[0.8] Chaining Martial Skills

[Draven]

The next issue with Swarmed:
How do you keep the Higher levels from just handling the NPCs with Swarmed by on them?
1) It's the most efficient way of dealing with them, meaning there is a higher chance of highbie rolls...
2) It also creates a situation where no low-levels are going to get a shot at loot, depending on the specifics of the circumstances.

In a large, chaotic town fight, plot can't really control where loot goes without being excessively cheesy about (I am not a fan of cheese, the plot kind or otherwise).

Sure, we can expect players to be kind to each other on an OOG level, but we cannot and should not dictate in-game character behaviors through rules.

I feel you're creating a contradiction with your argument. You expressed concern that the current iteration of Swarm rules will encourage IG behavior of choosing how to engage/loot an enemy, while also stating you do not believe Rules should not dictate in-game behavior.

I also feel that a great deal of your concerns are generally addressable via NPC player-behaviors. Giving Plot the Swarm effects in their toolkits is neither a declaration that this tool will/should be used in all encounters, nor an assumption it will be used in the worst possible way. I feel you're ignoring the advantages of this tool to focus on the speculative scenarios in which it becomes a problem.

 

[Avaran]

I feel you're ignoring the advantages of this tool to focus on the speculative scenarios in which it becomes a problem.

I'm referring to issues that actually happened when I used the ability as a head of plot. They aren't speculation.

If the owners don't want more than 2 or 3 PC's engaging in combat against a single NPC at any one time, for whatever reason (sportsmanship, they want the NPC to feel like they aren't getting run over all the time), then they should write the combat rules to say that. I feel like that would be better/more straight forward and less of a mess than what Swarmed By can potentially bring to the table. I don't think it's fair to anyone not just have this clearly defined as a rule and then have people get pissy at players who don't follow this "rule" even though it basically comes down to being a subjective, unwritten rule that somehow falls under the umbrella of "sportsmanship".

I feel you're creating a contradiction with your argument. You expressed concern that the current iteration of Swarm rules will encourage IG behavior of choosing how to engage/loot an enemy, while also stating you do not believe Rules should not dictate in-game behavior.

I wasn't referring to "Swarmed by" specifically with that statement. I'm simply saying that we should not make rules that require people to be kind to each other in-game. That's it. If my character wants to be utterly angry at Tantarus because Tantarus decided to pronounce the word "Green" incorrectly in my character's presence after repeated warnings not to, with the explanation that where my character is from that happens to be the most grave insult one can hurl at another...then my character should be allowed to do that as long as all of the rules for combat and such are followed.

The main point that was brought up is that players should act a certain way so that everyone can have some fun. And while I certainly agree with that, there will be times and circumstance when characters either purposefully black-list another character or characters from loot because THEY CAN'T SAY GREEN CORRECTLY or because they are Hobling and Hoblings are dirty cheats! But there will ALSO be times when the in-game situation dictates that higher level characters should be doing thing one thing, and that is going to, by definition, cut out the lower-level characters through no fault of their own. (Hopefully plot has things they can be doing too, related or not.)

Not all encounters, not all fights, are created equal. Nor should they be.

But right now, a lowbie with a longsword and some gumption can get in on a BBEG and make a dent or two in the BBEG's defenses, or even take them down. Remember when Amory brought down Zakka (that was awesome!)? I don't think that would have happened if there had been a Swarmed By ability in use - and I don't think I need to explain why.

The exact things that I'm talking about happened when the PC's were finally told "this is how you fight this BBEG". You know those players personally - do you really feel like they are the kinds of players who maliciously told people, "Hey, stay back, we need our strongest people only to fight it!" I certainly don't; but the stakes were high enough, and people were into it enough, that that is what ended up happening to one degree or another (and there were some players who were miffed by that). (And, if you recall, there was lots of other stuff going on for people to fight/interact with, including a dragon puppet.)

Yes, sometimes plot can and should create those kinds of situations; it is plot's job to create conflict and strife, but these situations need to be constructed carefully and with lots of thought behind them, because if you don't do that you're going to have a lot of unhappy players on your hands.

I just worry that in chapters that have a historically bad NPC to PC ratio that this will get used in lieu of just adding more body and more per-day skills and abilities.

How long an NPC antagonist lives during a fight is actually quite important, for a couple of reasons.

1) The player of the NPC is going to get fatigued the more times they have to go down, do their death stuff, run back to the spawn point, and come charging back in again as a whole new thing. You have to ration out your NPC's energy!
2) Encounter challenge - the longer an NPC lives, typically the tougher, more challenging the fight is. As plot, you want your PC's to use their abilities, but you don't want to run them out of skills/spells/abilities before that big fight you have planned later in the day.

