09.04.08
Posted in Abillities, General Abilities, New, Skills, Streamline, System at 12:30 pm by Bill the Annoying
Well half of the character sheet was taken up with specialization options, most of which were NOT used by players.
So I am goint to just make specialization an Ability, that you can buy for any skill, this should go a long way toward making the character creation process easier.
I am going for a fast and fun game, and lots and lots of numbers cluttering up the character sheet, are not fast, and fun is questinable.
Overall the end result is the same.
This also make it easier to make a character database, as the number of fields will be cut in half, from the get go.
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08.28.08
Posted in Leadership, New, Skills, Streamline, System at 11:35 am by Bill the Annoying
LEADERSHIP
This give a Tactical advantage, to the group, allowing any friendly unit additional movement during their turn, or during the enemy’s turn.
There can only be one (1) Leader in a group, many players may have the skill, but one unit must be designated the Leader, only that player gets to rull for Tactics and Initiative.
For each success, the leader gets on their roll, is a movement point that can be givein out to any unit on their turn, even if it interupts any other units turn. All unused leadership oints go away at the begining of your next turn, so try to use them all.
You can interupt before another units Action, after they have declaired it, or during another units movement (after a unit moves 2 of it’s 5 spaces), however, the Step and Attack Action must be interuped before the Step happens, in other words, you can NOT interrupt between the Step and the Attack, they are considered to happen at the same time.
In non combat it is used for interacting with NPCs, and includes (Diplomacy, Negatiation, Bluff)
To resist, either the Leader, but score more successes than the targets Mind, or they resist using Perception or Leadership.
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08.20.08
Posted in Armor, Streamline, System at 4:46 pm by Bill the Annoying
So Armor was a pain in the but, there were three different parts to armor and three different types of attacks, each with their own sub types. So armor had nine (9) different values, not to mention the values, cos, wither, skill modifier.
To simplyfy lets just focus on one stat for Armor, Damage Resistance (DR).
This is the attack damage is reuduced by due to armor.
It doesn’t matter what type of attack it is always use the same DR value.
Note: there will be ways to ignore some or all armor DR, such as most spells.
Movement Penalty = base DR.
The more heavey the armor the slower you move.
Skill Penalty = base DR.
Not all skills have an armor modifier, but for those that due (stealth and most spells) the armor DR reduces your skill target number.
Spell Casting Penalty = base DR.
You can cast spells wearing heavy Armor but I want to make it difficult, so in addition to the skill penalty above, there is a casting Penalty meaning that you must spend additional Energy to cast a spell.
Defense Skill
Armor DR happens first, if there is any damage that exceeds DR, the player may roll their Defense skill, to block or parry the additional damage. Defense skill starts with a Defense power (DP) of 1, and it can be increased using shields and other items.
Basic Armor
DR – Type
0 – Cloth
1 – Leather
2 – Chain
3 – Plate
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08.13.08
Posted in New, Steel Gods of War at 4:37 pm by Bill the Annoying
This is a scan of one of the Titan (Mecha) sheets still remaining.
sgw_ares
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08.12.08
Posted in Skills, Streamline, System, Uncategorized at 4:28 pm by Bill the Annoying
-= Revised 09-10-2008 =-
Well there are lots of skills in my game, many of which are not used much if at all.
Number of Skills
My goal is to reduce the skills to 12 15 or so.
So I will be looking to combine skills, much like how the “Athletics” skill includes “Run“, “Jump“, “Climb“, etc. so too will other skills be combined.
For example instead of having “Poisons“, “Locks and Traps“, and “Stealth“, I could say they are all based off of the “Rogue” skill.
So as not to give to much away for free, “Abilities” could be skill dependant.
I could make the “Stealth” ability based on your “Rogue” skill, maybe even require a base amount of skill before you can purchase some abilities.
Stealth would be an Ability that you may use either “Rogue“, or “Athletic” skills for.
Except that “Locks & Traps“, and “Stealth“, work better as seperate skills, and “Poisons” is better as an ability.
Skill Cost = base 10
Magic casting, this part is tricky.
