Talk:Scratch

taking cover while reloading

The bonus and penalty from take cover should last as long as you want, but while you are in cover, you cannot do a close range attack, evade, intimidate or surprise.

You can use healing ability, do long range attacks (with the -2 penalty) or choose to do nothing while you take cover.

Does it make sense to take cover when you are healing an ally?

• Answer 1: no, you cannot using healing while you are in cover.
  • pro: wounded allies may not have cover, and dragging them to cover might be slow and dangerous.
  • con: wounded allies may have cover, and you may not need to expose yourself to treat them.
• Answer 2: the -2 to ranged attacks should apply to healing rolls as well.
  • pro: healing techniques are not optimized for combat
  • con: you can take cover while you heal an ally who did not take cover (drag them to a place where you can safely treat them?)

Answer 1 seems like a slightly simpler rule, but it has a bigger narrative hole, so I think Answer 2 is better. --SerpLord 21:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I like 2 because it seems to fit in better with the rest of the system (see Notes below.)--BFGalbraith 19:07, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Notes:

• being held or distracted while you are in cover does not make you leave cover.
• panicked characters do not instantaneously leave cover, but they do leave cover when they evade.

grid movement penalty for being injured?

Injuring someone should help you hunt them down easier, so there should be a movement penalty for being injured, like 2 spaces for anyone who is injured.--BFGalbraith 18:09, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

A 2 space penalty would make it impossible to move over rough terrain without acrobatics or flying ability. A 1 space penalty would not. --SerpLord

1 space would be good for me, since even one space is significant with the grid rules. I feel strongly that injured status should have grid movement impaired by (at least) one space. --BFGalbraith 08:18, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

grid movement over mixed terrain

The grid rules currently state:

• how far you can fly
• how far you can move over flat ground
• how far you can move over a combination of flat ground and rough terrain
• how far you can swim

They do not state how far you can move through some combinations of terrain types, including a very important one: mixed ground and water.

Option A: one ability at a time

This is similar to the current grid rules, with some significant differences (acrobatics movement is slightly faster, swimming movement lets you move over rough terrain and flat ground.)

• You can move 4 spaces over ground
• or you can move 2 spaces over ground and rough terrain
• or you can use quickness ability to move 4 spaces + 1 space / 2 levels of quickness over ground
• or you can use acrobatics ability to move 3 spaces + 1 space / 2 levels of acrobatics over ground and rough terrain
• or you can use flying ability to move 4 spaces + 1 space / 2 levels of flying in the air
• or you can use swimming ability to move 2 spaces + 1 space / 2 levels of swimming in water, over ground and over rough terrain.

Option B: combine abilities

This is simpler, though it does have the weird side effect that characters who have a combination of different movement abilities can move faster over an obstacle course of mixed terrain types than a single terrain type.

• Everyone has at least 4 spaces of movement.
• It takes 2 spaces of movement to move 1 space over rough terrain or in water.
• Every 2 levels of quickness gives you 1 extra space of ground movement. (This space cannot be used to move over rough terrain or in water.)
• Every 2 levels of flying gives you 1 extra space of air movement. (This space cannot be used to move in tight places where you cannot fly.)
• Every level of acrobatics gives you 1 extra space of rough terrain movement (but it still takes 2 of these spaces to move 1 space over rough terrain.)
• Every level of swimming gives you 1 extra space of water movement (but it still takes 2 of these spaces to move 1 space in water.)

I strongly prefer Option B for two reasons: 1 to me it seems to reward characters for having a variety of abilities (a rare trait for a rule in Scratch,) and 2 it's simplicity is significant, I could see using option B, but option A I would be tempted to ignore. --BFGalbraith 08:27, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

describing abilities

Scratch abilities are less specific than the skills in some games and more specific than the basic attributes of characters in other games. People making characters are expected to give their abilities a more specific description, but this is difficult for some players. We should provide examples that players can follow when describing each of their abilities, using "could represent" language.

The things an ability "could represent" should be text a person making a character could copy or easily paraphrase as a description of his own character's abilities if he cannot think of anything better. For example if we say "fighting could represent prowess with swords or natural weapons." Then a player could use "swords" or "natural weapons" as the description of his fighting ability, and now his character is much more fleshed out.

"Toughness ability level is a character's maximum hit points, and represents armor, size or other damage-resisting traits. Characters who are big, physically fit, armored or highly motivated usually have 4 or more toughness. A cop who stays in shape and wears light body armor would have at least 4 toughness while a large, highly trained, veteran medieval warrior in heavy body armor could have 8 toughness. A child or elderly person may have only 2 toughness. The average horse might have 6 toughness. A war elephant with light body armor would have at least 10 toughness. Some characters might have only 1 toughness because they are particularly fragile or because they are unmotivated and give up as soon as they are injured. Characters without toughness may not perform actions during encounters."

This provides examples of characters with toughness, but glosses over how a specific character would describe his toughness. We need both description and scale examples, and we should be very clear about it.

"Toughness ability level is a character's maximum hit points. Characters without toughness may not perform actions during encounters. An average person without armor has 3 toughness. Less toughness could represent fragility or lack of determination. A child or elderly person might have only 2 toughness. More toughness could represent armor, endurance or size. A big person without armor or conditioning might have 4 toughness. The average horse could have 6 toughness, and the average elephant might have 10 toughness. Training and experience could give a character 1 or 2 more levels of toughness, and heavy armor might give a character 2 more levels of toughness, so a big, heavily armored veteran warrior could have 8 toughness."

Attack abilities currently have no examples of what they could represent.

