ARG 2.0 – What would you like to see?

1. Balance of Archetype vs. cross-archetype development – There should be strong cases to pick each archetype for the core of what it does. Right now it’s so easy to take full spell casting as a non-casting archetype for example that there’s less of a reason especially to take the Divine archetype.
I’ve got a long post on this topic I’m writing now…stand by.

Cool. Looking forward to it.

2. Investment required for “full” casting. Bar’s too low across the board for picking up after archetype selection.
I somewhat agree. I think Initiate of the Gods and Shaman Initiate (and Spontaneously Awakened too) should grant access to Rudimentary Spells/Prayers. I think the paths are fine. Templar would be plenty cool with just access to divine talents. At the same time part of the problem I think is the arcane & divine … Which I’d fix by meeting the need for a “basic attack” version of a spell that can be cast w/o triggering strain for members of the A/D archetypes.

I want to be VERY careful with making casters even more potent with a single skill. What’s the trade off?

3. Advanced spells should scale in power / CTN cost compared to other spells of the same Tier. Great idea to be able to combine spells in new ways, could use some tweaking in execution.
I generally agree. There should also be Teir benchmarks as well for what kinds of spells can do/unleash by tier (single target vs multi target vs area effect. Melee vs. cones/arcs vs. ranged. Also worth looking at control effects (push, forced movement, penalties, domination etc)

I’m ok with that thought. If the spells increase in power or flexibility there should be consideration to how that impacts over all balance of caster vs. non-caster.

4. Weapon or action speed vs. effect needs to be tweaked. Nice that there’s a standard staging up, but doing an average of +1 point of damage for a speed cost of 1 is a poor trade off. This I disagree with. Not because I don’t agree with the basic premise that it’s a poor trade, but because I don’t see any solutions that are better than the problem.

I’ve played around with some math using a fixed bonus added to the base die as part of the scaling. So rather than d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, it might be something like, d4, d6, d8+1, d10+2, d12+2. Perhaps adding a fixed bonus isn’t as “elegant”, but it could provide an interesting trade off. Alternatively, you do make it a more standard progression of d4, d6+1, d8+2, d10+3, d12+4. This pulls the average damage up as the die type increases, but there’s a trade off in tactical flexibility as it takes a lot longer before you go again as you move up the speed chart.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

I generally agree with a little more reason to take archetype for what it gives and the advances. However, if it’s going to be made very hard for non-caster archetypes to pick up casting and for non-martial to pick up martial techniques, then it needs to be really hard for casters and Martials to get many skils or skill talents, and they need to have more impact.

I’m fine with that as well. The goal is to make it interesting and balanced enough that every archetype can excel. If it’s too easy to get “close enough” to an Archetype’s focus as a secondary priority without giving up a lot of what is core to the chosen Archetype, there’s a problem.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Personally, I would have templars either get, or have access to a one time only talent: TSP (Templar spell casting) that gives them one spell of each tier, immediately upon reaching the tier. (not sure what should happen at tier V, maybe their choice). This reduces their spellcasting power compared to priests, but opens up a whole bunch more talent space for them to take other things after they have TSP (instead of DSC every tier). Plus, while they only start with one spell at tier one, it scales nicely so they have a cutting edge spell every tier.

Having a think about that, a Special option for both ASC and DSC (ta) might work for Bard/Templar style characters.

Arcane Spell Casting / Divine Spell Casting
Tier I; Special: Specialist Caster, you learn one Tier I, Tier II, Tier III, and Tier IV spell from a single Tradition which you have gained access to from your chosen source of magic. You can never again take this Talent (but can still take the Learn Spell talent). You may still only cast spells you know that are equal to your own Tier or lower.

This sort of option would be quite good for Astra; there’s only three spells she wants to learn above Tier I and I have to go through some complicated building to get Arcane Spell Casting I+II+III+IV into a Martial build.

I agree….the system needs to support characters who are fighter/casters, fighter/priests, rogue/casters, rogue./priests, and rogue/fighters. Does that mean those characters should be as good as a single,class in either half? No. But they do need to be viable.

John

The biggest thing I’d like to see is a reworking of the damage over time by weapons. Other players (and non-players who’ve chosen not to play the game because of what they see as a huge flaw) have mentioned this to me as well.

Ignoring weapon tricks or martial techniques, weapon damage rules are such that Might (or Quickness) is often more important than weapon base damage. Weapon speed rules are such that fast weapons are better. Thus, for most Tier 1.1 characters, a dagger (Speed 3) is the best melee weapon. There is no system to handle the concept of weapon reach, which many experienced game designers say needs to be in any game with speed factors; in other words, a greatsword can keep someone at bay who has only the reach of a dagger. Once you get to exceptional weapons with reduced speed, a base-Speed 4 weapon (reduced to 3) is the best choice for almost everyone. But yet the game world encourages picking weapons by nationality and religion and flavor, so the game pushes us in different directions.

From what I’ve heard, the damage shifts once one gets into techniques, but everyone still goes through that Tier I phase where a dagger is the best bet.

I made a spreadsheet to show the best option for characters with various options. IMHO, game designers should always do the math to see what the results are.

I admit that this is potentially a big reworking of the rules. Conceptually, making the weapon’s base die be bigger than the Might/Quickness component could help overcome this.

Whatever you guys do, don’t make the game any more complicated than it already is. This has been to barrier to new players I have talked to. Personally I like the system but it took me a while to get into it, and if I wasn’t already sold on the game world I’m not sure I would be playing this. Especially if I was new to role-playing. Whatever you do don’t let this turn into Shadowrun…great world and they still haven’t gotten the mechanics to flow right in my opinion. I will agree there’s tweaks to be made but let’s proceed carefully.

A few assorted other things I’d like to see: