Difference between revisions of "Talk:Scratch"

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==movement abilities should be more useful when escaping==
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==Toughness is Overpowered==
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As the Scratch system has evolved, hit points have gradually increased relative to the damage of attack abilities, so everybody wants to be a tank because hit points guarantee you will last longer.
  
Movement abilities are not as useful as they should be when escaping.
+
Currently our official average hit points are about right (3 for an unarmored average person, 4 or 5 for a "squishy" PC, 6 or more for a tank) and the power of our attack abilities is about right (some people say they are too powerful, some say they have been nerfed, so that suggests we have hit the sweet spot.)
Only hold and getting incapacitated can prevent you from escaping.
 
The movement ability bonus to agility does not help you avoid holds, and you lose the bonus once you are held. Ideas for making movement abilities more useful while escaping:
 
  
*add movement abilities to strength when you evade
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So how do we tweak the incentives so that squishy characters will be happy with 4 or 5 hit points, but tanks will still want to have lots of hit points?
**This is my favorite of these options.--[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 01:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 
**What if it also added to your intelligence while evading?--[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 01:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 
***it would make it harder to delay you with a distract action while evading
 
****evading the distraction makes narrative sense
 
****this helps you escape because delaying prevents escape
 
***it would make it harder to panic you with a surprise or delay action while evading
 
****does not help you escape - panicked characters can still evade and escape.
 
****keeps you from having to evade again or escape next turn
 
****does evading a surprise make narrative sense?
 
****does evading intimidation make narrative sense?
 
*hold against an evading character has to roll higher than both agility and strength
 
*hold always has to roll higher than both agility and strength
 
  
==holding the person who is holding you==
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We already have the engage action, which helps tanks absorb damage by drawing aggro. In playtesting, healers are more likely to be targeted by holds than high-damage attacks, so wrestling (to increase strength) might actually be better for healers than lots of toughness. Healers and long-range attackers can also take cover.
  
The big risk of getting someone in a hold in real-life is that they can also grab you, immobilizing you as well, even if they have an inferior hold. So you should be able to hold someone who is holding you. Should you be able to do this whenever you are delayed or only when you are delayed by a hold?
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====Bug to Feature====
  
==taking cover while reloading==
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Context could play a big part here, because this problem is likely to be fixed by the skill system intended for Squawk 2nd Ed.  TDW might be the last game in the foreseeable future that uses Scratch without skills.  ''In TDW, there is a really good narrative to why PCs should gain toughness more often than other abilities'', which the following text could be added to TDW to explain:
 +
:Essence often warps Sorcerers into more powerful forms, increasing their size, natural armor, or other physical alterations that make them more physically resilient.  Therefore, it is appropriate for Sorcerers to use essence to gain Toughness more often than other abilities.
 +
If we go with this option, this Toughness balance issue can be tabled until we are using skills in Scratch.
  
It makes sense for someone to be using the same cover they had before, even if their projectile weapon has a lot of kick or takes a while to reload. So should you be able to take cover when you are delayed by your own shooting or blasting attack, or should you only be able to STAY in cover when you are delayed by your own shooting or blasting attack?
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====Real Solution====
  
==grid movement when you are delayed by your own moves==
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What if we had a rule for all injured or incapacitated characters (including minions) that between encounters they only heal to barely-healthy, unless they can make a detection, craftsmanship or healing roll to regenerate themselves to full HP?
  
*Being delayed by your own knockout, shooting or blasting shouldn't keep you from moving.
+
:This would decrease the guarantee that hit points make you last longer, which would be good.
*Getting delayed by a hold action should keep you from moving.
 
*Should being delayed by a distract action keep you from moving?
 
*Should we distinguish delayed vs. delayed + immobilized with technical terms?
 
  
==balance between abilities==
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:Can you use your roll to heal an ally instead of yourself?
  
