v0.10 First impressions

So, my list there is a proof of concept.

Octal stated that the problem is CC is currently too strong, Muir stated we couldn't reduce the effectiveness of CC and stay similar enough to the Alliance system. I provided a way to reduce the effectiveness of CC, by reducing the number of CC effects on the field.

To go through the list and modify the effects themselves to debuff instead of take-out effects:

Bind: Change to overwriting itself. If legs are bound, binding arms frees legs and vice versa.
Sleep: First hard CC. Change to where taking body damage ends the effect. If you get picked off out of position it sucks, but among friends they can wake you up... but usually without your armor and you're a little hurt.
Confine: Require caster to continue to point at target, same as repel. Teamwork solves the CC and it costs the caster to use.
Prison: Cannot killing blow through Prison, target can go to bleeding out to end the effect in addition to caster coding to drop it.

Just rough ideas off the top of my head to modify the effects, while still being Alliance.

I love this entire list. I'd like to see shatter increased in level and given a less binary functionality (pc hosed or no effect). Where you can repair a weapon, armor, or shield that has been shattered by a process similar to refitting.

I'd also like to see a disarm for casters.
 
Where you can repair a weapon, armor, or shield that has been shattered by a process similar to refitting.

The only way I could support this is if repairing required some kind of repair kit that Blacksmiths could make; otherwise, they're losing money on selling replacements.

Alternatively, I'd be cool if Blacksmiths could do a "patch fix" so the item worked until the end of combat (similar to monster weapons that get picked up), and the item needed to be fully replaced afterwards.
 
So, my list there is a proof of concept.

Bind: Change to overwriting itself. If legs are bound, binding arms frees legs and vice versa.
Sleep: First hard CC. Change to where taking body damage ends the effect. If you get picked off out of position it sucks, but among friends they can wake you up... but usually without your armor and you're a little hurt.
Confine: Require caster to continue to point at target, same as repel. Teamwork solves the CC and it costs the caster to use.
Prison: Cannot killing blow through Prison, target can go to bleeding out to end the effect in addition to caster choosing to drop it.

Just rough ideas off the top of my head to modify the effects, while still being Alliance.

I think this is a good first stab at it

As a low level scholar with currently only 1 9th slot (column builder and no formal magic) I would significantly prefer the current one or two spells get resisted and then I land my bind, and have another 3-5 takedowns for the day, versus all of my spells being resisted in most encounters. Calling out the spells isn't the fun part. Having it actually land is.

Get rid of a lot of the hard takeouts and this would not be as much of a problem.
NPCs don't need to have as many resists because few spells are going to end the fight like they can now.
 
I would probably still use bind if it was <10 seconds long.

I mostly use it as an execute opener for martials.
 
Does anyone else think that Mettle would be massively improved if instead of stunning the user for 10 / 3 seconds, it instead traded body points for a guard? Maybe cost 10 body points per use. Or, if you really want to limit its usage, your level in body point damage per use (a fully healed fighter could only use it twice and remain standing, except at very low levels where the fighter couldn't even purchase it more than twice yet).

-MS
 
Or, if you really want to limit its usage, your level in body point damage per use (a fully healed fighter could only use it twice and remain standing, except at very low levels where the fighter couldn't even purchase it more than twice yet).

-MS
I am a huge fan of this idea.
 
I'd prefer a set number over level, but I like BP as a resource. Give fighters a reason to not just stay at 1 body.

Of course it then also makes earth casters who don't heal more stigmatized. May e couple it to something like an ability that provides 1/2 of the character's Body in healing, and has a roleplay requirement of resting and using no Game Skills for 10-15 minutes? That would take a lot of pressure off of Earth casters to top everyone up between mods with their limited resources, and would mean time management is useful.

My ideal paradigm looks like this:

Players go on a mod, have good clean fights, thank the NPCs and head to their rally point (tavern, cabin, a picnic table, what have you).
Adventurers have their nigh mandatory ******** session over the loot split.
Meanwhile, everyone waits out any remaining 10 minute effects, refits their armor, grabs a drink and/or a snack, Recuperates their body to half (or full if they have time), and Meditates back any spells or skills that are valid to be returned.
After half an hour to 45 minutes, players are refreshed, hydrated, and characters are ready to get back in business.

Meanwhile the NPCs have had a breather to do the same, and get costumed/painted/set up for the next mod.

Repeat all day. This is pretty much the rhythm of the game anyway, in my experience, so it makes sense to take advantage of that to align with meditate in giving PCs more ways to keep playing the game. It also means that healing is still vitally important, but mostly only in combat. Healers aren't pressured to be constantly topping off front liners, and lowbies who would otherwise be cut out due to limited healing have a way avoid having a 'body' or 'chaos' carrier mean they might as well go sit down and watch.
 
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I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, but after doing a couple build iterations of each class, I think people are heavily overreacting to v.10.

