The other night's playtest at Mark's place was excellent. The system really does move along pretty well. But I did notice that it suffers from a slight bit of imbalance. The PCs were lording over the monsters. Since there was little or no chance of even a single PC falling to the monsters' attacks, that kinda made it a bit less awesome.
Here's what I think I'm gonna do:
Change the AC numbers for heavy and very heavy armor
This will reduce the whiff-factor just a bit. More blood and less whiff = more good.
Uber > 16
VH > 14
Heavy > 12
Light > 10
None > 8
Ramp up the Awezome Monstr Powrz
I had been kinda pulling my punches on the powers. But now I'm 100% certain that powering down the monsters makes fights lame. My laughing/teleporting/knives-of-darkness baddie was probably the only interesting monster I made all night.
Come up with some kind of balance formula
The game won't break if the GM throws in monsters that are too weak or too strong, it'll just make things slightly less awesome. Therefore, there needs to be a way for the GM to know if his monsters are an even match for the PCs or not. I'll definately have to work on this bit.
6 comments:
I'm wondering if Uber is too hard? With an 18, you either definitely need a fighter, because even with terrain and getting the I'm Awesome card, that's just a +4 total. Which means you need to roll 14+ for attacking, which is pretty high (unless you're a fighter).
With the dude who "crumbles" after the first Uber hit, that totally makes sense though. But for a monster that stays Uber throughout the fight, that creature either needs to bleed massive XP bonuses, or have reduced HP or something.
I've been thinking alot about the armor classes recently, and you may be right.
I just went through calculating the percentage chances for hitting particular numbers and those chances are much less than I'd originally intended. I may be bringing all the AC numbers down a few notches.
Whiff = bad.
As a matter of interest, Shane was getting that Awesome card all the time because he had a high Daring, not because he was playing a warrior. His only special ability was having more hit points than everyone else.
Having just now chewed up the end of a pen I nabbed from a Raddison, I think I've come up with numbers more in synch with what I was looking for.
Here's the list, with their corresponding chances to hit on 2d10.
Uber > 16 (15%)
VH > 14 (28%)
Heavy> 12 (45%)
Light> 10 (64%)
None > 8 (79%)
That'll probably match what I'm looking for better. I'm gonna take the liberty of editing the post now.
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As a matter of interest, Shane was getting that Awesome card all the time because he had a high Daring, not because he was playing a warrior.
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Yep.
I like the fact that stuff like Uber practically REQUIRES you to push a monster into a field where they are off-balance (or where you have an advantage), and on top of that work with your teammates to give the Awesome Card (I forget the name of it. "Spotlight"? The +2 card) to the strongest player, to get that +4. However, +4 to hit 18 is still pretty rough. Looks like you considered that at the Radisson, though.
Yeah. I did consider it. But not carefully enough 'till you pointed out how much of a bitch 18 really is.
What do you think of the new line up? (16/14/12/10/8)
Smells good. Actual Play will tell in the long run. Luckily, I just happen to be up for Actual Play again sometime in the next two weeks (perhaps next week, this week is kinda busy).
-Andy
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