Hi all,
I'm trying to design a game which is similar to D&D in that trying to hit during combat involves
[Attack bonus depending on stats + items] + [dice roll] vs AC
I've been reading a lot of threads here and elsewhere to try to get the balancing right across a range of levels. Here are a couple of example problems:
- Fighters should be better at hitting things than thieves. But if the _gap_ between them gets bigger as they level up, then eventually either a) fighters will hit everything or b) thieves will find it v. hard or impossible to hit at all.
- The game should be balanced so it is possible for parties without, say, a cleric to succeed. But clerics have spells which boost attack bonus, and these get better with level. So the difference in attack bonus between party-with-cleric and party-without-cleric becomes increasingly large with level...
My key design desideratum -- the reason I signed up to these boards to ask the q. -- is that I still want character optimisation to be possible and fun, and in particular I like the mixing of prestige classes. I want players to have the satisfaction of finding a really clever combination that will make their characters 30% more effective. Just not 300% more effective.
I'll say a v. small amount about the game to give this some context. It's actually a card game akin to Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords -- but mechanically closer to 3.5e D&D, e.g. in that it has separate to-hit and damage, enemy AC and HP, and so on, and in that certain cards represent feats and suchlike, as well as weapons and armor. Here are a few of the cards:
Colour represents class -- so e.g. red = fighter, yellow = cleric, purple = thief, blue = mage. Mixing colours to create multiclass chars. is intended, and there will be 'dual colour' cards that support this, of course inc. prestige classes. E.g. 'Eldritch knight' would be a red/blue card that boost both fighting and magical capability.
The card game angle doesn't matter too much -- I think I'll be able to translate anything that would work for RPG into those terms. So please -- any thoughts would be v. welcome. The current balance situation I have is as follows:
All cards are divided into levels or 'Tiers', and as you get cards of higher tiers your to-hit goes up in three ways:
- Better weapons are more likely to hit.
- Better buffs give bigger bonuses to hit.
- "Leveling up:" Certain Skill cards like 'Swordsmanship' above make it cheaper to play attacks. (Cost is at top right of card, and is payed by sacrificing other cards of the right colour.) This lets you play attack cards with higher ABs, and the cost of attacks is calculated to make sure this that a cost discount of 1 always equals a +3 to hit.
Currently Enemy AC goes up by 4 per tier. Weapon to hit goes up by 2 per tier. Buffs to hit go up by 1 per tier and
never stack. And the bonus due to "levelling" goes up by 1 per tier. This means that the % chance to hit is pretty much constant as PCs and enemies level. Fighters start off a bit better than thieves at hitting, and stay
a bit better. In order to handle the party-without-cleric situation, fighters can self-cast to hit buffs like "Fury" after a certain "level" -- and these are always a bit weaker/more expensive/shorter duration than comparable level cleric buffs.
AFAICS this works, in that it can't be broken that easily. But it also seems somewhat
dull, in that there isn't much scope for char. optimisation or other interesting things. I want a system where clever tricks using multiclassing and multiple prestige classes can make your character, say,
a bit better than a fighter at hitting things.
thanks,
Mohan
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