Here's how I estimate the approximate value of each ability at each level. This scale is adjusted so that 1 level of an attack ability is worth 1. It's not exactly the same as the CP scale.
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::"Yes" makes more narrative sense IMHO. --[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 10:17, 25 June 2011 (PDT)
  
{|style="text-align:center;"
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:This should be the rule for a "normal" encounter cycle. Depending on the game this could mean a short rest, a month or a year of rehabilitation. Within each game there may be some back-to-back encounters without the opportunity to heal, and there may be longer breaks or full healing services at some points in a long campaign (i.e. "return to town".)
!ability!!1!!2!!3!!4!!5!!6!!7!!8!!9!!10!!explanation
 
|-
 
|toughness||-15||-5||0||3||5||7||9||11||12||13
 
|style="text-align:left;"|
 
*none of the other abilities are useful when you are incapacitated
 
*attack abilities are less useful when you are injured
 
*Toughness is especially valuable at low levels when you have a high risk of getting injured or incapacitated by each attack.
 
|-
 
|attack&nbsp;abilities,<br>craftsmanship,<br>healing ||1||2||3||4||5||6||7||8||9||10
 
|style="text-align:left;"|
 
*+5 for your first attack ability because it doubles attack power when healthy
 
*+1 for craftsmanship versatility?
 
*+5 for healing (potentially heals several points of damage.)
 
|-
 
|stalking abilities||1||2||3||4||5||6||7||8||9||10
 
|style="text-align:left;"|
 
*+1 for your first stalking ability (surprise action)
 
*Stealth and detection give you an up-front initiative bonus.
 
*The huge detection bonus to initiative makes up for the difference between the value of agility and intelligence.
 
|-
 
|movement abilities||&frac34;||1&frac12;||2&frac14;||3||3&frac34;||4&frac12;||5&frac14;||6||6&frac34;||7&frac12;
 
|style="text-align:left;"|
 
*+5 for flying because non-flying characters can't hit you with close range attacks when you evade or use a long range attack
 
*+&frac12; for swimming because non-swimmers and long-range attacks can't hit you when you use swimming to evade
 
*swimming gives you strength instead of agility, but both attack and agility in water
 
|-
 
|command||2||4||6||8||10||12||14||16||18||20
 
|style="text-align:left;"|
 
*If you have 2 minions, you can do 3 actions per turn
 
*You can cause up to 12 damage in a single turn (knockout)
 
*You can cause up to 9 damage every turn (blasting)
 
|}
 
  
===how overpowered is command?===
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:The normal encounter cycle should also be the cycle for changing craftsmanship bonuses.
  
At level 10 you can have two 5 CP minions with 1 attack ability level and 4 toughness. These are probably the optimum attack-oriented minions, or close to it. They have above-average, normal-for-PCs toughness. They let you attack three times as often, tripling your success rate.
+
:You should not be able to respec minions in the normal encounter cycle. You need a longer break ("return to town") to replace, modify or retrain your minions.
 
 
The command ability values above assume the value of being able to attack twice as often is 10 and the value of being able to attack three times as often is 20. This is probably an over-estimation of the value of command ability. Command ability minions cannot be healed, and they can be injured more easily than a powerful PC (the sort that would have 10 command ability.) Attack abilities double the damage you can do when healthy and this only gives them a value bonus of 5.
 
 
 
===are movement abilities powerful enough?===
 
 
 
*I have valued movement abilities at &frac34; of the value of attack ability levels
 
**agility does not protect you against all attacks
 
**evade is only used in tight spots
 
**movement ability holds do not cause damage like wrestling
 
 
 
But movement abilities are the ONLY way to get agility. --[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 17:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 
 
 
:You also get agility from stealth.
 
:*The value of each stealth level is agility + surprise + 2 &times; initiative.
 
