Gear, buffs and magic.

[Ramir]

Mhm, a few things to iron out before we get done with the update. I am thinking the following:

 Magic buffs can push you past lvl 10, as they're temporary.

Gear cannot, as it's a pain and people will look to combine bonuses to make one skill ridiculous.

That said, if gear gives a bonus, what good is it when you are at level 10? Gear giving bonuses is easier with the wider skill list, but we need to figure out how that looks when someone is rocking a full, magical inventory.

A sword + 2 is nice. But what good is it if you max out - and should you just settle for something mundane, as it doesn't make a difference?

Then if gear gives bonuses, what about armor? Does it penalize the attacker, or just reduce damage somehow?

It's all quite confusing. Let me know your thoughts.

[Ramir]

To add to this. A couple weeks ago, a few of us were talking about what gear may look like in the new system and we decided on having item quality, rather than applied stat bonuses. The ones I threw out there were these: poor, average, good , grand & mastercraft.

So a grand sword would be superior to an average sword. Your skill would definitely be the deciding factor, but landing a blow with a grand sword would give better results.

We know our damage system is slight, minor, moderate and massive. That's an interesting thing, given the same number of adjectives. Yes, poor weapons would more often result in slight injuries, mastercraft would be what you want to consistently deliver massive damage. Please remember though, much of this won't get in the way of a good story. Still, it's good to have a system in place.

So, weapons can be quality and so can armour. But if armour has quality to indicate how good it is, what's the difference in the armour types? Leather vs plate - it's obvious that the defensive ability gets better and the maneuverability gets words. Maybe we can settle on armour types having traits, then apply quality. It's getting deeper, no?

So the last question is this - should give gear even give flat bonuses to skills, or should they just be written up for flair? That would be nice, but leaves much to interpretation. Having the stats though, invites people to try and stack all those buffs again.

The only compromise would be to make stat bonuses VERY specific, so they're not constant. Kind of like what we did have ie: + 1 concealment when in low light.

[Ramir]

A little more.

People never really used their nifty item skills, indicating they're just fluff and not needed.

If a weapon with a constant + 1 is treated as VERY rare and allows you to buff past your level cap, that might fix things

[Ramir]

I have one other rule that might allow us to buff with gear and spells.

The hard cap is 13. You can't buy past 10 but you can buff past it. But in no way, you can surpass 13.

[Neko]

I like alot how the Combat Guide has it worded. Weapon skills effect IF you hit, where the weapon itself effects how much damage, or how well you hit.

Same with Armor


If thats the case then even if we stayed at the hard 10 cap (except for magic buffs) then you would still be getting some benifit from having nicer gear as it would be potentially doing more damage. and there would be other effects it would have as well, most likely, to keep you wanting to have it.

Also, its going to take awhile for new characters to even get to 10 in any stat, let alone multiple. So maybe the Super Awesome Cloak of Theiving of Doom that gives +1 to Concealment its great when youre at level 10 already. Sell it and grab the gear that does. Dont hold on to gear for sentimental reasons I believe paraphrases whats been said before...


And even putting a Hard cap at 13 wont really fix the issue, it just patches part of it. If my stat is at a 10, and I have access to magic that can give me buffs to take me to 13. I still dont need the gear... or vice versa I have the gear, I dont need the magic buffs


I like the classes for the gear and how they match up to damage classes. should be able to take advantage of that matchup when RPing and writing up gear. Like you said, Poor weapons deal slight. Poor Armor protects slight...


Not sure how to do armor. I want to say we could scale the armor. Use the light, medium, heavy we have now and do something like Light can only go up to good before getting ridiculously expensive, medium to grand, etc... but that doesnt give much room for Heavy to grow... we could put stat requirements on armor, must have x brawn to wear, etc and penalties. Heavy Armor gives -2 to speed and gymnastics... But that all means having to write up even basic armor and having starting characters choose from the list so they get the requirements...

Another option would be to have an Armor "skill" where points cant be bought, but is assign based on the armor worn. "This armor gives me a 3 in my Armor Skill" but then were looking at something very similar to having stats...

so a few ideas, none of them perfect unfortunately, but maybe its enough to inspire something in you.

[Neko]

And the only gear item Neko has never used the ability of is her Sword...she's been tempted, but always decided against it for one reason or another.

All her other gear and abilities they provide are used fairly regularly.

[Ramir]

Alright, let's keep the ball bouncing back and forth.

Gear's damage cannot be locked into it's quality. I think better quality should amplify your damage dealt, but not restrict it. I can do massive damage, stabbing you through the lung with a rusty knife. That said, your rusty knife won't pierce that dragon's hide. Better gear may.