"Shooting could represent guns, bows, throwing spears or powers that damage an enemy from a distance."

"Blasting could represent explosive or spraying attacks like grenades, a submachine gun or breathing fire."

"Knockout could represent a powerful bludgeoning weapon, deadly assassination techniques, fast-acting venom or a very large character simply crushing his enemies."

"Fighting could represent prowess with swords, other close range weapons, natural weapons or powerful striking martial arts."

"Wrestling could represent chokes, locks and throws or a mixture of grappling and striking techniques."

Stalking abilities explain what they do, but not what they could represent.

Movement abilities explain where they can be used, but not what they could represent.

There are no examples of what healing ability could represent.

"Craftsmanship is an ability which allows a character to maintain and improve his allies' equipment."

This explains what craftsmanship does, but not what it could be.

There is an example of a specific character with command ability but no list of what it could represent.

I agree that abilities should be described better in the Scratch RPS.--BFGalbraith 14:33, 20 June 2011 (PDT)

balance between abilities

Most of our ability levels are well-balanced. Increasing stalking ability, movement ability, craftsmanship or healing from level 1 to level 2 is worth about the same increasing an attack ability from level 1 to level 2. (Swimming levels might be a little underpowered.)

Command ability is worth about 3 times as much as other abilities against enemies with 11 defense, about twice as much as other abilities against enemies with 16 defense, and about the same as other abilities against enemies with 20 defense.

We could reign in command by thinking beyond the individual encounter. Perhaps healing and replacing command ability minions is more difficult than healing and replacing PCs between encounters. --SerpLord 22:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

What if minions only heal one health-state between encounters? So if a minion was incapacitated, he only has 1 HP at the beginning of the next encounter. If he was injured, he is only bare-healthy, and he only has full HP if he was still healthy at the end of his last encounter.--BFGalbraith 18:26, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I like this. By healing about 1/3 as fast as PCs, the minions are just about balanced. It has some interesting side effects to think about (some may be good. some may be not so good.) --SerpLord 22:28, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

• The effect is stronger for tougher minions (you need 3 HP to have all 4 health states)
• This gives players an incentive to have two weak minions instead of one tough one.
• players still have a strong incentive to build command up to about level 6.

IMHO those are basically good side-effects. --BFGalbraith 08:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Toughness is worth more than other abilities at most single-digit levels. Instead of a more or less even distribution of a characters with 5 to 10 toughness at the end of the game, optimizing players will ALL have 9 toughness at the end of the game, and very low levels of other abilities that don't pay off as much per level.

Is this still a problem when considering the following? level 3 toughness is like having level 0 in anything else, it's sort of the bare-minimum for a PC-quality character. Level 1 or 2 toughness is like having a negetive ability level in anything else. So ability level 9 toughness is just like having ability level 6 in any other ability. --BFGalbraith 18:21, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, each single-digit toughness level is worth more than any level of another ability other than level 1 and command ability. This is more extreme in the case of low levels like 3 toughness and barely significant in the case of 9 toughness. The critical area however is levels 4 through 8. This means in TDW there is no way to strategically justify a character with less than 6 toughness. (If you have 6 toughness and 6 command you will still have 3 CP for any other abilities you might want.) --SerpLord 22:28, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

We could reign in toughness by thinking beyond the individual encounter. For example suppose sorcerers in TDW automatically heal up to stamina + 1 between encounters. Then they can make a detection, craftsmanship or healing roll to regenerate themselves to full HP. (Note: toughness was not in that list.) If we want to be even more brutal, we can have the difficulty depend on your toughness, stamina or the amount of damage you have taken. --SerpLord 22:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I like this rule, but this is no small change in the game balance of TDW since the NPCs don't have to worry about healing between turns. What if we had a resting rule in TDW that said if you intentionally skip a turn you can automatically heal to full HP if you don't succeed on your healing rolls? --BFGalbraith 08:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I like damage-taken as a difficulty to healing, but not toughness or stamina. --BFGalbraith 19:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Having at least 1 level of certain abilities adds extra value.

• (~5 levels) your first attack ability doubles attack power when healthy
• (~5 levels) healing potentially heals several points of damage
• (~5 levels) non-flying characters can't hit flying characters with close range attacks when they evade or use a long range attack
• (~1 level) craftsmanship versatility
• (~1 level) your first stalking ability (surprise action)
• (~½ level) command ability intimidate action
• (~½ level) non-swimmers and long-range attacks can't hit character who use swimming to evade
• (0 levels) other movement aiblities

more realistic healing options

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?

healing once

It seems that the two simplest options are to allow unlimited healing, or to allow healing only once per encounter. Which should be the default Scratch rule? Unlimited healing is currently in place. We could conceivably have one of the following healing once per encounter rules:

• Characters can only be healed once per encounter, but healing always restores the character to healthy (stamina +1) regardless of weather they are injured or incapacitated.
• Like the last one above, but instead the character is always restored to full hit points. This would do the most to make up for only being healed once per round, and is much cooler than having to count how many times your character has been healed.
• Healing could only be used on injured characters to make them healthy. I like this option, because IMHO recapitalization someone is beyond the scope of any encounter, as is restoring them to full hit points. This may be too extreme of an adjustment and adversely influence game balance.

IMHO all of these once-per-encounter healing rules are better than what we have now, and also IMHO I can live with what we have now. So if we decide to have unlimited healing as default, simply delete this "healing once" section and we'll be done with this topic.--BFGalbraith 14:23, 20 June 2011 (PDT)

optional death rules

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