw myself into unwinnable situation by using it too hastily.
The whole idea would mean that the old trope of a cabal of magical types coming together to cast some uberspell in a secluded space could actually be a sensible approach, and the “Beefy McHardAbs the Barbarian Warrior blunders in and disrupts the whole lot” dumb plotline would actually work as a mechanic.
What makes good narrative doesn't always make good gameplay.
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Basing this off DoD again, the MP is not just used for magic. Some special abilities also use it, like "spend 5 MP to deal double damage on next attack" for warriors as well as using some magical weapons will also use MP if you want to activate the magical effect. So it's not strictly for magic. The resource itself is called "psyche", and is also a base stat. It regenerates at a rate of one per hour and you can have a maximum of your psyche. Casters can also craft a magic staff to store up to 10 extra MP by charging it with their own.
Also in DoD, every spell works like a skill, so casting a spell requires a skill check against that specific spell. The only spells not requiring skill checks are minor utility spells, like lifting a book with you mind or giving someone a tap on the shoulder. But yeah, it's a PITA to use magic, as the spells are very expensive and you also need to have the skill for the magic school levelled to the level of the spell you want to learn, which is limited by your max INT iirc. At least the level of the spell has no limits on how high it can go, as higher level just increases chance of success.
But yeah, looking at the different systems they all open for different strategies. Do I want one resource shared by all spells (mana pool) so I have to make a decision how many and how powerful speels I want to cast? One big blast or three small? Do I want to save MP in case I need to use a utility spell before I can restore MP fully or do I spend all on this fight? Or do I want spell slots, where spells are grouped on rank and/or type so I can do three small attacks and one big and still have a couple utility spells without needing to decide between them? It is a hard call.
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@Atazhaia the general principle is, the less freedom player has, the easier it is to balance. The main reason quadratic mages happen is because high-level magic gives so many more options than weapons.
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
But it runs contrary to observed reality: namely, that the concept of "linear warriors, quadratic wizards" is associated almost exclusively with D&D and games that take heavy inspiration from it.
It takes exceptional cherry picking skills to say it's D&D-only problem. Just look up the TVTropes page; there are dozen of examples.
I did. I also saw just how many of them were non-examples ("subverted/averted in this game") or actual examples but heavily qualified ones. (Virtually the entire Final Fantasy series is one of these two. I was amused to see there's no entry at all for IV on that page.) And I saw a bunch of things like "[This is] the case in Pillars of Eternity, which takes a lot of cues from Dungeons & Dragons and is something of a spiritual successor for games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale" where the entry calls out its D&D heritage as a reason why this issue is in effect.
Tell me about the thought process you have for choosing which spell to use in a given situation during a battle in FF4. Tell me about when you decide to use a weaker spell for reasons other than the enemy having low HP and being a 1-hit kill anyway. I understood from what you said that it's more involved than a simple calculation of damage per MP.
Several points here:
- The calculation of damage per MP is not a simple one. The damage formula is 1) not published by the developers and 2) quite involved, if you look at the actual formula that's been carefully worked out by reverse-engineering ROM dumps. You kind of have an intuitive sense of how much it's likely to do, but it's not like you can say "this costs 20 MP and will do 5d20 damage."
- Whether you personally like it or not, elemental resistances and weaknesses are a thing.
- Some spells have additional effects. One of my favorite is the summon that damages enemies for a moderate amount -- never a top-tier attack spell -- but also heals your party for the same amount.
- Longer spells have a longer casting time. In the time it takes Rydia to cast Flare or summon Bahamut, the warriors can attack multiple times. Properly equipped, Cecil will keep pace with Rydia in damage dealing throughout most of the game.
- Running out of MP is a thing. This is likely to happen more than once in the final boss fight. Hope you brought along plenty of MP-recovery potions!
Call it
if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that elemental resistances are more annoying than interesting, especially when they're not a factor 99% of the time.I just looked through a list of enemies, and over 90% of the monsters had something listed as a weakness or a resistance. (Almost all of the exceptions were early-game enemies, such as the ones you'll fight before Rydia joins the party and so you don't have any attack spells anyway.) It didn't differentiate between elements and status effects, though, but having elements matter is quite common.