:*The value of a movement level is agility + frequency of terrain type &times; (hold + evade)
 
:--[[User:SerpLord|SerpLord]] 20:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 
 
 
Does the fact that only movement abilities and stealth give you agility make any difference? --[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 17:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 
 
 
:Agility is a very important defense that you can only increase with those abilities, but you can use an attack ability every single time you attack and you cannot choose which defense you will use when you are attacked. --[[User:SerpLord|SerpLord]] 20:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)--
 
 
 
What if movement abilities are the only ability bonus for distract? --[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 17:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 
 
 
:Then the value of a movement level would be agility + frequency of terrain type &times; (distract + hold + evade). Here's the frequency of terrain types in [[The Dark Woods]]:
 
 
 
:*5/9 areas have quickness movement
 
:*6/9 areas have flying movement
 
:*5/9 areas have acrobatics movement
 
:*2/9 areas have swimming movement
 
 
 
:I would guess that most games would have quickness movement in 8/9 areas, but otherwise The Dark Woods is typical. This suggests that terrain-specific advantages can be used most of the time with quickness or flying, a bit less often with acrobatics, and only rarely with swimming. If we allow movement abilities to be used for the distract action, would this be limited by terrain type?  If so, then it would significantly increase the value of each level of movement ability ''except for swimming.'' --[[User:SerpLord|SerpLord]] 20:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 
 
 
==distraction abilities==
 
 
 
You should be able to add ANY ability level except for toughness to a distract roll (close range delay attack vs. intelligence)
 
 
 
Pro:
 
 
 
*distract does not currently have an ability bonus
 
*toughness is by far the most useful ability
 
*players can have fun inventing their own tricks for distracting enemies
 
 
 
Con:
 
 
 
*vague narrative
 
*a player can throw a random ability at an enemy, leaving other players scratching their heads about what happened.
 
 
 
This is a sort of "attack by role-playing."
 
 
 
:Some abilities seem more suited to distract than others: acrobatics, detection, stealth, command seem much more appropriate than craftsmanship and healing.  In between are the combat abilities and other movement abilities. --[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 04:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 
 
 
::Movement abilities seem like they would be useful for distracting in environments where they can be used to evade. If these were the ONLY abilities that could be used for distraction, this would help balance the abilities (downside: stealth could not be used for distraction) --[[User:SerpLord|SerpLord]] 14:32, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 
 
 
::: I like the idea of only using movement abilities for distraction.  While it does not explain why some abilitiy's can NOT be used for distraction, it does not do a greater evil, which is to have an explaination-defying selection of abilities do distraction.  IMHO this is our best choice so far for haviing ability bonuses apply to distraction. --[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 04:15, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 
  
 
==more realistic healing options==
 
==more realistic healing options==
:I am wondering about a simplified healing rule for TDW that works like this:
 
*Each character can only be healed once per encounter (so that "recieve healing" or "regenerate" is more or less an unrepeatable action.)
 
*When a character is successfully healed, he goes to his stamina +1 (barely healthy) state, regardless of weather he was only injured or incapacitated before.
 
**A possible variation on this is that incapacitated characters simply can't be healed inside of one encounter.  But in TDW, healing the incapacitated is fine. --[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 18:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 
  
 +
Note: the three main scratch projects right now (TDW, HoW, Squawk 2nd Ed.) are fantasy/sci-fi with lots of explanations for "unrealistic healing."  IMHO this rule may be decided on in the not-near future.--[[User:BFGalbraith|BFGalbraith]] 14:31, 20 June 2011 (PDT)
  
 
games without healing ability (dinosaurs and prehistoric animals)
 
games without healing ability (dinosaurs and prehistoric animals)

Latest revision as of 01:17, 30 June 2011

Toughness is Overpowered[edit]

As the Scratch system has evolved, hit points have gradually increased relative to the damage of attack abilities, so everybody wants to be a tank because hit points guarantee you will last longer.

Currently our official average hit points are about right (3 for an unarmored average person, 4 or 5 for a "squishy" PC, 6 or more for a tank) and the power of our attack abilities is about right (some people say they are too powerful, some say they have been nerfed, so that suggests we have hit the sweet spot.)