Capping at 10 doesn't consider people who won't have magic. I'm not convinced on what the answer is, but if the + 1 item is REALLY fancy, then it seems odd that I'll ultimately not want it and settle for something that just doesn't help. I'm not sure, perhaps I can be happy when I have lvl 10 on my own and instead, get something that helps another skill and makes me more versatile. I'd trying to think on a precedent for this.

Armour will have traits I think and will simply need some brawn to overcome the drawbacks of wearing it. That way, we don't need penalize and the heavy hitter like Zae can rock plate mail and laugh off arrows.

That said, I'll be the one in light armour that's dodging them. I won't always have the option to dodge though

I think armour type is going to come down to rp and player preference.


Of course, the easiest way would be to have no bonuses from gear. But then, what makes magical gear magical?

[Alexander]

What makes Magical gear magical could be some other benefit. The Flamming Sword does extra fire damage, etc...


So what if Armor looked something like this:

Standard Leather Armor
Provides Average Protection
-1 to Gymnastics and Speed


Poor Leather Armor
Provides Poor Protection
-2 to Gym and -1 to Speed


Fine Leather Armor
Provides Good Protection
-1 to Gym

Magic Leather Armor of Doom
Provides Grand Protection
No Stat penalty
Insert Magic effect here...


Not sure what the answer is for buffs either. its basically down to one of two choices. All buffs stack so stats get crazy at high level and people buy gear that buff only one thing... Or we put some kind of cap on it and at some point, in some way, the buffs you are getting from current gear/magic will not be as effective as it would be on "lower level" characters. You either adjust your gear or get happy with it...

[Alexander]

Or...

We make an Armor Complimentary Skill like Shield and Dual Wielding that acts like Brawn does now...

[Alexander]

That may be the simplest answer...

Break armor down further into 5 catagories. One dot in the complimentary skill moves you up to the next catagory. 15 points would max you out into being able to wear full plate. No worry on stat requirements or penalties and it slightly hampers mages from loading up in heavy armor and firing off spells while not maikng it terribly expensive for combat types to take it...

[Zaedus]

Adding more talents to the talent list will just congest it.

However I am leaning towards what Alex said concerning gear. having the different qualities of varying types. Sure it adds more work for us for making all of these items. If anything we could also just lump armor into Brawn or endurance by having a certain stat requirement to wear the type.

So 1-2 you can wear light
3-4 you can wear medium armor
5-you can wear heavy armor

etc etc

In my eyes adding more stats will just make things more convoluted and not really make anything easier for other people.

[Neko]

Im ok with connecting it to Brawn or endurance like it is currently. I just know that was something Gray was hoping to avoid.

Definately dont want to add skills that are going to do nothing but clutter up the sheet.

[Ramir]

I had no intention of having penalties to movement on armor. I figure it's either prerequisites to wear it, or penalties and well, the latter sucks. This is where the class system shines, because things don't need to make sense.

Having a complimentary skill for armour isn't the worst idea and was going to be what I went with, but I asked another player who thought having it connected to your strength was simpler and easier to understand.

I like that arnour... nope, can't wear it per it's details.


That still doesn't address the buffs though. I am thinking back to Baldur's Gate and I don't recall any gear giving flat stat bonuses, outside the usual suspects in D&D. Weapon and Armor were just flash because they did other nifty things and offered better damage/protection.

That said, we don't have damage and protection but we DO have item quality.

I think conditional bonuses may be the way to go, but does that conditional bonus hit a hard cap at level 10? My 'sword of + 1 vs undead' won't be very nifty later on if it does.

Conditional bonuses also make it much tougher to stack.

[Zaedus]

Yeah old school D&D had very few stat boosting items unless were meant for that (headband of Wisdom etc etc). Armor was usually magic resist, debuff resist or boosted certain abilities like attack rolls or damage rolls, hell some of them boosted spell slots or said here have more lay on hands (and other abilities) cause your awesome.

The reason I say nay on adding more talents for armor is some people may not like how slow it will make character progression for new characters. Admittedly that is not a bad thing, then again we wont know until people get in here and post their two cents on the matter.

***WINK, WINK, NUDGE, NUDGE,**

[Ramir]

I agree entirely.

Let's consider this. If gear is expected to boost stats, it just makes it harder to track, especially for the GM.

If gear is specific, that's something unique and far easier to remember. Having leather amour that is damn good quality and lets you cast a light spell is still pretty killer.

What we need to avoid is the uber gear, that we have had in the past. Bonuses to 3 things, does something better in some condition and lets you do a spell like effect as well. That's waaaaaaaaay overboard.