I literally just explained a few paragraphs above this that that's precisely what spell slots do.
And you completely ignored the basic fact, the very core of the entire spell slot mechanic, the entire reason I even mentioned them in this topic at all - that a 5th rank spell slot is a much higher cost than a 1st rank spell slot. So when you say all spells cost the same, either you grossly misunderstood something or are straight up lying. Which is it?
When all of your spells go into mutually-exclusive pools of slots, and each takes exactly one slot, they are all the same: ONE SLOT. You say a 5th rank spell slot costs more than a 1st rank spell slot; I say that's nonsense, because if you can't exchange several low-cost 1st rank castings for a higher-cost 5th rank casting, then their costs can't be compared in any objective way. The concept of const/value requires a common medium of exchange in order to be meaningful, and there is none with spell slots.
With no medium of exchange and no means to trade lesser spell slots in for greater ones, all you have are a bunch of spell slots. Some of them may be more rare than others, some of them may be more powerful than others, but all of them have precisely the same cost: one spell slot.
You just finished saying in the previous paragraph that they cannot be compared in any meaningful way, and now you're back to saying the cost is equal. Please stop being an idiot and stop equating things that can't be compared.
Now you're just straight-up being disingenuous.Maybe not explicitly, but have you ever seen any spell slot-based game, D&D or otherwise, where even a single counterexample exists?
Some spells in Dark Souls take 2 slots.
...huh. TIL. I haven't played that, but... I'm a bit surprised that you seem to enjoy it, given its reputation for requiring soul-crushing levels of grinding to deal with its massively punishing difficulty!
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
@Atazhaia the general principle is, the less freedom player has, the easier it is to balance. The main reason quadratic mages happen is because high-level magic gives so many more options than weapons.
The main reason is because poor game balance. You could fix a lot of D&D's quadratic mages issues, even without fixing the spell slots problem, by making higher-tier attack spells take multiple rounds to cast instead of a single action. But then you'd get massive howls of outrage from players who like to play as quadratic mages, complaining about "things becoming too video gamey." Well... this is how the best video games fixed that problem.
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
Until the wizard learns the trick to casting these spells reliably. And they WILL learn that trick. With the help of the entire party, perhaps. And then almost every battle turns into everyone else dancing to the tune of the wizard's spell. Which isn't much fun.
You... haven't played Shadowrun, have you?
You say it's not much fun, but every time someone talks about better alternatives, you present some argument to try and negate that alternative or make it irrelevant. If you don't enjoy it, why are you arguing from a perspective that makes it the One True Way?
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
Tell me about the thought process you have for choosing which spell to use in a given situation during a battle in FF4. Tell me about when you decide to use a weaker spell for reasons other than the enemy having low HP and being a 1-hit kill anyway. I understood from what you said that it's more involved than a simple calculation of damage per MP.
Several points here:
- The calculation of damage per MP is not a simple one. The damage formula is 1) not published by the developers and 2) quite involved, if you look at the actual formula that's been carefully worked out by reverse-engineering ROM dumps. You kind of have an intuitive sense of how much it's likely to do, but it's not like you can say "this costs 20 MP and will do 5d20 damage."
That doesn't enable any tactics; from player's POV, it's basically randomness.
- Whether you personally like it or not, elemental resistances and weaknesses are a thing.
And whether you like it or not, they don't enhance gameplay all that much.
- Some spells have additional effects. One of my favorite is the summon that damages enemies for a moderate amount -- never a top-tier attack spell -- but also heals your party for the same amount.
That is good.
- Longer spells have a longer casting time.
Ah, right. Forgot about that element. Yes, that is actually an amazingly good tool for spicing up gameplay. Unfortunately, it'd be a nightmare to keep track of in tabletop.
- Running out of MP is a thing. This is likely to happen more than once in the final boss fight. Hope you brought along plenty of MP-recovery potions!