So how do we tweak the incentives so that squishy characters will be happy with 4 or 5 hit points, but tanks will still want to have lots of hit points?

We already have the engage action, which helps tanks absorb damage by drawing aggro. In playtesting, healers are more likely to be targeted by holds than high-damage attacks, so wrestling (to increase strength) might actually be better for healers than lots of toughness. Healers and long-range attackers can also take cover.

Bug to Feature[edit]

Context could play a big part here, because this problem is likely to be fixed by the skill system intended for Squawk 2nd Ed. TDW might be the last game in the foreseeable future that uses Scratch without skills. In TDW, there is a really good narrative to why PCs should gain toughness more often than other abilities, which the following text could be added to TDW to explain:

Essence often warps Sorcerers into more powerful forms, increasing their size, natural armor, or other physical alterations that make them more physically resilient. Therefore, it is appropriate for Sorcerers to use essence to gain Toughness more often than other abilities.

If we go with this option, this Toughness balance issue can be tabled until we are using skills in Scratch.

Real Solution[edit]

What if we had a rule for all injured or incapacitated characters (including minions) that between encounters they only heal to barely-healthy, unless they can make a detection, craftsmanship or healing roll to regenerate themselves to full HP?

This would decrease the guarantee that hit points make you last longer, which would be good.
Can you use your roll to heal an ally instead of yourself?
"Yes" makes more narrative sense IMHO. --BFGalbraith 10:17, 25 June 2011 (PDT)
This should be the rule for a "normal" encounter cycle. Depending on the game this could mean a short rest, a month or a year of rehabilitation. Within each game there may be some back-to-back encounters without the opportunity to heal, and there may be longer breaks or full healing services at some points in a long campaign (i.e. "return to town".)
The normal encounter cycle should also be the cycle for changing craftsmanship bonuses.
You should not be able to respec minions in the normal encounter cycle. You need a longer break ("return to town") to replace, modify or retrain your minions.

more realistic healing options[edit]

Note: the three main scratch projects right now (TDW, HoW, Squawk 2nd Ed.) are fantasy/sci-fi with lots of explanations for "unrealistic healing." IMHO this rule may be decided on in the not-near future.--BFGalbraith 14:31, 20 June 2011 (PDT)

games without healing ability (dinosaurs and prehistoric animals)

hardcore

  • HP never goes up during combat
    • damage always represents injuries that take a long time to heal.
    • It never represents physical or psychic pain, suffocation or stunning effects that people can recover from during combat. (This could make the rule incompatible with some settings or other optional rules like skills.)
  • healing still used in combat with death rules?
    • does first aid remove the healer from combat?
      • NO, either you can use healing as a combat action or you don't use healing until hostilities stop. This is all about how you interpret the duration of combat.
        • If you insist on a very quick flow of combat without pauses for maneuvering and orientation (combat takes seconds), then there is not time in a battle to treat multiple injured allies, and it is not necessary or even appropriate to treat injured allies during combat.
        • If combat turns are more like camera shots in an action movie and clashes in a real fight, which are interrupted by pauses and maneuvers that vary in duration (combat takes minutes), there is time in a battle to treat multiple injured allies or treat an ally and then return fire at an enemy.

milder

  • you can only be healed from being incapacitated once per battle. We could give this state a name, like convalescent or wounded.
  • we could also limit each healer to healing one character form injured to healthy once per battle.

healing between battles

  • everybody heals to stamina + 1 between battles (balance and stability - game designers know you will have most of your HP when you enter a battle.)
  • make toughness roll to heal yourself to full HP
  • make healing roll for each ally to heal them to full HP

healing skills

  • special healing skills might be able to heal you when normal healing actions cannot.
  • special toughness skills might allow you to be healed more often.
  • toughness skills that help you be healed?

optional death rules[edit]

realistic or brutal games like Resilience might have death rules that add dramatic tension and character expendability.