From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sun Oct 25 22:04:03 1998 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id WAA13352; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:04:03 +1300 Received: from smtp2.ihug.co.nz (tk2.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.14]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id WAA13341 ; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:04:02 +1300 Received: from [206.18.102.233] (p41-max24.akl.ihug.co.nz [206.18.102.233]) by smtp2.ihug.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id VAA06826 ; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 21:55:44 +1300 Message-Id: <199810250855.VAA06826@smtp2.ihug.co.nz> X-Sender: flamis@pop.ihug.co.nz (Unverified) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 21:56:28 +1300 Subject: Increasing stats From: flamis@pop.ihug.co.nz (Jacqui Smith) To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. >This was a topic which was of interest to the Character Generation >subcommittee -- but it was felt to be beyond our purview. Although >the "Max= 5 pts over initial" rule is our house rule, it was felt to be >fundamental to our campaign -- not necessarily a good rule, but one that >ran deeply through our concept of P.C. stats and character profiles. > >Of course we did discuss a few possibilities. One simple but >viable set of rules was something like: > >1. Most primary stat ONLY which may be raised to maximum of [initial+5] >2. A character's player may nominate ONE primary stat ONLY which may be >raised beyond normal maximum of [initial+5] >3. The cost of increasing that one stat is exhorbitant, say: 6th point >costs 10,000; 7th point costs 15,000; etc. >4. No stat may exceed racial maximum. > >Of course this *may* mean a plague of Mind-mage fighters who are there >just for the no-stun talent. But I like the idea of former non-mages >settling down and becoming mediocre mages in a college which has >eventually caught their fancy because of the way their "personalities" >[such as they are] have eventually developed. I personally feel that restricting the ability to raise stats more than 5 points to just one stat is really a bit too biased in favour of low MA fighters who discover that they now want to get real and learn a college (-; Admittedlyn they are the group who suffer most with the top-out problem, but I'd personally prefer a more even-handed approach - simply allow any character to add the first five points for the listed cost (5000 or 2500) then double for the sixth point, triple for the seventh etc. At the same time we could remove the racial maximums for fatigue. This should mean the effective elimination of top-out. At least in the stats department. Jacqui -- See message headers to unsubscribe from -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sun Oct 25 22:04:02 1998 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id WAA13339; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:04:02 +1300 Received: from smtp2.ihug.co.nz (tk2.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.14]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id WAA13329 ; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:04:01 +1300 Received: from [206.18.102.233] (p41-max24.akl.ihug.co.nz [206.18.102.233]) by smtp2.ihug.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id VAA06837 ; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 21:55:47 +1300 Message-Id: <199810250855.VAA06837@smtp2.ihug.co.nz> X-Sender: flamis@pop.ihug.co.nz (Unverified) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 21:56:30 +1300 Subject: Curse removal From: flamis@pop.ihug.co.nz (Jacqui Smith) To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. >Conclusion: Curse Removal's EP price, for the current effect/chances, is >imbalanced. Some parameters should be altered. I concur. Curses certainly should be a thing to be feared, but not to the point of being almost impossible to remove. I personally like the idea of the removal of a curse being relatively easy in terms of base chance, but difficult in terms of the stress and time involved. Perhaps this ritual could be one that used a lot of fatigue? Perhaps one or two fatigue points per hour? Perhaps the ritual base chances as they are at present could be applied to removing curses in a one hour ritual - and the base chance be increased by 3% for every additional hour spent to a maximum of 18 hours. Then, even a moderately competent mage (say MA 20 + 3 for purification) with rank six in the ritual would have a reasonable chance of removing a greater curse (over 50% in fact). It would just take a very long time, and if it uses fatigue as suggested, the mage would be exhausted at the end of it... Another possibility is to give a bonus for throwing money at the ritual, thus providing all the more reason for the Guild to charge for curse removal. We need to balance out the ease of removing a curse with the ease of getting one. Look at the wiccan spells and the curse spell itself... compare them with remove curse. As for backfire curses... they're an occupational hazard for low level magic users. Jacqui -- See message headers to unsubscribe from -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sun Oct 25 23:32:24 1998 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id XAA13456; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:32:24 +1300 Received: from smtp2.ihug.co.nz (root@tk2.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.14]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id XAA13440 ; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:32:22 +1300 Received: from jimarona.ihug.co.nz (p2-max11.akl.ihug.co.nz [206.18.99.130]) by smtp2.ihug.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA16151 ; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:24:38 +1300 Message-Id: <199810251024.XAA16151@smtp2.ihug.co.nz> Subject: Re: Increasing stats Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:21:16 +1300 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "Jim Arona" To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. ---------- > From: Jacqui Smith > I personally feel that restricting the ability to raise stats more than 5 > points to just one stat is really a bit too biased in favour of low MA > fighters who discover that they now want to get real and learn a college > (-; > > Admittedlyn they are the group who suffer most with the top-out problem, > but I'd personally prefer a more even-handed approach - simply allow any > character to add the first five points for the listed cost (5000 or 2500) > then double for the sixth point, triple for the seventh etc. I dont' see how this addresses that issue. If a player has a straight fighter, and chooses to develop a college becuase they have nowhere else to go, then they always have the option of becoming a Namer, under the current system. If they are elven, then they can choose to be a Mind