The primary ways that plot has to increase NPC Time To Live (TTL) are:
More body.
More skills/abilities (defensive and offensive)
Adding rituals (defensive and offensive)
Number of NPCs in a wave/encounter at once
A combination of the above.

Adding in "Swarmed by" to a creature is basically giving it the "Unscaled" tag, because it can literally scale infinitely - which is something that these new rules are kind of trying to get away from.

It's a reason why Golems are so terrible and imbalanced. Immunities, unlimited skills/abilities throw scaling off to the point of being an exercise in futility.

 

[Muir]

Again, this sounds like a problem with PC mentality. There's no reason outside of greed you can't make a communal loot pot of some size and divvy it out at the end. We do it basically every single event at least once, and yeah, some people keep some loot for themselves, but it ensures that everyone gets something, even if it's only a couple of potions or some silver.

Honestly, this is worth breaking off into another discussion, and I'll probably put together an effort post on it over time. At least in the games I've played in, there is definitely a certain mentality going on, and I don't think the 'gather everything, auction the desirable stuff, and split the coin' method that's common in SoMN is the answer either.

It just too often lands in those characters who don't have ongoing expenses like consumables or replacing shatterable weapons and armor being able to bid anything interesting that drops out of most of the PC's range at will. Which is fine, that's economics for you, but it creates an illustion of fair play that doesn't really exist. I expect this (and the entire economy) is going to drastically change under 2.0, though, as many if not most of the things that are desirable now are going away.

 

[Draven]

I'm referring to issues that actually happened when I used the ability as a head of plot. They aren't speculation.

If the owners don't want more than 2 or 3 PC's engaging in combat against a single NPC at any one time, for whatever reason (sportsmanship, they want the NPC to feel like they aren't getting run over all the time), then they should write the combat rules to say that. I feel like that would be better/more straight forward and less of a mess than what Swarmed By can potentially bring to the table. I don't think it's fair to anyone not just have this clearly defined as a rule and then have people get pissy at players who don't follow this "rule" even though it basically comes down to being a subjective, unwritten rule that somehow falls under the umbrella of "sportsmanship".

Do you have a solution, Adam? Because you're talking about creating a mechanical limitation on engagement of an enemy, which is unprecedented in the system. The Swarmed mechanic is clearly intended to discourage overwhelming an NPC, without flat-out prohibiting it. While you might have issue with the mechanic, it provides a balance between ignoring the problem (overwhelming an NPC sure ain't fun for the NPC), while still providing roleplay-combat freedom. It's not taking away choices, it's simply putting potential consequences in place for certain decisions.

So, I see your perspective, but do you have a solution?

 

[Muir]

Honestly, the only better mechanical solution I can come up with than Swarm mechanics involves having a closer to 1:1 or 1:2 NPC/PC ratio... or just not doing town fights at all, and having everything be a party-size mod.

 

[mythic]

In Calgary we have it mandated that we will never go past a 3:1 PC to NPC ratio. If we get to that point, we shut down PC registration until more NPCs sign up. We have never in our 5 seasons had below a 2.5:1 Ratio. We normally run 2:1. If your chapter is above 2:1 then maybe suggest that PCs start taking turns being a full time NPC for a month or 2. You do not lose XP, there are usually pretty good rewards, and you can still spend GS at your event to get some "stuff" etc. It is no the end of the world if you help out your Chapter. Sure your PC may miss a bit of the story, but you will still know what happened at game (and your friends can fill you in with stuff you missed while being a NPC).

 

[Gilwing]

you can still spend GS at your event to get some "stuff" etc

I always thought you needed to PC the event to hand in gobbies for production. After reading it, it just mentions doing it "during check-in", good to know.

 

[mythic]

Yeah, I had to clarify that last year with the Owners. So it is legit for NPCs to spend their GS.

 

[A.mungo]

For what it's worth I understand where Adam is coming from, Swarm encourages exclusionary responses from groups of players. Having witnessed it first hand it goes down exactly like you would imagine, information is passed that when too many people engage the monster, it becomes a major problem. This leads to players telling lower leveled players to get away from *their* fight. We have used it in the Seattle chapter as well, but again because it currently does not have a call, no one has figured out that it is in use, realistically making it a moot point, and something that could have just been added to the card as as standard skill.