I already know that with my style, I would basically never use them. To give you a picture, in Pokemon, I only ever used battle items during the Elite Four (in case you haven't played - the very end of the game).
Call it
if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that elemental resistances are more annoying than interesting, especially when they're not a factor 99% of the time.I just looked through a list of enemies, and over 90% of the monsters had something listed as a weakness or a resistance. (Almost all of the exceptions were early-game enemies, such as the ones you'll fight before Rydia joins the party and so you don't have any attack spells anyway.) It didn't differentiate between elements and status effects, though, but having elements matter is quite common.
Enough to remember 5x more spells? Unless it's total immunity, spamming fireball will still carry you through most of the time.
I literally just explained a few paragraphs above this that that's precisely what spell slots do.
And you completely ignored the basic fact, the very core of the entire spell slot mechanic, the entire reason I even mentioned them in this topic at all - that a 5th rank spell slot is a much higher cost than a 1st rank spell slot. So when you say all spells cost the same, either you grossly misunderstood something or are straight up lying. Which is it?
When all of your spells go into mutually-exclusive pools of slots, and each takes exactly one slot, they are all the same: ONE SLOT. You say a 5th rank spell slot costs more than a 1st rank spell slot; I say that's nonsense, because if you can't exchange several low-cost 1st rank castings for a higher-cost 5th rank casting, then their costs can't be compared in any objective way. The concept of const/value requires a common medium of exchange in order to be meaningful, and there is none with spell slots.
With no medium of exchange and no means to trade lesser spell slots in for greater ones, all you have are a bunch of spell slots. Some of them may be more rare than others, some of them may be more powerful than others, but all of them have precisely the same cost: one spell slot.
You just finished saying in the previous paragraph that they cannot be compared in any meaningful way, and now you're back to saying the cost is equal. Please stop being an idiot and stop equating things that can't be compared.
Now you're just straight-up being disingenuous.I can say the same about you. Let's just stop this madness and acknowledge that higher tier slot is a different resource from a lower tier slot so different-tiered spells have different cost, but also that almost all spells in the same tier have the same cost - and let's move on, shall we?
Maybe not explicitly, but have you ever seen any spell slot-based game, D&D or otherwise, where even a single counterexample exists?
Some spells in Dark Souls take 2 slots.
...huh. TIL. I haven't played that, but... I'm a bit surprised that you seem to enjoy it, given its reputation for requiring soul-crushing levels of grinding to deal with its massively punishing difficulty!
Quite the opposite. Grinding is entirely optional and not that useful anyway. DS puts a lot of emphasis on player's own skills rather than the skills of the character he's playing as. Having tried a cheated level 700 character once (normally you spend most of the game under level 100), it only feels like 4x stronger than level 1 character (ie. you'll still die a lot, even near the beginning if you're not careful). The real game changer is learning to roll at the right time so the split-second invincibility activates right when you need it. Also, parrying, which is even more timing-sensitive. And about half of all weapons in the game have something unique to them that makes them a viable endgame choice depending on your build and play style. And that's not an overstatement - I actually mean half of all weapons.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
Until the wizard learns the trick to casting these spells reliably. And they WILL learn that trick. With the help of the entire party, perhaps. And then almost every battle turns into everyone else dancing to the tune of the wizard's spell. Which isn't much fun.
You... haven't played Shadowrun, have you?
No, I haven't. Tabletop RPGs aren't terribly popular in Poland. I played Pandemic, though. A co-op board game where everyone plays as different character and they all fight the virus. By mid-game it becomes one player dictating all others what to do. This ruins agency way more than Vancian magic.
You say it's not much fun, but every time someone talks about better alternatives, you present some argument to try and negate that alternative or make it irrelevant.
That's how discussion is supposed to work. Everything has positives and negatives. One side highlights the positives and the other highlights negatives, so that the person reading it later can make the best decision that would suit their goal the most.
I'd like to point out that you haven't said a single positive thing about spell slots either, and dismissed my every argument with eyerolls and other emojis instead of addressing it. Your only counterargument seems to be "D&D has done it badly therefore it's impossible to do it well".
