Damage scaling across the board

tieran

Duke
Alliance Rules
Gettysburg Staff
Marshal
So, let's table the "whether or not this is good/will work/all the other reasons not to do it" and keep this to how we make that happen.

The idea being, make weapon damage dependent on build spent on fighter/rogue skills with profs/backstab s going away.

Is it also worth discussing something on the earth side to give them either a wand type damage thing or a healing thing or a thing that does both or different discussion for lack of clutter?
 
I can't answer to Earth wands, being fully against them even as an Earth caster for reasons stated in other threads, but I'm a very math-loving person, so I'll fire up my calculator and start jotting down scaling ideas. :)

At least to start, I'm going in operating under the assumption that a) Proficiencies/Backstabs should scale in such a way that a Fighter or Rogue has more damage per swing than a Scholar would have damage per wand charge at the same amount of XP spent in "class" skills, b) the Wand charge scaling (1 charge per 3 XP, 1 damage per 50 XP) is remaining as-is, c) Weapon Skills (including Shield, Florentine, and Two Weapons) do not contribute to scaling, and d) you don't stray too much outside of "pure" Fighter/Rogue/Scholar skills (no more than about 10% of your XP is spent on other skills and prerequisites).

At 105 XP (level 10), you've spent 90 XP on skills within your "class".
Wands have 30 charges, and do 2 damage per charge.
20 XP per Prof/BS: With Profs you're swinging for 6 with OHE (9 with 2-Handed weapons), with Backstabs you're swinging for 10 from behind with OHE.
30 XP per Prof/BS: With Profs you're swinging for 5 with OHE (7 with 2-Handed weapons), with Backstabs you're swinging for 8 from behind with OHE.
40 XP per Prof/BS: With Profs you're swinging for 4 with OHE (6 with 2-Handed weapons), with Backstabs you're swinging for 6 from behind with OHE.

At 205 XP (level 20), you've spent 180 XP on skills within your "class".
Wands have 60 charges, and do 4 damage per charge.
20 XP per Prof/BS: With Profs you're swinging for 11 with OHE (15 with 2-Handed weapons), with Backstabs you're swinging for 20 from behind with OHE.
30 XP per Prof/BS: With Profs you're swinging for 8 with OHE (11 with 2-Handed weapons), with Backstabs you're swinging for 14 from behind with OHE.
40 XP per Prof/BS: With Profs you're swinging for 6 with OHE (9 with 2-Handed weapons), with Backstabs you're swinging for 10 from behind with OHE.

At 305 XP (level 30), you've spent 270 XP on skills within your "class".
Wands have 90 charges, and do 6 damage per charge.
20 XP per Prof/BS: With Profs you're swinging for 15 with OHE (19 with 2-Handed weapons), with Backstabs you're swinging for 28 from behind with OHE.
30 XP per Prof/BS: With Profs you're swinging for 11 with OHE (15 with 2-Handed weapons), with Backstabs you're swinging for 20 from behind with OHE.
40 XP per Prof/BS: With Profs you're swinging for 8 with OHE (11 with 2-Handed weapons), with Backstabs you're swinging for 14 from behind with OHE.

The most reasonable scaling seems to be in the realm of 30 XP per Prof/Backstab equivalent; too much lower and you see damage numbers skyrocket very quickly, too much higher and it doesn't produce a significant advantage over Wands.

Scouts don't scale up in damage as well as one might hope; a Scout with XP evenly split between Fighter and Rogue skills falls behind in damage as they go up in levels. Using the 30 XP scaling above, a level 20 Scout is swinging for 5 from the front with OHE and 11 from behind; at level 30, they swing for 6 from the front with OHE and 14 from behind. They have cheap-ish access to skills from both sides, however, so they're likely to have more utility and a greater variety of abilities than their "pure" counterparts.

Adepts and Spellswords who split their XP evenly seem to fare pretty well using the 30 XP scaling, I think: Spellswords are swinging 5 at level 20 and 6 at level 30 with an even split, while Adepts swing 8 from behind at level 20 and 10 from behind at level 30 with an even split, and both will still have their spells (and Wands, with 45 charges dealing 3 damage each).

TL;DR:
30 XP per Prof/BS-equivalent damage increase seems to be the most reasonable choice, offering more damage faster than a Wand while not skyrocketing off to ridiculous heights until a character is very very high level.
 
Thanks for the math!

So, we would need to dramatically increase the cost of skills, otherwise we end up in a worse spot than we are now with people swinging absurd numbers and having absurd amounts of skills.

I can get to 10s & 30s as a scout and have 100 or so fighter and rogue skills, plus alchemy and traps.

Even if we double the cost of skills, which makes them less newbie friendly, does that make things better?

Additionally, there's not a whole lot to stop a scholar from just buying enough skills to bump their damage and provide a significant increase in their melee durability.

