MRPG Incomparables

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Incomparables are things that have no equivalancy, E.G. getting hit but taking no damage vs. not getting hit at all. This page is sort of a generalized list of things like that for the game.

The goal here is to think up enough incompatibles to keep the game interesting.

Weapons

We've basically got 3 things: base damage, crits, and damage bypass. Another factor is stacking on non-physical damage. A sword may only do a few points of Mortal damage, but if its covered in fire...

Anyway, I am modifying the crit system slightly and taking another pass at damage.

Class Incomperables

As mentioned in the opening example, when it comes to physical damage Rogues and Warriors will take a largely different tactic. Warriors rely on heavy armor and other damage-reducing abilities. They're job is to be right there in the thick of it and take all the hits. Rogues, on the otherhand, are very squishy, probably one-hit kill critters. Rogues will work to avoid getting hit in the first place.

Another comparison is what I am calling The Great Melee Trade-off. Essentially, you have to strike a balance between whether or not your attacks successfully hit, how much damage they deal, and how fast you attack. Rogues attack fast, land most of their hits, but do comparatively crap damage. The trade-off for them is that each hit lowers the targets defense, making it much easier for a warrior to come in and land one big power-attack. Rogues can increase their damage by reducing the number of successful attacks. This is not going to be permenantly build-specific, strategies should be adjustable on the fly.

Burst-Damage vs. Damage Over Time: another approach is a consider short, high bursts of damage or total amount of damage within a given battle. A weapon with a high too-hit chance is going to deal more damage over time vs. one with a high critical rate. Warriors will also have various facets that let them "force" a critical attack in order to deal quick bursts of damage.

Threat Management

Since the threat system still hasn't been entirely worked out, we'll just discuss it in general terms.

Warriors: warriors can generate a lot of threat to act as tanks, they can also employ some threat-reducing abilities in a more mixed group when tanking is not recommended.

Rogues: rogues actively attempt to reduce their over-all threat in order to attack and bring down a target's defense without getting hit.

Rangers: the ranger takes a very different approach to threat, basically making their threat jump up and down in order to confuse the mob. The idea being since the attack at range, melee mobs will have to approach them in order to fight. So a ranger could, for example, force a mob attacking a warrior to break aggro and run towards them. The ranger can then reduce his threat, sending the mob back at the warrior. Two rangers working in a rhythm could basically keep an enemy target racing back and fourth between them.

Magic Spells

As covered by the spell list, magic spells come in two varieties: ones you cast from a book and innately-learned spells. The innate spells can be customized and should be treated more as activated abilities. A general spell from your spell book has one effect that is the same for whoever casts their spell.

Situational Resistance

As covered in Spell Resistance, resistances stack around different types. So an item that offers 10% Lesser Path resistance might not seem as good as one that offers 25% Ruby Counter-Magic, but the 10% Lesser Path is going to protect against a wide variety of things, while the Ruby Counter-Magic item is only useful against fire.

Things to Avoid

This is a list of things to just flat out not have in the game, though rules for the PnP are signficantly different.

  • The Glass Cannon, E.G. something very powerful that breaks easily, especially if it cannot be repeaired.
  • Rare Use-Items, E.G. very hard-to-obtain single-use items. If the player is going to work something, they should get to have it forever.

See Also:

Mage Wars RPG