Hydaelyn Role-Players

I am starting to get a better view, not much random, so that sounds actually quite interesting. You choose to act or not if you decide that your char is ready/able or not right?

Sounds good, thanks for the clarification.

(02-12-2016, 06:59 AM)Valence Wrote: [ -> ]I am starting to get a better view, not much random, so that sounds actually quite interesting. You choose to act or not if you decide that your char is ready/able or not right?

Sounds good, thanks for the clarification.

We roll for initiative at the start of the fight, so players take it in turns to perform their actions. Of course, you can choose not to act if you want to- and some actions and abilities require you to skip turns or use the turn to make a movement, etc. But yeah! It's an RP tool, so if your character chooses to pass this turn because they were hurt or distracted by something then by all means.

This system is REALLY cool, maximum props to you all for putting this together! I've found combat systems like this work really well for story driven FC events and the like. I really like the feedback that's coming out of this too, may need to post our system and see what you guys think and recommendations you all have! Awesome job!

I'll be incredibly blunt. I actually adore the system since I've joined and I have an incredible amount of fun in my spare time just putting random character sheets together to see what sort of potential I could pull from it. I also love the events because they're relatively quick without everyone constantly rolling hit/miss chances or really, rolling at all unless a specific skill demands it.

Currently, my main character is a jack-of-all-trades type mender/support character who allows fellow menders the ability to damage enemies via the power to inflict zombie on enemies. At the time of this posting, I think I'm one of the only 'Freelancer' types of the group because it better reflects his choice to never focus on one field but rather horde any aetheric knowledge he can. So here's my sheet so you can get a look at what they're capable of even without a job!


Erimmont Chevalier 


Note: He doesn't use any of the undead spells unless there's obviously a corpse to make use of and while I have an item list there, I've only added what is most common for him to carry.

Not sure if this count's as raising a thread from the dead, but I have finally/formally uploaded the 1.0 version. It seems much more complete now and my patch notes will be much more clean/formal than before.

Hope everyone enjoys it \o/

Nice job!
I wondered something else, since I have yet to try it (and i'm currently planning to thus the question), but since people seem to say that it goes a lot quicker since there is no dice rolls... But all the calculations, don't they take time to process? I mean, between initiative rolls, AP, damage, vulnerability stacks, etc etc...? How do you keep the flow of things with those?

(03-23-2016, 04:52 AM)Valence Wrote: [ -> ]Nice job!
I wondered something else, since I have yet to try it (and i'm currently planning to thus the question), but since people seem to say that it goes a lot quicker since there is no dice rolls... But all the calculations, don't they take time to process? I mean, between initiative rolls, AP, damage, vulnerability stacks, etc etc...? How do you keep the flow of things with those?

We actually have a sheet in the we used to keep track of turns and actions, and I saved a copy of it in the CS for people to take. I also made sure to make the character sheet have calculators built in so all you need to do is input the numbers and it will take care of the rest. \o/

I do not think we ever needed to pause for anything more than a moment, and usually there is plenty of time waiting for an RP post to calculate the number before hand.

I... guess i'm still struggling to use it efficiently for now... I mean, when I GM an event I am already literally crawling under RP emotes and actions taken by everyone and have to write consequences for each of them while still keeping a RP flow... It's like, 8 times what you have to write as a simple player.

Now I struggle to even imagine how I could take the extra time to enter all those little vulnerability stacks and damage/AP numbers for everyone at each of their actions, especially when you have like 8 people actively RPing...

Do you delegate a lot maybe?

Often we do, if you look at the combat sheet tab, we have it set up that people take care of their own HP/AP/statuses, etc.. Typically the GM focuses more on mobs and the crew on themselves. The combat sheet also has calculations built in to help make keeping track of number easier!

We personally made a copy of that sheet and moved it to a separate document where everyone can edit when we run our events. It makes things easier for everyone in the end as they are only focused on themselves and what they plan on doing. 

In terms of order, we usually roll initiative first then the GM puts the names and everyone inputs their info. 

