OOC Chat IV

[Zhym]

Synchronizing the time in Vaul is turning out to be less important than keeping track of what time everyone is doing what at the mountain!

[Spartakos]

If we're gonna have a "5 Armies" scene, I'm with Bilbo. "There's plenty, plenty for all!"

[Marullus]

Keehnelf -
I just noticed this in the LL Basic description for Read Magic:

Furthermore, once the spell is cast and the caster has read the magical inscription, he thereafter is able to read that particular writing without recourse to the use of read magic.

Does that help overcome the problem of not being able to use the magical books we find without transcribing them into our own books? Memorizing from a found-book would greatly help the cash problems for wizards... Or, are we only applying that to inscriptions (on items) and not to spellbooks? Or does it not apply at all?

[Keehnelf]

Yes, that does not count for spells. Read Magic is required in that case to know what the spell is, and you'll always know what the spell is from that point on

[Marullus]

Got it. Keeping our campaigns in sync on some of these points.

If a second level magic user (who has two spells) wishes to use one as Read Magic and the second to memorize a spell from his secondary book while it is working, can he do so? That way they could use a spell for a specific circumstance without having to transcribe it first. (I am allowing that in my campaign - I want to incentivize them to keep the books around rather than transcribe everything and pass it on.)

[Keehnelf]

No, it's not possible to do so. The transcription thing only really makes "take it, pass the book on" a meaningful part of game play at the point at which the wizard has enough money that chances are the contents of the book are fairly trivial anyway. In that case, it's akin to a master passing off a book to a student to encourage them to study and learn from it, and I'm ok with that dynamic. I intended the transcription costs to be sufficient to force magic-users to carefully consider their spell additions and to prevent them from growing in power too swiftly without engaging in activities that would bring them income (whether adventuring or something else). Magic is an expensive business!

[Marullus]

Yeah, Zhym had called me out on some issues with class balance a while back and so it has been on my mind. I'm just brainstorming/observing here, because I don't actually have a proposal and I'm not sure its worth changing.

We are charging wizards a truly exorbitant amount that the other classes don't face.

50gp/spell level to copy a spell they already own.
100gp/spell level to buy a new spell they don't have.
75gp/spell level for any scroll produced.
1,000gp in equipment to get a +1 bonus.
250gp in materials per-roll when researching new things.
Plus, they still need a Tower as property.

Clerics need 150gp/level for scrolls, which is even more punishing, but otherwise seem to be okay.

Other classes seldom need to improve from starting equipment. Sure, they might improve their armor - 70gp for chainmail, 85 for banded mail, 150 for plate mail - but that's a one-time cost and then they're good. They don't need to pay 50gp to a trainer to teach them to use the weapon after they've acquired it.

Assuming treasure is always split in even shares (as it has been) the wizard is constantly trying to keep up with basics. Other PCs can convert their surplus gold into tributes (more XP, thus levels, thus power), or buy and improve property (for other benefits). The net effect of this is that other PCs improve in those areas - fame, fortune, and power - while the Mages focus on their craft. It does conform with genre - the wizards tend towards obscurity, remain cloistered in a singular tower, and don't typically rule civilian affairs as landowners. A LL Basic wizard gains the ability to make magic items (not gain followers) at level 9 when others are attracting a fan-base. He doesn't get apprentices until level 11 which says something about their priorities.

A magic user can demand fee-for-service from other PCs to try to make up the inequity, researching their magic items and casting spells. However, this precludes them from adventuring for experience (everything they do takes a week of seclusion) and only NPCs get XP for doing this kind of work (under the house rules).

Just my observations. Nihilius is the longest lived mage in the game right now - he's been in play for 21 months, is on his third expedition, has half of one level, and only was able to afford scribing one spell in all that time as he scrapes by in his poverty. Much of that is poor luck (and poor decisions as he follows altruists in a treasure-focused game ) but it seems we've set a very steep hill for magic users to climb.

Thoughts?

[Zhym]

Good arguments.

Nihilius, if anyone, is doing better than most MUs in this game in terms of spell acquisition thanks to getting "one of his old spellbooks" back at the Tower of Wendell. I don't think there's another MU with even half the spell list he has. So if he's feeling spell-constrained, imagine what everyone else must be going through.

Although I can see the point of the spell copying fees. You don't want spell trading to be so cheap that everyone basically knows every spell. Not from a power perspective—the limited number of spells an MU can memorize each day is the more serious constraint on that IMO—but for variety.

[Marullus]

Yeah, that's what the initial question was. Nihilius finally DOES have new spells, but can't make any use of them whatsoever because he has to transcribe them first and got no cash from his expeditions.

I set the rule in the other mirror-game that you can use Read Magic as one spell, which allows you to memorize other spells for the day without having them copied. Since magic users there also get bonus spells from INT, this is more doable. They can sacrifice two spell slots for the benefit of a one-off use of something they normally can't do. I see Keehnelf's point about forcing the strategic choices, of course.