In my opinion, the solution shouldn't be new exclusionary mechanics. If a plot team wants to keep their NPC'S from being swarmed because that is a problem at their local game, there is nothing that stops them from working with their rules team to identify that swarming an NPC with 4 (or three, or two in places with treacherous footing) or more PCs is considered a local infraction, and integrating this into their local player culture, just like flurry, or any other mechanical adjustment that works well for *that* local game due to safety concerns, or health of their local game.

When I don't want an NPC swarmed, I just add pretty much any two of eight current effects to the card that back players off.
Voice, Shun all non, Rift, Channel at will, auto riposte, auto reflect, threshold, reverse threshold, etc. There is currently a ton of room to back players off utilizing the effects we already have.


Swarm as an identified mechanic is just as easily broken by an enterprising NPC as anything else (just get other NPC'S to attack you as well, charge into groups of PCs to activate your awesome powers, etc.), when in reality you can have abilities on a card that you just explain to the player representing it only use these to back people off when you need space. By having conversations with the players representing the NPC, you can actually avoid the types of issues that come with exclusionary play (codification of exclusionary mechanics) as Adam has mentioned previously. For those reasons I am unlikely to put cards out in my campaign with that ability, except in the case where it is literally the point of a mod (but that gets into writing a hook, dropping lore, etc.).

As for Chaining skills/spells. I think it goes back to enforcement of base mechancs. double tapping a shield with a weapon is bad because we have rules against machine gunning, but if someone, even in a flurry, starts with a hit to the shield, and then hits another location, or waits two seconds to strike the shield again, that is more than enough time for someone to have the opportunity to process. If they are stuck because of strapping, that is a player gear choice, nothing in the rules dictates that you must use a strapped shield. if they choose to utilize gear that is hard to remove, with full understanding that they might be forced by a mechanic to remove it, they are willfully taking the risk associated with that choice. As long as the player fighting them is following all other agreed upon rules of engagement (ARB + local policies), I can't see an issue with as Dan put it, attacking a weak spot. If the goal is to get players to not press the advantage by Chaining skills into another player, look at the powerful blows feedback, was that taken as at positive or negative? That's pretty much your answer right there.

-Tony

 

[Draven]

As for Chaining skills/spells. I think it goes back to enforcement of base mechancs. double tapping a shield with a weapon is bad because we have rules against machine gunning, but if someone, even in a flurry, starts with a hit to the shield, and then hits another location, or waits two seconds to strike the shield again, that is more than enough time for someone to have the opportunity to process. If they are stuck because of strapping, that is a player gear choice, nothing in the rules dictates that you must use a strapped shield. if they choose to utilize gear that is hard to remove, with full understanding that they might be forced by a mechanic to remove it, they are willfully taking the risk associated with that choice. As long as the player fighting them is following all other agreed upon rules of engagement (ARB + local policies), I can't see an issue with as Dan put it, attacking a weak spot. If the goal is to get players to not press the advantage by Chaining skills into another player, look at the powerful blows feedback, was that taken as at positive or negative? That's pretty much your answer right there.

I 100% agree with this.

I genuinely believe that Good Sportsmanship should give a player a reasonable opportunity to register their defensive shield is now a piece of vulnerable slag (whether the source was a Spell, a Weapon, or other) before opponents are able to tag it with strikes, but Good Sportsmanship is, as was stated earlier by someone, nebulous. At the very least, double-tapping shouldn't be a thing.

Also, "nebulous" is a fantastic word. I should use it more often.

 

[Muir]

Yeah. Better sportsmanship (especially in the form of keeping combat to manageable speed) does solve the vast majority of the flaws in our fighting system.

 

[norman b]

When I don't want an NPC swarmed, I just add pretty much any two of eight current effects to the card that back players off.
Voice, Shun all non, Rift, Channel at will, auto riposte, auto reflect, threshold, reverse threshold, etc. There is currently a ton of room to back players off utilizing the effects we already have.

Not to poop on your parade but:

Voice - people may not legitimately hear it, even at close range. We are a game of calls and everyone starts shouting.

Shun all non - Command. Bane, cloak, resist, immune. Not super useful

Rift - Interruptible via defense use/Take out and also people tend to swarm them more to stop them.

Channel at will - Essentially swarmed but unscaled because it is all the time, not limited.

Auto riposte - Essentially swarmed. Actually probably the most common swarmed by ability to be used.

Auto reflect - not really used by people getting swarmed, typically spells are coming in from long range.

Threshold - Annoying and OP so most plot teams don't use it. It's a "this is a big boy's baddy" addition. Not inclusive...

Reverse Threshold - nice to have for lowbies but since anyone can lower their damage... Its annoying because you have to find the max damage to swing on the monster, then go to town. Mediocre at best.

