Tabletop Arcade: Abilities Chapter Draft (Outdated)
Hey guys! Finally got that draft chapter finished and I'm really excited to share it with y'all. The chapter is all about constructing your own custom abilities using a set of rules.
This draft chapter really was a struggle to create, and has given me some anxiety and doubt about whether or not this kind of system is viable or fun. Though in the end I reckon I'm fairly happy with how it's turned out.
First of all, I want to stress that this content is largely untested and unbalanced. When deciding the cost of various ability traits I mostly just guessed at what a good number would be, and compared it with the other traits that had already been given costs.
My primary goal for this chapter is just making the system fairly easy to use and not confusing. Ideally anyone will be able to translate an idea into a solid, usable ability using this chapter, so I'd really love any feedback on places you think this can be improved.
I think that maybe adding damage should have some sort of scaling when it comes to bigger numbers. By that I mean that adding your 10th damage die would cost a bit less than adding your 2nd. The motivation for this mostly comes from comparing with D&D 5E, where spells do seem to have some sort of positive scaling, at least on spells.. For example, the 2nd-level spell Shatter deals 3d8 damage (average 13.5) while the Fireball deals 8d6 damage (average 28) despite being only one spell level higher. However, I do think that maybe comparing with 5E isn't the best idea when it comes to this sort of thing since abilities in Tabletop Arcade really are quite different to 5E's spells. Either way, something worth considering going forwards. The only way I can think to implement something along these lines without adding loads of needless complexity is to add an upfront cost of making your abilities deal damage - this way, the average cost per die of damage would be lower for higher numbers of dice.
One of the things I'm most worried about is how multi-targeting abilities scale in cost as well. My initial system was just multiply the cost of the ability by the number of targets. This was always planned as a placeholder until I found something better, but I ended up changing it sooner than expected to a messy system I'm not entirely happy with. This is all down to Acid Splash. At the end of the document, I test out converting some 5E cantrips into abilities. The MP cost of Acid Splash was 0 before adding the extra target. It was 0 after adding the extra target too. I had once again run into problems with the accursed number zero. If you designed an ability with an MP cost of 0, you might as well make it able to target 100 creatures at once, the cost will be the same. So the placeholder was replaced with another placeholder, messier but more functional. I'm not a fan of the current system, purely because of how dang wordy it is. On the mathematical side, I do like the effects - in a nutshell, it scales multi-targeting abilities more harshly if their cost is low, and less harshly if it is high. I've tried but I can't think of a more elegant solution. And I really, really want a more elegant solution.
A slightly more minor concern is about how to use skills with Support abilities. The current implementation of skills adding to boon duration is okay, but is really only there because I couldn't think of anything else. Also it doesn't add anything to abilities that just heal, but that's more of an edge case that I'm not too worried about. The only other decent implementation I can think of is having some version of an "attack roll" for support abilities. The main problem here is finding the difficulty class of the roll. I also reckon that the dice eating your Support ability would feel a lot worse than missing an attack, since in the latter case at least there's an antagonist to blame. Quick side note, the current way boon duration works is also a little sketch, since the length of a typical boon should probably be different depending on the average length of a combat encounter, but that can be tweaked later on.
The document on GM Binder: TA Abilities Draft Chapter
That's it for today, hope y'all like it. Not to flip-flop or anything, but I'm beginning to feel unsure about the new name. "Tabletop Arcade" just isn't getting me there right now. I don't know, maybe it'll grow on me. Next week will probably be another draft chapter, I hope to see you then!
This draft chapter really was a struggle to create, and has given me some anxiety and doubt about whether or not this kind of system is viable or fun. Though in the end I reckon I'm fairly happy with how it's turned out.
First of all, I want to stress that this content is largely untested and unbalanced. When deciding the cost of various ability traits I mostly just guessed at what a good number would be, and compared it with the other traits that had already been given costs.
My primary goal for this chapter is just making the system fairly easy to use and not confusing. Ideally anyone will be able to translate an idea into a solid, usable ability using this chapter, so I'd really love any feedback on places you think this can be improved.
Current Issues
I'll avoid going into total detail about the content here and just let the chapter speak for itself, but I did want to outline some of my current concerns and issues with it. Most of these issues are briefly discussed in the "Notes" on the final page of the document. If you aren't interested in this feel free to skip over this section.I think that maybe adding damage should have some sort of scaling when it comes to bigger numbers. By that I mean that adding your 10th damage die would cost a bit less than adding your 2nd. The motivation for this mostly comes from comparing with D&D 5E, where spells do seem to have some sort of positive scaling, at least on spells.. For example, the 2nd-level spell Shatter deals 3d8 damage (average 13.5) while the Fireball deals 8d6 damage (average 28) despite being only one spell level higher. However, I do think that maybe comparing with 5E isn't the best idea when it comes to this sort of thing since abilities in Tabletop Arcade really are quite different to 5E's spells. Either way, something worth considering going forwards. The only way I can think to implement something along these lines without adding loads of needless complexity is to add an upfront cost of making your abilities deal damage - this way, the average cost per die of damage would be lower for higher numbers of dice.
One of the things I'm most worried about is how multi-targeting abilities scale in cost as well. My initial system was just multiply the cost of the ability by the number of targets. This was always planned as a placeholder until I found something better, but I ended up changing it sooner than expected to a messy system I'm not entirely happy with. This is all down to Acid Splash. At the end of the document, I test out converting some 5E cantrips into abilities. The MP cost of Acid Splash was 0 before adding the extra target. It was 0 after adding the extra target too. I had once again run into problems with the accursed number zero. If you designed an ability with an MP cost of 0, you might as well make it able to target 100 creatures at once, the cost will be the same. So the placeholder was replaced with another placeholder, messier but more functional. I'm not a fan of the current system, purely because of how dang wordy it is. On the mathematical side, I do like the effects - in a nutshell, it scales multi-targeting abilities more harshly if their cost is low, and less harshly if it is high. I've tried but I can't think of a more elegant solution. And I really, really want a more elegant solution.
A slightly more minor concern is about how to use skills with Support abilities. The current implementation of skills adding to boon duration is okay, but is really only there because I couldn't think of anything else. Also it doesn't add anything to abilities that just heal, but that's more of an edge case that I'm not too worried about. The only other decent implementation I can think of is having some version of an "attack roll" for support abilities. The main problem here is finding the difficulty class of the roll. I also reckon that the dice eating your Support ability would feel a lot worse than missing an attack, since in the latter case at least there's an antagonist to blame. Quick side note, the current way boon duration works is also a little sketch, since the length of a typical boon should probably be different depending on the average length of a combat encounter, but that can be tweaked later on.
ContentTM
Alrighty, for those of you who wanted to skip over the concerns now would be a good time to resume viewing. I should probably quickly note that I decided to axe having Armour as a defence score while writing this chapter. Drawing the line between Guard and Armour just seemed a bit too subjective when I was testing stuff out. You can still make abilities that ignore equipment using the rules, but this has been moved into a specific ability property. Okay I'm done rambling here's the chapter.The document on GM Binder: TA Abilities Draft Chapter
That's it for today, hope y'all like it. Not to flip-flop or anything, but I'm beginning to feel unsure about the new name. "Tabletop Arcade" just isn't getting me there right now. I don't know, maybe it'll grow on me. Next week will probably be another draft chapter, I hope to see you then!
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