I am not sure just how I want to do this some options are:
1. Have one skill for each school of magic (“Life“, “Fire“, “Force“), and then limit how many schools their are.
2. Have only one skill (“Magic“), but each school would be a different ability you would have to buy.
3. have 3 to 5 base skills (“Holy“, “Arcane“, “Nature“), each with it’s own set of abilities and spells.
Below is what I am thinking of for the new skill list, folowed by a list of sub skills in {}.
Items in Italics are optional, but may be bought with Abilities.
Items crossed out are removed.
MIND SKILLS
Ranged Attack {Bows, Crossbows, Thrown Weapons, Seige Weapons}
Ranged Defense (M)
Healing {First Aid, Anti Poison, Cure Disease, Improved Potion, Rest Action}
Perception {Search, Spot, Listen, Smell, Initiative}
Leadership {Diplomacy, Tactics, Initiative, NPC Control}
Negotion & Diplomacy (M)
Alchemy (M)
Poisons (M)
Locks & Traps {Opening locked door, detecting and removing traps, both passive and active}
Rogue {Locks & Traps, Stealth, Pick Pocket, Poisons}
Lore {Magic Defense, Magic Items, Healing, Alchemy}
BODY SKILLS
Melee Attack {All Melee weapons, Unarmed Combat, Melee Defense}
Melee Defense (B)
Defense {Melee Defense, Missile Defense, Armor Use, Magic Defense}
Athletics {Run, Jump, Climb, Swim, Stealth, Thrown Weapon}
Stealth {Hide, Move Silent, Pick Pocket, Sneak}
SPIRIT SKILLS
Magic Defense (S)
Healing Magic
Combat Magic
Buff Magic
Control Magic
Arcane Lore (S)
Energy Renewal (S)
Mysticism {Magic Defense, Mana Recovery}
Skill Power/Effectiveness
For most skills it is the item (Sword, Shield, Bow, Heal Kit, Lock Pick, or Spells) that determins how powerful the skill use will be.
For other skills (Perception, Athletics, Leadership, Mysticism, Stealth) this does not work well, as there is no item. These skills will either have their power modified by the Stats, or by Abilities.
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08.08.08
Posted in Steel Gods of War at 3:30 pm by Bill the Annoying
I came across my quick start rules for Steel God of War, which is a Giant Robot Combat game a created many years ago around 1998. So just so I don’t lose these ideas, I am putting them down here.
Turns out I did upgrade the sheets to 2d10, as I found a stack of them in the basement, from when I ran them at GenCon. I have made the updates to the post below.
STEEL GODS OF WAR – QUICK START
TURN ORDER: Each Titan (giant robot) goes in order of which card it has drawn (players draw from a 52 deck of cards, Ace low, trump order C>S>H>D). In a turn a titan can: “MOVE then ATTACK“, “ATTACK then MOVE “, “ALL OUT ATTACK“, “AIM and ATTACK“, “CHARGE“, “WAIT“, “PASS“.
MOVE: Moving one space costs one movement point, moving up one level or into a wooded space costs two movement points. Ground movement is labeled as “Movement“. “Jump” means that your Titan can move that many spaces regardless of terrain. “Glide” means that your Titan can move that many spaces (including vertical), and it may end it’s turn in the air, but must land on it’s next turn. “Flight” means that your Titan can move that many spaces (including vertically) and can remain in flight as long as it wants; maximum height is 5.
NOTE: As movement Crits are crossed off, the Titan’s movement will decrease, this can mean that damaged Gliding and Flying Titans can fall out of the sky (fun).
ATTACK: The Titana may attack with all it’s weapons on a single target, or divided to multiple targets at (1-) to hit for each new target.
CHARGE: When a Titan charges (full round action), roll the Titan’s piloting skill, using the charge modifyer, and add that number to the Titan’s movement for the turn. Also the Titan gest one HTH (may use a weapon) attack at double damage (after the roll). The defending Titian gets one normal HTH attack in payback (no weapons).