So most of these are great in certain circumstances, but Swarmed by allows NPC's to actually get to respond. You saw this at the last Oregon event. That was not fun for any of the people involved I suspect. It was a "lets just kill the BBG by overwhelming him so he can't swing/cast/call defenses". It was a CF and everyone knew it. It was instigated by the most experienced players. It was poor sportsmanship all around. Swarmed by allows them to give a good fight. If we had the okay to use it, that fight would have gone much differently. All of the above could have been on the card and it would have been useless.

 

[Draven]

Voice - people may not legitimately hear it, even at close range. We are a game of calls and everyone starts shouting.

Accurate. Using Voice reliably in combat isn't generally a good thing, with the exception of commanding X thing to do Y thing, loudly, and probably before major combat even really gets going.

Shun all non - Command. Bane, cloak, resist, immune. Not super useful

In 0.8, PCs won't have a method of being immune to Command. Bane is probably useless unless the X is the caster's own type. Cloak and Bane are limited to High Magic. Additionally, in our areas, creatures that can "Shun all non" tend to have the effect At Will and Continuous, rendering Resist/Cloak/Bane as being a relatively moot point. So, ultimately, "Immune" is the only one that matters, and as I said, PCs won't be immune to command in 0.8.

Rift - Interruptible via defense use/Take out and also people tend to swarm them more to stop them.

NPCs that are using Rift in combat should probably Rift out before they get swarmed, and Rift to a location that...well, shouldn't be already blanketed in PCs. If PCs are going to keep chasing the Rifter, it won't be fun for them, and it shouldn't be. Being defenseless during the Rift count is a legit concern, but Guards are something that can be employed to help mitigate that (and if those Guards happen to refresh? That would suck, I think).

Channel at will - Essentially swarmed but unscaled because it is all the time, not limited.

Channel at will only works if you trust your NPC to use it correctly, which is how I feel about Swarmed. I pretty much agree with you on this one.

Auto riposte - Essentially swarmed. Actually probably the most common swarmed by ability to be used.

I feel that auto riposte doesn't actually discourage swarming....unless it's activated by swarming. If it's Always On, then....uh, trust your NPC? Because that's a ridiculous ability otherwise.

Auto reflect - not really used by people getting swarmed, typically spells are coming in from long range.

Does swarming only care about melee? Regardless, my opinion is equal to auto riposte.

Threshold - Annoying and OP so most plot teams don't use it. It's a "this is a big boy's baddy" addition. Not inclusive...

Annoying, sure, not sure about OP. It has a damage buy-in. I also don't necessarily agree that all monsters should generally be inclusive.

Reverse Threshold - nice to have for lowbies but since anyone can lower their damage... Its annoying because you have to find the max damage to swing on the monster, then go to town. Mediocre at best.

Agreed.

So most of these are great in certain circumstances, but Swarmed by allows NPC's to actually get to respond. You saw this at the last Oregon event. That was not fun for any of the people involved I suspect. It was a "lets just kill the BBG by overwhelming him so he can't swing/cast/call defenses". It was a CF and everyone knew it. It was instigated by the most experienced players. It was poor sportsmanship all around. Swarmed by allows them to give a good fight. If we had the okay to use it, that fight would have gone much differently. All of the above could have been on the card and it would have been useless.

As a member of your team, I understand why you think this. Since you're going to bring up the last event, I feel that the fight felt the way it did because NPCs were considerably outnumbered. Swarmed wouldn't have made the difference between the fight being "Fun" or "Not Fun." It would have changed how many PCs were able to reasonably engage. The PCs that couldn't have reasonably engaged (that would have been lowbies), they'd have been sitting by the wayside.

I think Swarmed has merits, but I don't think that it would have made that fight significantly better. It would have made it better for those who could participate, and it would have made it terrible for those who couldn't.

 

[norman b]

As a matter of fact, the swarmed mechanic would have. I was swarmed by at least 8 PC's, backed against a step (knee height) and I couldn't move my weapon around all the weapons in at me nor throw anything due to having to call a hold every 4-6 seconds to hear what everyone did and give a defense. Even a swarmed 8 (which is excessive): spellstrike bind, would have helped.

Also, Players will still have an option to be immune to commands. They always have. It's just illegal IG.

 

[Draven]

Also, Players will still have an option to be immune to commands. They always have. It's just illegal IG.

Okay, true. But if they're willing to pay that price, I say let 'em. Calling "No effect" in 0.8 will probably get someone NecroChecked pretty instantly, unless it's not public. If that risk pays off...cool!