[Keehnelf]

I definitely appreciate the steepness of the climb--I think that Magic-Users are, however, rewarded in a (basically permanent) way that other classes aren't for investments of this kind.

I'll just lay bare my thinking entirely on this: the tougher the task of gathering a base of resources from which a M-U can exert true power in the early game, the more likely they are to have double the motivation of others to really get out, get stuff done, and make profits, which keeps them in circulation (as they are valuable assets to any party); and the tougher the task in the early stages, the more embedded in the culture and society they will be--the wizard who gets a bit of cash or a lucky haul on a spellbook early on doesn't immediately retreat to a tower and leverage that to their own benefit. Though that's a possibility, the network of favors, mutual aid, and real need that the M-U experiences early on creates checks against mid-late game wizards becoming world-destroying tools (hopefully).

They could still go that route, as I say, but the story consequences of doing so are much greater this way.

If the rate feels punishing, I'm glad to revisit the actual costs, but those are my reasons for levying it and I don't think fundamentally they're bad or misguided ones.

On an unrelated note, sorry for the slowdown in posting recently--I've got updates in the works but have been slammed with hiring the last person for my team here and finally came out the far side of that and am getting caught up on the other projects that slipped in the meantime.

[Zhym]

Reasonable goals, but couldn't you also encourage MUs to get out and adventure by not requiring spell transcription or item identification to take so long?

I do think Marullus has a good point that MUs either don't get or can't take advantage of the kinds of rewards other classes seem to get.

IMO, the cost of copying a spell to your own spell book should be lower and the cost of inscribing scrolls higher. I'd also have spell books be even more rare and valuable than they are so far. For an MU, a scroll with a spell you don't know is a treasure—one that is much more valuable for the possibility of adding the spell to your collection than for the ability to cast it. A whole book of spells that contains more than one or two spells you don't already know? Better than gold!

Unless you also have to collect a bunch of gold to use it, of course.

I was talking with Zorroroaster about how his character in AleBelly's game is the only MU we've had in that game, and he pointed out that because MUs suck so much at early levels and PbP takes so long to get out of those early levels any PbP MU is basically stuck in suck-land. Most games end or die before an MU can gain enough levels to have any real power. As most MUs probably die before then, for that matter. So while I understand your reasoning, the threat from mid-high level MUs is probably three years away at least. Maybe more like five. That's a damn long time of being punished for the possibility of having a lot of power long into the future.

[Scott308]

Surplus gold? Dorvar is not familiar with this term.

[Keehnelf]

Hm, ok--I think three voices is sufficient to cause me to reconsider this. When I get some spare minutes, I'll post an update to these rules.

[Marullus]

I was talking with Zorroroaster about how his character in AleBelly's game is the only MU we've had in that game, and he pointed out that because MUs suck so much at early levels and PbP takes so long to get out of those early levels any PbP MU is basically stuck in suck-land. Most games end or die before an MU can gain enough levels to have any real power. As most MUs probably die before then, for that matter. So while I understand your reasoning, the threat from mid-high level MUs is probably three years away at least. Maybe more like five. That's a damn long time of being punished for the possibility of having a lot of power long into the future.

Yeah, my thoughts were similar. I agree that "mid-level power" looks like a 5-6 RL year trip, which is longer than I've committed to any game, ever. I think I'm playing 50% of the magic users here, currently. At 26 months of play, my first is still not close to level 2. This is one reason I talked to Keehnelf about not even restarting any of my magic users and turning them over as NPCs... as we face RL time constraints we need to choose where/what we play, and never progressing is less fun (imho). It says something, though, that I didn't do this. Gameplay here is enjoyable enough even sucking forever, so all my PCs continued for now.

Studying the game design here, my observations are:

• Treasure is exponentially more important to XP acquisition than creatures. The successful expeditions are not those that fought or defeated foes but those that hauled gold. In addition, that gold can be used for tributes, doubling the XP it provides.
• Large groups vastly dilute XP awards - a MU who wants to advance is incentivized to travel in a small group, preferably of Retainers who take smaller shares. Since coming back with gold trumps fighting/risking life, this can be just as rewarding. (This was part of Deliah's genesis.)
• This is a low-level game, period. It is unlikely that any PC will reach mid-level. The game ran two years before hiatus, and at that time there were only two 3rd level PCs (one of whom was a thief and so benefited from rapid advancement) with the rest evenly split between 1st and 2nd levels. It isn't unreasonable to say that characters will take six to nine RL years to reach 9th level and it isn't unreasonable to assume the game might not last that long.
• Due to that, players should just maximize their low-level options. Play a Magic User because you want to, not because you dream of ever growing great. (Nihilius is an unfulfilled dream-for-greatness. Deliah is a competent low-level PC accepting that reality.)

A low-level game CAN be fun. It is just important to be realistic. As I noted above, this game is a hell of a lot of fun even expecting advancement won't happen.

If the rate feels punishing, I'm glad to revisit the actual costs, but those are my reasons for levying it and I don't think fundamentally they're bad or misguided ones.