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
@Atazhaia the general principle is, the less freedom player has, the easier it is to balance. The main reason quadratic mages happen is because high-level magic gives so many more options than weapons.
The main reason is because poor game balance. You could fix a lot of D&D's quadratic mages issues, even without fixing the spell slots problem, by making higher-tier attack spells take multiple rounds to cast instead of a single action.
It seems like you could also fix it by reducing the number of high-rank slot a player has. Make that summoned demon really special, due to being once-per-day thing for many levels, maybe even several whole sessions. But don't gatekeep the demon behind scarce resource that doesn't reliably replenish. It's not fun.
But then you'd get massive howls of outrage from players who like to play as quadratic mages, complaining about "things becoming too video gamey." Well... this is how the best video games fixed that problem.
Idiots will be idiots. Ignore them. Multi-turn spells are interesting and introduce good, meaningful tactical choices. But they don't solve this particular problem. Quite the opposite - they arguably make it worse. The higher level is the party, the more capable they are of protecting the wizard. And that means casting powerful spells becomes easier and easier, so they can be used more and more - which magnifies the power gain from regular character progression, making the real progression curve much steeper than the numbers suggest, especially at higher levels.
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@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
That doesn't enable any tactics; from player's POV, it's basically randomness.
Are you familiar with the term "goblin dice"? For the vast majority of encounters, (in just about any system that isn't specifically designed for it,) tactics aren't particularly necessary either way.
- Whether you personally like it or not, elemental resistances and weaknesses are a thing.
And whether you like it or not, they don't enhance gameplay all that much.
They add a tactical element, especially if your wizards are limited in which elements they can attack with.
- Longer spells have a longer casting time.
Ah, right. Forgot about that element. Yes, that is actually an amazingly good tool for spicing up gameplay. Unfortunately, it'd be a nightmare to keep track of in tabletop.
Another possibility is cooldowns, where spells are cast instantly but then can't be recast for a certain duration. Mathematically speaking, after the first casting this is almost exactly equivalent to a casting time cost, but psychologically it feels different. Would this be less tricky to keep track of?
Enough to remember 5x more spells? Unless it's total immunity, spamming fireball will still carry you through most of the time.
...you really should play the game. The things you're saying just don't fit the way combat works there at all.
...huh. TIL. I haven't played that, but... I'm a bit surprised that you seem to enjoy it, given its reputation for requiring soul-crushing levels of grinding to deal with its massively punishing difficulty!
Quite the opposite. Grinding is entirely optional and not that useful anyway. DS puts a lot of emphasis on player's own skills rather than the skills of the character he's playing as. Having tried a cheated level 700 character once (normally you spend most of the game under level 100), it only feels like 4x stronger than level 1 character (ie. you'll still die a lot, even near the beginning if you're not careful). The real game changer is learning to roll at the right time so the split-second invincibility activates right when you need it. Also, parrying, which is even more timing-sensitive.
Yeah, that's the sort of game I classify as "player-hostile," and I have actively discouraged people in the past from designing games that way. When you gate progress by strict button-timing, you exclude players below some arbitrary threshold of reflexes from being able to enjoy your game. To an outside observer, combat in Kingdom Hearts looks extremely similar to combat in Devil May Cry, but DMC is player-hostile and Kingdom Hearts is not, which is a big part of the reason why I never got into the Devil May Cry games. I'm just not a "fast-twitcher."
@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
No, I haven't. Tabletop RPGs aren't terribly popular in Poland. I played Pandemic, though. A co-op board game where everyone plays as different character and they all fight the virus. By mid-game it becomes one player dictating all others what to do. This ruins agency way more than Vancian magic.
Yes, I'm familiar with the problem in Pandemic. But you seem to be projecting that same problem onto wizards in general, and honestly I'm not following the rationale as to why.
You say it's not much fun, but every time someone talks about better alternatives, you present some argument to try and negate that alternative or make it irrelevant.