 

[A.mungo]

While I understand your frustration, and I was a part of that cluster, I have been on the same end of multiple other similar situations.

If you want to use the swarm effect, feel free, put it on a card, explain it at opening like we do for our reduced, altered, healed calls. Nearly every game I go to has custom clarifications for local flavor. It doesn't change anything, other than when we go into battle planning as PCs it is going to be a "when Lumos appears, everybody back off, Roan, Panda, and Thud will engage". If it's not announced, we are just going to assume you are scaling extra hard. If you don't announce it and call out swarmed, the same conversation happens on the battlefield. Again, I think based on the idea of "sportsmanship", your chapter might be a good one to have the cultural conversation of "don't overload an NPC!" maybe have that conversation with your rules team. I would suggest three-four actively
engaging per NPC, just be prepared for negative feedback from rogues, and questions as to what does "engaged" mean.

As to swarm, you could have just had spell strike bind at will and used it to back people off when you needed with literally no added mechanic at all. If I gave that card to an NPC, i would literally just tell them, use this as needed when you get ganged up on, don't use it to be a jerk. If swarmed is a standard ability on regular cards in our Monster DB people plan for it, and it becomes a tactic shift. That is what I don't like.


For a card that size a Monster Marshall would have been solution #1 in my mind (which if you guys ever need help with, I am willing to assist). Secondarily a rotating ambient class shun, and the massive carrier for a BBG? great! A rotating immunity and voice effects? great! creating your own local effect for a fight? great! Using Swarm locally, feel free!

What you and I think makes a good fight probably differs, I'm just saying that I don't believe the swarm ability is the answer, especially when mixed with everything else that is being taken away from lower level characters (outside of the static damage gap)

If I am coming across as critical in regards to these items, it's only because it is based upon my feedback from seeing these items in action. I feel having a conversation about responsibility with unscaled power is always better than having a specific everyday ability that justifies low level exclusion.

-Tony

 

[norman b]

It's totally fair. Some people have different reactions to seeing things in action.

One problem with "only do this when you think it is appropriate" and not having something on the card (like Swarmed 3, etc) is then when a marshal gets a complaint, the NPC only has the defense of "plot told me so". If it's on the card, it stops the problem of having to find a plot member. It makes it so a swift resolution can be done.

 

[A.mungo]

Yeah! Making marshalls lives easier is the best. I didn't intend for that to mean that an effect was not on the card, at will, swarmed, whatever the appropriate after statement is for the ability in question should definitely be on the card. If there is a question and it says on the card x ability at will, as a Marshall that is good enough for me. My assumption is that it was not sent out accidentally, but if I am hearing questions about it I will double check with a plot member to verify. Similar to my body point question at that same event, basically, hey plot, this seemed strange, is it legit? Great!

That's my take on it, but I see how swarm could help automate that for others, again for me I just don't like the effect it has on lower powered PCs.

-Tony

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

My take on Swarmed is that it is a tool that teams can have in their tool kit to use. Some teams may never use it, some may overuse it, some may misuse it, but none of that is the fault of the tool. Is it a potentially very powerful tool? Hell yes. So is Voice delivery of effects. So are multiple immunities. So are Terror, Amnesia, Enslavement and Obliterate. So is role playing well and real life convincing people to join you. No skill or effect or system will work right when used wrong. They have no chance to work right when unavailable for use at all.

 

[EC-JP]

To mirror Dan a little- some variant of the (still in testing) Swarm mechanic had been used in multiple chapters, as this very thread indicates. This indicated that multiple games saw a similar problem (be it cultural, site based, numbers, or some other reason).

Much like was done years ago with the standardization of Massive, and fitting with the overall intent and mission of Alliance, we created a uniform, easily understood (from our perspective) key word ability.

This does NOT mean it is the only fix to the "problem". It does not even mean that it is the best. It means that it is a consistently appliable fix that should work to one extent or another a significant amount of the time. In that regard, it is no different than other balancing mechanics that see differing opinions and value (threshold, MtH, etc) based on the local game.

I highly doubt it will be a common ability in the standard database, but it is one more, standard, tool for chapters on their own cards.

Keep in mind, by standardizing it, it created a foundation for later additions and chapter specific use. For example, in addition to ARC, I am a chapter HOP- the idea of putting an artifact shield with a "swarmed by- some defensive ability" in game to be used by one of our defensive "I hold the door while y'all escape" "heroes" is an appealing one. It'all likely only be used once (cause that'll likely send them to the circle and loose it), but how much cooler is "I held the door for six minutes and everyone escaped" than "I was a thirty second speed bump and only three people were chased down"...