ALL OUT ATTACK: The Titan may move one space, then attack with all weapons then attacks again with a single weapon a second time (full round action).
AIM and ATTACK: The Titan may move one space, then attack with all weapons at plus one (+1) to hit.
WAIT (READY): This allows the Titan to interrupt the turn of another player with a single attack (full round action), if two or more Titans try to interupt at the same time, order goes by card turn order.
PASS: You wimp out and do nothing, other players (including those on your team) are allowed to taunt you.
Note: both Wait and Pass were at one time remvoed from the rules, to speed up play, as everyone started to turtle and it literally became a waiting game.
ARMOR: Reduces the amount of damage that affects the Titan by the armor’s current DR (Damage Reduction).
ARMOR PENETRATION: After armor DR has been subtracted from the damage, the remaning damage is internal damage.
ARMOR REDUCTION: If the damage is greater than or equal the current armor DR (must be greater than for DR 1 only), then the armor takes one point of damage. When enough damage is done to the armor,it’s overall DR drops by one.
SHIELDS: Allow the Titan an additional defense against direct damage attacks, not effective againse special attacks. Shield defense is rolled as an attack, but the damage done is subtracted from the incoming attack. Shields act before armor, but after force fields.
FORCE FIELDS: Protect the Titan from damage, and are destroyed when they run out of damage or take a critical hit. Force fields must be declaired on or off at the start of your turn and remain so until the start of your next turn. All HTH attacks ignore force fields. All force fields reduce incoming damage by one (1) before the the force field takes damage, any excess damage goes to armor. There are sevearl types of force fields: “Stadard“, “Flicker“, “Hardened“, and “Deflector“, these will be explained on the Titan data sheet.
DEALING DAMAGE: The target must be in range. The attacker rolls 2d10 (there is also a 2d6, 2d8, and 2d20 varient) if both are equal to or less than the target number of the attack then the attack does full damage, if only one die is equal to or less than the target number, then the attack does half (partial) damage. Kill Ones (KO’s), for each natural one (1) rolled the attack does an extra point of damage.
INTERNAL DAMAGE: Damage that penetrates armor does either structural or critical damage. For each point of internal damage roll 1d10 (1d6, 1d8, 1d20, and % varients exist also) and consult the results below.
(1). CRITICAL HIT: The damge affects a critical system. Roll 1d10 to determine which type of critical hit it is “System“, “Movement“, or “Weapon“. The defender chooses which system of that type is to be destroyed or damaged (the attack sometimes gets a roll to select where the damage goes.)
(2-8). STRUCTURE HIT: The damage affects structure, reducing it by one. If there is no structure left then the damage is a critical hit.
(9-10). OVER KILL (BLOW THROUGH): damage has no effect.
DESTRUCTION: When any Titan looses any one of their “Primary” critical hits (locations, areas). “He’s dead Jim.” “That’s it! Game over man, game over.”
ADVANCED RULES
RANGE MODIFIERS: For every ten (10) spaces, reduce your target number by one (-1). i.e. range 11-20 is -1, and 21-30 is -2.
TO HIT MODIFIERS: Titans with some (50% or less) cover are (-1) to hit, Titans with lots (more than 50%) of cover are (-2).
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08.07.08
Posted in Stats, Streamline, System at 11:11 am by Bill the Annoying
Well I dont feel like deleting everything I have done so far, so I am not going to but I do want to stream line some of the basics.
One of the things I am torn with is just getting rid of the Primary Sats: (Mind, Body, and Spirit), and going to using only the Seconady Stats: (Health, Energy, Move), and Skills. These do add complexity and complexity can be good and bad.
A better idea is to simply remove all of the specialization, as it added lots of extra numbers to keep track of, and there was very little gain.
The Primary stast are not used directly, it is their bonus that they give to Secondary stats and skill, that they are used for.
One thing I can do is have some base Saves use the Stat.
What I do like about Primary Stats is that when you dump points say into Body, you are more likly to make a Warrior than a Mage, and hybrid characters have many skills but are not as good as focused characters.
For now I will keep them, but the Stat will be the Modifier, Body is 2, then all Body skills are +2, Health and Move will also be +2.