That's how discussion is supposed to work. Everything has positives and negatives. One side highlights the positives and the other highlights negatives, so that the person reading it later can make the best decision that would suit their goal the most.
I'd like to point out that you haven't said a single positive thing about spell slots either, and dismissed my every argument with eyerolls and other emojis instead of addressing it. Your only counterargument seems to be "D&D has done it badly therefore it's impossible to do it well".
Because the only examples I'm familiar with of games that use spell slots are D&D and games either directly based on it or heavily inspired by it. And the only counterexample you've given so far that does anything interesting with the concept is a player-hostile game I'm not likely to ever play.
@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
Idiots will be idiots. Ignore them. Multi-turn spells are interesting and introduce good, meaningful tactical choices. But they don't solve this particular problem. Quite the opposite - they arguably make it worse. The higher level is the party, the more capable they are of protecting the wizard. And that means casting powerful spells becomes easier and easier, so they can be used more and more - which magnifies the power gain from regular character progression, making the real progression curve much steeper than the numbers suggest, especially at higher levels.
This is what I mean: you're turning the wizard into the Pandemic player calling all the shots. Why? First off, how does this work if there's more than one wizard? Second, you're making damage/DPS into One Stat To Rule Them All. There's a lot more to game balance than that. Heck, you just mentioned (and skipped right on past) one of the most important elements:
The higher level is the party, the more capable they are of protecting the wizard.
If the wizard is squishy and the tank is low-DPS, that's a form of balance right there! A major part of the problem in D&D is that wizards (and clerics even more so!) are able to unbalance the equation by using their magic to make themselves non-squishy.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
@Gąska said in Building an RPG system:
That doesn't enable any tactics; from player's POV, it's basically randomness.
Are you familiar with the term "goblin dice"? For the vast majority of encounters, (in just about any system that isn't specifically designed for it,) tactics aren't particularly necessary either way.
That's what I call bad game design. Old games are full of bad design. Just like every other discipline at its inception. A fight that's so easy it could not be there at all is a pointless fight.
- Whether you personally like it or not, elemental resistances and weaknesses are a thing.
And whether you like it or not, they don't enhance gameplay all that much.
They add a tactical element, especially if your wizards are limited in which elements they can attack with.
Are they? In all FF games I've seen they aren't.
- Longer spells have a longer casting time.
Ah, right. Forgot about that element. Yes, that is actually an amazingly good tool for spicing up gameplay. Unfortunately, it'd be a nightmare to keep track of in tabletop.
Another possibility is cooldowns, where spells are cast instantly but then can't be recast for a certain duration. Mathematically speaking, after the first casting this is almost exactly equivalent to a casting time cost, but psychologically it feels different.
Because instant spells can be used based on current situation only, while with delayed spells, you have to pray that they will still be the right choice 3 turns from now.
Would this be less tricky to keep track of?
I meant the FF system where granularity is in hundreds of game frames per attack, not low single digit turns. So you can make one attack take 2.6s and another 2.9s to compensate for 10% more power. That would be a nightmare. But waiting a full turn is very straight forward.
...huh. TIL. I haven't played that, but... I'm a bit surprised that you seem to enjoy it, given its reputation for requiring soul-crushing levels of grinding to deal with its massively punishing difficulty!
Quite the opposite. Grinding is entirely optional and not that useful anyway. DS puts a lot of emphasis on player's own skills rather than the skills of the character he's playing as. Having tried a cheated level 700 character once (normally you spend most of the game under level 100), it only feels like 4x stronger than level 1 character (ie. you'll still die a lot, even near the beginning if you're not careful). The real game changer is learning to roll at the right time so the split-second invincibility activates right when you need it. Also, parrying, which is even more timing-sensitive.
Yeah, that's the sort of game I classify as "player-hostile," and I have actively discouraged people in the past from designing games that way.
Why the emotional language? It just makes you sound dishonest. Dark Souls is simply a different genre. They had different goals from FF, so they made different choices to deliver different experience than FF. That doesn't make them better or worse. It's simply different. You don't like it, fine. But there's nothing hostile about it. Nothing wrong. It's just meant for different target audience. One that likes their reflexes and quick thinking challenged.