Thoughts?
 
I like that it gives some variety in what people are swinging (by level) if you allow for people to outright purchase profs, but I would have concerns about the damage becoming a problem, again, if we go that route.
 
Justin if some one is a 1,2 spell kill does it matter how much they swing...
 
@Gilwing Dunno about you, but with the above math and skill costs staying the same I'd have 12 dodges.
 
Rather than a flat increase to all skills, just make a few key ones more expensive.

For Fighter skills, look at increasing the cost of Eviscerate, Slay, Improved Slay, and Shatter; for Rogue skills, look at increasing the cost of Terminate, Assassinate, Improved Assassinate, and Dodge. A reasonable increase to each of those means characters will have fewer of them and they'll count more towards other prerequisites, reducing the overall number of skills a character has on average.

And if we can turn Resolute into something more useful that it currently is, raise the cost of that, too. You could also look at increasing the cost of Parry/Riposte/Evade/Disarm a little bit? But you're still going to have a lot of those regardless.

ETA: In particular with Dodge, 5/6/8 XP is slightly cheaper than this system could possibly allow for and not be utterly broken; you're probably looking at more like 7/8/10 XP for balance, or an increase in prerequisite XP to something like 45 or 60 per purchase. Maybe both, but that might be a little overboard.
 
Keep in mind that just raising the cost for things isn't likely going to go over well or treat the low-to-middling level-characters well. Scaling damage works will for Scholars because spells can cost as low as 1xp. Having the cheapest ability/abilities notably above that hits newer players with a frustratingly slow level of character development from a sheet perspective, especially if they're one or two spent XP off from their next damage tier.
 
@Gilwing Dunno about you, but with the above math and skill costs staying the same I'd have 12 dodges.

Because 1) your not a fighter and 2) some of those skills are counting towards rogue skills when they really shouldn't.

There's a problem when a fighter in 2.0 can have 2 dodges with not too much effort.
 
Because 1) your not a fighter and 2) some of those skills are counting towards rogue skills when they really shouldn't.

There's a problem when a fighter in 2.0 can have 2 dodges with not too much effort.

*You're. :)

But the premise of this is removing profs and backstabs so there's nothing preventing you from just buying dodges.

As far as the mainstream 0.9 rules, alchemy and create trap should definitely count as rogue skills, the only (good) one that maybe should not, unless I'm missing something, is stun limb.

And I don't know that I really have a problem with a fighter buying 5 levels of alchemy and/or create trap getting to buy a single dodge.
 
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Stun Limb is a Rogue Skill, and is supposed to count toward all Rogue Abilities FOR ROGUES/Adepts.

Stub Limb counts toward Fighter skill pre-reqs too, but doesn't count toward Rogue Skills if you're a Fighter.

That is not at all how it's been discussed prior.

Disarm/Shatter count as Fighter skills unless there's been a clarification since (which would have to be really recently, since we even discussed this at the Seattle Playtest), and Stun Limb counts as Rogue Build. This means that SL doesn't help you towards parries, but it helps Fighters get Dodges.
 
Stub Limb counts toward Fighter skill pre-reqs too, but doesn't count toward Rogue Skills if you're a Fighter.

Stun limb absolutely counts towards rogue skills for ALL the classes, unless the provided tool for building characters is built incorrectly.

Admittedly, the better way for a fighter to get dodges is alchemy/create traps, but you can get there with stun limb, albeit not till 45+, depending on other skills bought.
 
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I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that, but the copy I've got reflects what is in the 0.9 packet (and back to 0.5 as well)

IMG_0631.jpg
 
That doesn't even vaguely make sense. We have all been discussing this like fighters can only take fighter skills, rogues can only take rogue skills, etc., but that is simply short hand because it is the most efficient way to build. There is nothing stopping me from making a scholar and taking nothing but fighter skills. It is horrifically inefficient, but legal.

In 2.0, skills may be "associated" with a class in terms of prerequisites, but that doesn't actually mean a character has to be that class (or partially that class) to benefit from that association when determining if they qualify to purchase a specific skill.

-MS
 
So ridiculously off-topic at this point, but I still think the ideal solution is for fighter skills to be left as is and for rogue skills (specifically rogue skills that require other rogue skills as prerequisites) to be switched over to:

Weakness, Silence, Destruction, Paralysis, Death, Dodge, Evade, Counteract

This set of abilities feels very thematically appropriate for rogues and removes all crossover with fighters (I'm on the fence about Riposte).

-MS

Edit: One of the benefits in my opinion of removing crossover with fighters is that they feel a little more unique. Yes, it adds crossover with earth casters, but since the delivery method is so different, I don't actually object to that crossover.
 
Kills a lot of the variety available to Earth Adepts, though.
 
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