I ran some numbers, and didn’t like how this worked, because the curve is too flat.
So I decided to basically stay the same with how much these work (stat / 2 = mod) and cost (base 10).
Assuming we are using D10, then the cost for each stat is 50 10, doubling each bump.
Everyone starts at zero (0), and it’s OK to have a zero in all stats, it just means you are not exceptioanly Strong, and Smart.
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08.06.08
Posted in Streamline, System at 4:53 pm by Bill the Annoying
One of the more difficult things to get accross to people is how the dice work.
The system uses 2 dice to determine every outcome, each die can Fail, Succeed, and Crit independantly of the other.
It is really easy when the Attack Power (AP) is 2, but gets difficult to understand when the AP is 3, where the regular die is worth 1 damage, and the power die is worth 2 damage.
Well I’ll stay with the Power Die, method where the you do full damage when both dice are a success, and half damage when you have only once success, round UP for the power die, and round DOWN for the standard die.
Example Attack Power 3:
Both dice succeed, do 3 damage.
Only Power die succeeds do 2 damage. (half of 3 round up)
Only the Standard die succeeds to 1 damage. (half of 3 round down)
I think I should include a mini chart of this on the character sheet or the quick rules.
The rules below are a nice alternate, but have problems going out of the 1 to 5 range.
——————————————————————
With the new method, The dice are interpreted the same every time.
Each Success is worth 1, each Crit is worth an additional 1.
Attack Power, is added if and only if the power die succeds.
On average this new method and the old method have the same average success rate, but there is more varability.
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07.30.08
Posted in Streamline, System at 10:30 am by Bill the Annoying
Since I have been addicted to World Of Warcraft, I have had plenty of time to forget what I have done up to this point. So I can go over what I have done so far with a fresh perspective.
Some of the changes I will be thinking about are:
1. Combining the Belt and Pack slots, or just having a single Belt slot and make it easier to use items from the Pack.
2. Going back 2d10 from 2d20 (though this may just be a minor change).
3. Seperating Skills and Stats, so that Stats no longer modify Skills.
4. Simplyfy how the dice are interpreted, without changing the overall meaning.
5. Simplyfy the Defences and Armor, this goes with what is lited above.
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04.30.08
Posted in Game, New at 8:59 am by Bill the Annoying
Ultra Screen $10.00
Reserved VIP $15.00
I plan to leave my house by no later than 6PM, which would put me at the theater by 6:30. I am not sure if that is enough time or not.
Let me know if you want me to ask Alan to get tickets for you.
Alan will buy tickets at 1 PM today, for the 7PM show.
Alan plans to be there at 6PM to get a seat.
I will be getting my tickets when I pick up the babysitters.
IF you have Alan buy your tickets early, let me know by 1PM and how many of which type you want.
THEN let me know if you wan tto meet Alan at 6 PM, or me (Bill) at 6:30 PM for your tickets.
Game is at my house, Character sheets are being generated as I type.
==================================================================
Marcus Majestic
770 N Springdale Rd.
Waukesha, WI 53186
View Area Map & Directions
Iron Man 7:00 PM on Ultrascreen.
Let me know if you want Alan to buy tickets for you early.
Probably go for a burger and ice cream/custard afterwards, then do some gamming.
Babbysitting at Bill’s house.
How are babysitters getting to my house?
Game assume also at Bill’s house, but could just as easily be at Jason and Jen’s house.
If it is going to be a JJs then we need to make arrangements for those seeing the movie but not gaming such as Olya (these are easy to make we just need to know so no one is stranded) waiting on word from Alan and or anyone else.
==================================================================
1. It’s Alan’s Birthday Friday, and he wants to go see Iron Man, sounds great to me, and I’ll be dragging Olya along (though I don’t expect much of a struggle).
2. Alan is starting up his Dragon Lance game, and I am taking a break from running my game.
3. Everyone is invited and encouraged to go, since it is durring the time that we normally game.
Plus we actually have babysitters so Olya and I can actaully go to a Movie together.
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