You say it's not much fun, but every time someone talks about better alternatives, you present some argument to try and negate that alternative or make it irrelevant.
That's how discussion is supposed to work. Everything has positives and negatives. One side highlights the positives and the other highlights negatives, so that the person reading it later can make the best decision that would suit their goal the most.
I'd like to point out that you haven't said a single positive thing about spell slots either, and dismissed my every argument with eyerolls and other emojis instead of addressing it. Your only counterargument seems to be "D&D has done it badly therefore it's impossible to do it well".
Because the only examples I'm familiar with of games that use spell slots are D&D and games either directly based on it or heavily inspired by it.
Why do you need examples? Can't you think abstractly? I stated the rules that I imagine would make a good system. I explained my thought process and the rationale behind the tradeoffs I've made. Isn't that enough as a discussion starter? Why do you require me to finish a complete playable game, with setting and adventures and specific spells and shit, before you even listen to my idea? The point of this thread is to figure something out BEFORE making a full game based on it.
And where do you see spell slots in FF? You're free to repeat the same spell over and over again without limit as long as you have MP, and all spells drain from the same MP pool.
Idiots will be idiots. Ignore them. Multi-turn spells are interesting and introduce good, meaningful tactical choices. But they don't solve this particular problem. Quite the opposite - they arguably make it worse. The higher level is the party, the more capable they are of protecting the wizard. And that means casting powerful spells becomes easier and easier, so they can be used more and more - which magnifies the power gain from regular character progression, making the real progression curve much steeper than the numbers suggest, especially at higher levels.
This is what I mean: you're turning the wizard into the Pandemic player calling all the shots. Why?
Because RPG players are generally nerds, and nerds naturally gravitate toward optimal strategies. When multi-turn spells are worth it, they become the dominant strategy and every other playstyle gets neglected.
If the wizard is squishy and the tank is low-DPS, that's a form of balance right there!
Sure. And if that's your goal with your game design - to have a strict set of required roles that need to cooperate - that's great too. The question is, is that your goal? Or would you rather let players be melee damage dealers too if they want to, and make them equally viable throughout the game?
A major part of the problem in D&D is that wizards (and clerics even more so!) are able to unbalance the equation by using their magic to make themselves non-squishy.
Which has nothing to do with spell slots. So please, let's stop talking about D&D. It's extremely bad for great many reasons, none of which are relevant here. First and foremost, it gives players way too many high-level slots. That's easily fixable by just not doing that.
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Ignoring the giant walls of interpolated text, a few comments.
- Mechanics from video games (even RPGs) do not transfer well to TTRPGs. At all. Especially from quasi-real-time games. Those long cast times for powerful effects? Either trivially breakable or so annoying that no one uses those spells. Sitting around in a turn-based game where each turn lasts minutes at shortest for multiple turns is boring. Not tactical, boring. So people will either find hacks to avoid the cast time or won't use those spells at all (depending on how powerful they are). Grod's Law: You can't balance abilities by making them annoying to use.
This also goes for complex components, ritual-style casting, etc. Big, powerful abilities are devilish to balance, because they're fundamentally unbalanced and unbalancing. Better to not include such things at all. No Save or Die effects. No "this spell ends the combat entirely" except as a one-off plot device. - Balancing based on party composition sucks. You must have a cleric, because there are XYZ effects that need to be cleansed. You need to have a rogue, because only rogues can find/disarm those traps. You must have some <abbr title="">low-damage wall-of-meat people. This means that tables are highly constrained. You must have the right roles, so someone's going to get shoved into a role they don't want.
- Balance is a subjective thing. In a team game, not everyone needs to be a high-damage nuker as long as they can meaningfully contribute. Being balanced isn't a numerical thing (where you calculate DPR in a white room combat), although that's part of it. Balance is being able to meaningfully contribute in all areas of the game. While dominating in none.