mage, as well. Allowing the stat to be raised means that the player may choose to develop other, presumably low MA pre-requisite colleges...I would have said it was something of an open question whether that was a good or a bad thing. In general, the limit of 5 further points to each primary stat was a rule added to make characters more varied. If you only have a limited pool of points, then you have to look into the future and thinking about where you want your character to go...and consider carefully what you can do with your points. Removing the point limit means that every character will have stats as high as they can humanly get them...Imagine the bonuses to Magic Resistance and Cast Chances if a straight mage were able to advance WP and MA...And imagine the suffering of the fighters, who would probably have to advance along a broader front...Of course, that is mitigated against, to some degree, by the fact that a mage has plenty of places to spend xp...Nevertheless, stat points are very expensive, and soon drain xp out of a player's pool...I would imagine a fighter would need to advance PS, MD, AG, WP and EN. A dedicated mage, on the other hand, would probably be happy advancing MA, WP and EN. Many systems allow for an upper limit to stats, and a limit to the number of advances a player can make to their character. They don't seem to suffer too badly. I don't see how the Top Out problem will be addressed by this change. Personally, I'm of the opinion that special, rankable, abilities is the way to go. This may require some talking to the player about what they want (a process remarkably similar to drawing teeth, I've found), but so long as the ability is well-balanced, then it makes for a more interesting range of player characters. This suggestion just makes the player characters have bigger numbers. It's hard to be amazed by a number. > > At the same time we could remove the racial maximums for fatigue. This > should mean the effective elimination of top-out. At least in the stats > department. FT is not a primary stat, it is a secondary stat. I believe that FT was never imagined as having a racial limit. I believe that it was intended that FT could be raised one point a season or adventure, whichever is less. If such a rule were introduced, then it would tend to solve a lot of dumb things that happen now. For example, Resist Pain is the talent of choice of lot's of character's, and there are heaps of characters who have it, although they aren't Mind mages. If your chance to recover from stun were better, because your FT gets better with every adventure, then there is less pressure to get the talent. High level characters are not really all that tough in DQ, deprived of their items. Some of them have some pretty odd special abilities, but, by and large, if you take away their stuff, they're pretty average, really. A character who has played 24 games, over a period of 12 years should be remarkable tough to deal with, even in their undies...At the moment, they're as pathetic as a medium level character. Jim. -- See message headers to unsubscribe from -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sun Oct 25 23:32:21 1998 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id XAA13436; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:32:21 +1300 Received: from smtp2.ihug.co.nz (root@tk2.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.14]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id XAA13427 ; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:32:20 +1300 Received: from jimarona.ihug.co.nz (p2-max11.akl.ihug.co.nz [206.18.99.130]) by smtp2.ihug.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA16137 ; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:24:31 +1300 Message-Id: <199810251024.XAA16137@smtp2.ihug.co.nz> Subject: Re: Curse removal Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:47:22 +1300 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "Jim Arona" To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. ---------- > From: Jacqui Smith Michael Parkinson wrote: > >Conclusion: Curse Removal's EP price, for the current effect/chances, is > >imbalanced. Some parameters should be altered. > Jacqui wrote: > I concur. > > Curses certainly should be a thing to be feared, but not to the point of > being almost impossible to remove. > > I personally like the idea of the removal of a curse being relatively easy > in terms of base chance, but difficult in terms of the stress and time > involved. Perhaps this ritual could be one that used a lot of fatigue? > Perhaps one or two fatigue points per hour? > > Perhaps the ritual base chances as they are at present could be applied to > removing curses in a one hour ritual - and the base chance be increased by > 3% for every additional hour spent to a maximum of 18 hours. Then, even a > moderately competent mage (say MA 20 + 3 for purification) with rank six in > the ritual would have a reasonable chance of removing a greater curse (over > 50% in fact). It would just take a very long time, and if it uses fatigue > as suggested, the mage would be exhausted at the end of it... > > Another possibility is to give a bonus for throwing money at the ritual, > thus providing all the more reason for the Guild to charge for curse > removal. > > We need to balance out the ease of removing a curse with the ease of > getting one. Look at the wiccan spells and the curse spell itself... > compare them with remove curse. As for backfire curses... they're an > occupational hazard for low level magic users. These suggestions just mean that the players will need to take time or money out, to remove a curse...They don't generate any feeling that it's hard and dangerous, just that it costs time and money...This is a little like writing in the ritual's description that the spell is dangerous and difficulty, with important ramifications for failure, and then saying the Base Chance is 40% + 4/rank, and takes 3 hours (pulling some numbers out of the air). The FT cost is nothing, when you consider that the character has already set aside 6 or 18 hours to remove the curse... As for spending money on the ritual to make the chance higher, I would have said that it was likely to make people want to wait until they got back to the Guild, rather than try it on adventure...If your suggestion is that players can spend more money to make the chance higher on adventure, then I fear you have only made it difficult for low level characters and of little concern to high level characters. As far as I can see, none of these suggestions address the problem as simply and as easily as allowing the triangles to be portable. The chance is in the right range, it seems to me, to be both worrying, and yet possible. Any of these other suggestions would require an extensive rewrite of the rule covering Curse Removal, and may entail extensive game testing. Jim. -- See message headers to unsubscribe from --