Old rituals for dealing with takeouts:
Everything: Spell Parry (has been nerfed), Cloak, Bane
Immunities: Spirit Store
Emergency Button: Store Ability​
New rituals for dealing with takeouts:
Everything: Store Ability*
Everything besides 9th level takeouts: Potion Coating*
Emergency Button: Spell Parry
(Counterspell technically helps too, but it's mostly just additional "free" cloaks)​

*New patterns for applying defences:
Intercept Ability Store: As a fighter, giving anybody in the backline access to intercept lets them turn shield effects into team-wide smart guards. It also circumvents most weapon targeted disarm / shatter effects and does all this at a cost of 2XP per 10 spent (2/10XP).

Scroll Traps: Awaken / Release / Dispel scroll traps can be set up with at most a 6XP build investment and (with a permanent ritual) a 3 second set time. Scroll traps can be set up ahead of time and connected to easy to reach foot switches for arm binding. Scroll traps mean that any player can cast debuff-removal scrolls in the dark without so much as read/write.​

Potion Coating Injections:
Potion Coatings let players apply healing/curatives without a 3 count (they also work as curative traps for Biata that can't touch scrolls without barfing). This is basically everything that healing Expanded Enchantments were doing aside from Life spells.​
 
If you don't like the meditation requirement for Spell Parry, just skip that ritual. And it's not a 'do nothing' penalty.

During this time, no game skills may be used other than Educated and Teacher. The player should feel free to roleplay discussion, teaching or usage of appropriate subjects (magic or physical combat) with other players during this period of Focus.

So, after a battle...roleplay with people! This is a roleplaying game, after all. If you want to sit there and just stare at your weapon, that's on you.
 
If Earth casters don't want to play the "Support" role, what makes you think Fighters would want to? Especially after years of being on the front lines swinging pipe. It's acting like another "pre-cast" for an additional defense layer. If I wanted to have that play style, I would have played a Scholar.
Fighters would be benefiting from their own intercept. If you want to play a selfish fighter, scouts are a great alternative.
The niche role fighters play in 0.10 is team based mitigation and they, fittingly, have the most resistance unlocks per level.

Traps are always been been when trying to find a practical application for combat, and given the whole "room size" limitation, I don't see them being very useful in a field fight, and outside of plot setting up some neat modules for a person or group of people, I don't see traps used pretty much ever.
Area traps function as single target traps when used outside of their roomsized applications (and remember, it's a 3 second setup now).

So is this just trading one issue for another? At least Expanded Enchantment was limited by available scrolls and components. Is this only going to be limited by the very very very deep pockets of a lot of PC groups?
Players having something to spend gold on isn't a bad thing IMO. I'm actually really excited by the idea of an economy emerging instead of people stockpiling years of unused consumables.
 
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I honestly don't expect people to meditate very many times per day until higher levels. But I agree that it should be replaced with "rest" instead of "anti-social item focus".
 
One-time use with a 10-minute "sit and do nothing" penalty. This penalty can only be mitigated by spending 9 XP in 3 levels of Meditate. I'd rather just not even have it. I'd literally rather Perm my character and stop playing than deal with stupid 10-minute sit-around-and-do-nothing timers. They got rid of it for the "Unconscious" status, but it's okay for this?

You know... This... Adam makes a really good point, why talk about reducing 10 min effects like unconscious because that is not fun, then add in other 10 min time spenders?
 
I think the difference is when those 10 minutes are happening. 10 minutes CC'd in a fight is very different than 10 minutes sitting around after.
 
Or 10 minutes during a fight because you had to use your Spell Parry early and to keep yourself from being a liability, you have to meditate to be able to use another one. Better to sit down for 11 minutes (armor + meditate) than be a liability, right?

Depends, as always, on how much your caster buddies are dedicating their xp to letting you keep playing the game.
 
Depends, as always, on how much your caster buddies are dedicating their xp to letting you keep playing the game.

Any caster who thinks that way can't see the forest for the trees. When I played a caster, I memorized a lot of spells that helped keep my teammates active (as a Celestial caster, no less). However, one of the main reasons I did this was because I knew that without that pair of fighters blocking the baddies, I was a little more than a speed bump if enemies turned their ire on me. By dedicating my XP to letting them play the game, I was getting a better return on investment for my own ability to play the game. That same XP spent entirely to protect myself and deliver offense to enemies would have resulted in a dirt nap more often than not.

-MS
 
My first impressions are:

Body bloat and armor bloat will prevent the PC's from observing any difference in the damage coming at them

Stacked Crits will ensure the BBG's will have even more and faster paced damage and effects coming at them. It will be even harder for skilled NPC's to mitigate this to ensure a drawn out fight to entertain more people (but maybe that is not desired by this player base so who knows if this is bad or good).

Meditate is a nice thought, but as written it is intended to be a constant stream of in combat time outs which is bad for game flow and I am not a fan.

Mettle is horrible, though easily fixable. Just allow someone to block but take no offensive actions during the time. This meets the goal of slowing down combat, but does not entirely make you almost as good as dead for ten seconds.

New Storms: This is a 50/50. It makes it easier to use, but removes some interesting tactical considerations.

Celestial Magic vs. Fighter damage. When I look at the storms and the Crit stacks I really do not see how a Celestialist would be considered "burst damage" by comparison.

Evade is a great idea in though, and terrible in execution, especially if you are going to try and sell me the new system as a "simplification".

Over all I am not a fan of much to do with this effort. I hope the package never goes into effect.

Joe Siegel
 
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