Using the language of D&D 3e's tier system, where Tier 1 and 2 were both "break the game" (just at different scopes), Tier 3 (competent at most things, good at a few) is the sweet spot. Everyone should be able to do damage to some variable degree. Everyone should be able to control the battlefield. Everyone should be able to contribute in social situations. Everyone should be able to contribute to exploration. Or whatever. People have specialties where they're better than a generalist, but everyone can chip in.
Let's take a case in point from D&D 5e, the game I know best. To be honest, the whole linear fighter thing isn't a problem in combat. For a couple reasons.
- Almost everyone has some form of magic.
- Casters have a concentration limit--spells with ongoing effects generally require Concentration, which is limited to 1 spell at a time. So no buff/debuff stacking.
- There are very very few "save or die" effects that just bypass HP directly.
- Full casters ("wizards") aren't really good at dealing direct damage to enemies. Fireball is great for clearing mobs of weak things, but isn't great against the bigger enemies. What full casters bring is control and AoE damage. Control is soft control, not fight-ending control. And generally requires concentration.
- The game is designed around attrition, where the limited spell slots (and no way to really get more) has a bite.[1]
- The basic interpretation is "spells do what they say they do, nothing more." And spells are pretty limited (both in the number you know, in the number you can cast, and the effects). They're very specific "do this one thing" black boxes. Not open-ended "do anything, because magic" hacks.
- Full caster at-will damage (cantrips) is quite limited. You get about 50% of a fighter's "auto-attack" (no resource, just Attack action) damage unless you spend resources.
The best single-target direct damage dealers are paladins who convert all their spell slots into Divine Smite (trade spell slot for burst of damage on hit). Fighters and barbarians can soak lots of damage as well as deal respectable damage themselves. Same with rogues (who can Sneak Attack much easier than in previous editions, and are built around that). Everyone else has magic to one degree or another.
There are issues out of combat, but IMO they're blown up to be way bigger than they really are. Sure, the wizard can teleport. Once per day. To somewhere he knows well. At very high levels. So he's a glorified taxi driver. Yay.
- Mechanics from video games (even RPGs) do not transfer well to TTRPGs. At all. Especially from quasi-real-time games. Those long cast times for powerful effects? Either trivially breakable or so annoying that no one uses those spells. Sitting around in a turn-based game where each turn lasts minutes at shortest for multiple turns is boring. Not tactical, boring. So people will either find hacks to avoid the cast time or won't use those spells at all (depending on how powerful they are). Grod's Law: You can't balance abilities by making them annoying to use.
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@Benjamin-Hall One other note:
Shadowrun-style hard niche protection (only the rigger can drive, only the matrix guy can hack, only the mage can deal with astral stuff, etc) only works if the transitions between niches is real real fast. Sitting there waiting for someone else to play a minigame for half an hour leads people to just tune out.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Building an RPG system:
So he's a glorified taxi driver. Yay.
Robert de Niro was a caster?
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
When you gate progress by strict button-timing, you exclude players below some arbitrary threshold of reflexes from being able to enjoy your game.
This. I've basically given up on some games because even after playing through some absolutely horrible QTEs 50 times, I just can't get the timing/aiming perfect enough to get past them. Otherwise fun games, but the QTEs make them completely unplayable for me.
wizards (and clerics even more so!) are able to unbalance the equation by using their magic to make themselves non-squishy.
Hey, it's not my wizard's magic that makes him non-squishy; that gives him, at most, +3 to AC, which is non-trivial, but I don't think it's ever (or at least very rarely) made the difference between being hit or not. It's not his fault that every time he's leveled-up, he's gotten really good rolls for HP increase. Blame D&D Beyond for my wizard being a (semi-)tank.
Nor is it his fault that the DM gave him a nearly invincible weapon against the final boss in our last campaign. The DM provides the artifact; my wizard's going to use it. (The DM didn't plan it that way. Our party did more than one thing that surprised the DM and broke his plans, but he said that having put the artifact in the game, it would be unfair to not let us use it. And it was the campaign's MacGuffin specifically because it was so powerful.)