Here is a visible example of the sheet in use (ignore Malady, was a GM created status for the boss):

I derped and quoted instead of edited

Thanks for the clarification!

Mh, last question (I think), what is "base" on the char sheet, next to the damage column?

(03-23-2016, 07:23 PM)Valence Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for the clarification!

Mh, last question (I think), what is "base" on the char sheet, next to the damage column?

No problem! I am more than happy to answer any question!

Base is where you put the values (instead of 0) so the calculator can put it all together!

For example:

VIT Protection Calculator:
                             12   0
Buff/Debuff 1: Living Wall 3
Buff/Debuff 2: Protectra 2
Buff/Debuff 3: Defensive Stance 1

12 is the total protection

Ah ok it's all the little potential additions to the base stats.

I'm leaving the system as it is for the moment until I get more feedback for the next set of changes. Right now I haven't been hearing too much from anyone, and I do not want to blindly change anything.
If you have any feedback/suggestions/comments, please let me know!

I have had the occasion to try it the last week on a trial event I ran, and it works very well. Of course I 'dumbed' it down a bit so that folks don't get too terrorized by all those sheets and numbers (especially the non tabletop people and total neophytes)... And so, actually, even without the stacking system (stacks, etc), the AP regen, the thing is pretty solid! What I liked with that is that you can remove stuff or add stuff pretty easily and adapt it and it still works nice.

Then of course since it was kind of like a tutorial for everyone it felt like the amount of HP for playable characters was colossal, but then again, I bet you can make other mobs more lethal... Especially if we also start to deal in AoEs and the likes... But yeah, I may feel the thing is not lethal enough, for example if you put 2 characters against each other. You might need more than 8-10 turns to finish it. It takes time. Well then again, I guess it's a matter of preferences and I might reduce it a little on the freelancer base the next time since our group mostly plays average characters/mercs after all.

Would also love a better way to swap stances on the character sheets but I can't think of one sadly... I guess it's the limits of the googledocs sheets (though those still perform outstandingly well in the end).

I may have noticed a few things that seemed a bit weird to me in terms of balance, maybe, but that's rather minor... For example, maybe it's actually what was desired behind, but what is the point for a character to use Grit as a DRK if he also has the defensive stance that outperforms it in every way? Maybe it's the idea though? I don't remember every little thing like that I spotted like that sadly though... Not that much in any case.

Mh also, more on a personal feedback and tastes, I find that the general magic categories are way too encompassing in terms of magic, even if you have to take all the levels up to compensate... So I like to play it a bit differently here and I split them all into magical disciplines the same way they are already for example for enfeebling magic, protective/supportive magic, healing magic, etc. I basically just broke down the Magic lvl1, 2, 3 into elemental magic basically, getting rid of all the redundancies found in those containers to let them specific to their own categories (so basically magic becomes elemental magic and the rest disappears and gets back to their own, like lore, enfeebling, etc etc). I find it a bit better to make distinctions between thaumaturges and conjurers, even if in technical lore they should have access to the same kind of spell arsenal... It allows me to introduce the schools of thoughts that they are taught and that way the only thing they really share most of the time is elemental magic... Also of course, those characters that want to be conjurers and still deal in enfeebling magic rather than supportive, can! And vice versa for thaumaturges that want to support/heal. The basic set remains elemental magic and you can build around that.

So yeah, personal taste mostly. I think both ways work fine to me.

I also found a way to simulate a little the differences in terms of character power and experience. Some characters are very green while others are grizzled. So my take on that was to get the magic levels (1, 2, 3...) as an example for everything, and apply it to every commands: for example, I can have healing lvl1, lvl2 and lvl3. I just weed out all the biggest and nastiest stuff for lvl1 characters, like, a lvl 1 character will only have access to cure and not cura/curaga. A lvl 2 will have access to cura, but not curaga, etc.

Again, personal take on it... And that's what I like with the system: you can modulate your own stuff.

I will try to give more feedback the next time I use it since I have only had the time for now to do a few turns of combat...