I don't think they are bad or misguided, either. Your game is so awesome we literally went into withdraw without it, and I built a campaign that shamelessly plagiarizes you.

Since we're talking about design theories, though, I'll highlight some things I did differently in the other campaign. I don't see any necessity in our games being the same, I'm just sharing thoughts.

• I tripled the XP from creatures due to the pace of PbP. This does two things. First, it reverses the creature/treasure relationship. Facing foes is dramatically more important than collecting gold. Second, it makes it an aspiring-mid-level game rather than a low-level game. At six months, we're on track for 4-6 levels per RL year depending on PC actions. As the game matures, we hit mid-level characters around the two-year mark, which I'm comfortable with and see as a reasonable timeline. (I want to see mid-level stories and I'm not committing to run a nine year campaign. My wife would be quite unhappy!)
• I added house rules to give advantage to low-level PCs, lessening their suffering. I give the Prime Requisite bonus spells from the Advanced book to Elves, Wizards, and Clerics, making a 1st level spellcaster more of an asset. Most PCs can have three spells/day starting out. I moved the fighter bonus attacks from 15th level (which is potentially unattainable) to 5th level. I differentiated the fighting styles of dwarves from fighters based on player feedback.
• Since they have more than one spell per day, I allowed Read Magic to be cast to allow memorization from multiple books. This way they can cast a one-off spell at the cost of two slots.
• When adding non-monetary treasures due to PC actions, I included "magical inks" as findable loot. When looting wizardly domains, it is probable that you'll find sought-after inks usable for transcription. IC events then restricted the merchant flow of these as well, so adventuring for them becomes far more of a draw. (Wizardly domains are major factor in the "place the cataclysm happened" storyline. )
• I'm trying to be by-the-book on treasure, creatures, and use of tables for them. The addition of the "heroic magic items" rule (which I adopted from here) dramatically changes the game reality, though. There's a natural enhancement of low-level items which I am okay with so far, but which differs from the rarity you desire based on statements above. This is critical in a low-level game, as item-based enhancement trumps leveling dramatically.

[Keehnelf]

Thanks--I think of these the thing I am most likely to want to pilfer for this game is the inclusion of magical inks as findable loot. That makes perfect sense in-game and can help alleviate some of this issue.

As for the overall pace, I will admit that it is a bit slow but for me it feels just about right given the nature of the setting I put together--also, as you can see from the holdings we already have, I don't expect "domain-level" play to wait until you hit name level--that's just a break-point at which you will more or less automatically get access to resources needed to make it happen for you should you have the gold at hand.

Also, I expect the successful pilfering of what remains in the mountain to lift the tide reasonably well for a lot of the PCs, if not all of them, and set a new bar for what's possible. There are definite "stages" to the structure of the setting, and things that can be done to somewhat swiftly move folks capably navigating one to the next. Orrin saw enough treasure in that throne room to lift every currently active PC a level, at the very least.

[Zhym]

The lower copying cost is nice. Thanks.

Will the prices at the Tower of Wendall change at all?

[Keehnelf]

I was talking with Zorroroaster about how his character in AleBelly's game is the only MU we've had in that game, and he pointed out that because MUs suck so much at early levels and PbP takes so long to get out of those early levels any PbP MU is basically stuck in suck-land. Most games end or die before an MU can gain enough levels to have any real power. As most MUs probably die before then, for that matter. So while I understand your reasoning, the threat from mid-high level MUs is probably three years away at least. Maybe more like five. That's a damn long time of being punished for the possibility of having a lot of power long into the future.

I almost made a magic-user for my new character, but before we added the other new folks it seemed like another melee type would ultimately be more useful since we have a ton of druids and some clerics

[Keehnelf]

Amendment to spell transcription is up which reduces hopefully a lot of the punishing-feeling aspect of it. You can get new spells cheaply, or expensively while leaving the spell available for others to also acquire.

[Zhym]

Kibitzing on another house rule:

As much as I otherwise like the critical hit rule (max damage or min damage + effect), it does have the drawback of dragging things out sometimes. Some crit effects have been declared in the same post as the roll, but it seems like what happens more often is a roll, then you ask whether the player wants max damage or an effect, then there might be a conversation about what the effects could be, then finally the player makes a decision.

I'm not quite sure what the fix is, however. You could require people to say what they want to critical hit to do when they post it, with a default of max damage of they don't say anything, but that might punish people who don't notice that they've rolled a hit or forget the rule. Or maybe you could just have a default rule that takes over after a certain amount of time passes real-time. Or you could change the critical hit rule more drastically, I suppose.

Whatever the solution, I think it's worth trying to streamline the critical hit process. This is the only game on these boards I can think of (or have seen, anyway) that requires a player to make a decision after rolling a critical hit.

[Keehnelf]

I've been considering that on and off myself. It is a bit fiddlier than I'd like. Maybe I could just take on a bit more of it and make it so that it does auto max damage instead, but if you already rolled max damage then I add in a situationally-appropriate effect to the hit.