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Building an RPG system:
the only examples I'm familiar with of games that use spell slots are D&D and games either directly based on it or heavily inspired by it.
That suddenly made me think of Earthdawn. This actually has both: spell slots and spells you can cast at any time. That is, spellcasters have a list of spells they know, and normally cast them from “spell matrices” which are essentially slots, except the spell isn’t gone on casting. However, they can cast any spell they know at any time even if it’s not in a matrix, if they don’t mind a real chance of very, very nasty things noticing the spellcasting and taking an active interest in the magician as a result.
This works fairly well to balance use of powerful spells: if the character hasn’t got it in a matrix, they generally won’t want to use it until they really need to.
(At the same time, many spells take more than one action to cast, but the exact amount tends to vary because a certain number of successful tests — specified in the spell’s stats — must be made. Fail, and you can try again on your next action, but obviously this means it will take longer.)
If the wizard is squishy and the tank is low-DPS, that's a form of balance right there! A major part of the problem in D&D is that wizards (and clerics even more so!) are able to unbalance the equation by using their magic to make themselves non-squishy.
A D&D cleric is really a hybrid fighter-mage without the drawbacks of that actual dual-class combo.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Building an RPG system:
Shadowrun-style hard niche protection (only the rigger can drive, only the matrix guy can hack, only the mage can deal with astral stuff, etc)
Excuse me? Shadowrun is a very good example of a game in which everyone can at least attempt anything — with the notable exception of magic. But other than that … a mage with Computer skill can hack systems, any character with Car skill can drive, etc. etc. etc. Magic is the only thing in the game that only magicians can do — even most magical items are useless to non-magicians.
(Disclaimer: for all I know they fucked all that up as well with the latest editions.)
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@Gurth said in Building an RPG system:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Building an RPG system:
Shadowrun-style hard niche protection (only the rigger can drive, only the matrix guy can hack, only the mage can deal with astral stuff, etc)
Excuse me? Shadowrun is a very good example of a game in which everyone can at least attempt anything — with the notable exception of magic. But other than that … a mage with Computer skill can hack systems, any character with Car skill can drive, etc. etc. etc. Magic is the only thing in the game that only magicians can do — even most magical items are useless to non-magicians.
(Disclaimer: for all I know they fucked all that up as well with the latest editions.)
You can attempt anything, but your chances of success are negligible and your chances of making everything worse are enormous.
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@Benjamin-Hall IOW, they did fuck that up too? In first through third editions, you generally just have a (potentially far) lower chance of success.
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@Gurth said in Building an RPG system:
@Benjamin-Hall IOW, they did fuck that up too? In first through third editions, you generally just have a (potentially far) lower chance of success.
I'm no expert. But I know that the chances of actually succeeding with a non-decker are not big enough to make it worthwhile even trying. And while anyone can fight physically, a street samurai or adept can almost trivially wipe the floor with non-specialists, while enemies that are scaled for samurai will wipe out any non-specialist easily. And anyone can drive...as long as you don't actually need anything mechanical done (like combat or delicate stuff with bots).
Shadowrun is always the go-to example of hard niche protection, where it's really about sharing the spotlight in a serial fashion--you have it now, then it's your turn, etc. While the rest of the team is mostly just waiting for you to finish your mini-game. That's because it's designed to play in a heist style, where most of the game is the planning/prep part (where people participate freely).
To me, that's horrifically boring. Same with people playing 5D chess. Or any kind of high-strategy/highly-tactical gameplay, where the actual action is pretty much a done deal after the setup. I'd rather each person take lots of little actions, with chances for success and failure along the way. Where none of those actions are decisive by itself. That way, turns take seconds (a minute at max), not 10s of minutes or hours.
Maybe it's just my ADD speaking, but I'd rather the system encourages taking in-character actions quickly, rather than perfect actions, slowly. I prefer when the bruiser (personality and build-wise) is encouraged to charge headlong into the action, where the mage is encouraged to actually use magic, etc. Where the focus is on the characters acting like themselves (and building on strong archetypes to be effective at that), not on using player skill and treating the characters like chess pieces.
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