sentry0
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Everything posted by sentry0
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I updated the spreadsheet. I did some custom scripting so that the values you calculated show up as tooltips for the user. Now when you edit the DC column the tooltips will automatically update for you. I think it's unobtrusive this way, people can choose to ignore it and adjust things however they see fit. I ditched the dropdown pickers... they actually didn't allow for editing after the fact which is exactly what I don't want 😁 I cut a new version of the sheet at v0.0.3-alpha.
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I doubt anyone in the writers' pen ever built an NPC as we build our personal characters we play. Honestly, I'm less inclined to worry about the historical data so much as a point of curiosity. When I build NPCs, I don't care too much about point values and whatnot. They'll just be what they need to be. That's why I favor not going too much on the automation side because that's really a question the GM should decide anyway.
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Again, this is super cool. I already have a few ideas percolating about what to do with this information that may be useful. I'm thinking something simple like a set of cells that suggest the 'optimal', i.e., calculated value for when someone sets the campaign baseline DC value. People can safely ignore it that way 😁
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From the file itself (emphasis mine)... And further in... So because it doesn't work in some scenarios we should toss it? Is that the argument?
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I was messing around, and I felt that that whole weighting disproportionally favored offense and had been weighted some time ago by myself before certain additions were made to the sheet, like BODY. The main pivot points remain the most expensive, SPD and DCs are what I try to horsetrade at about a 1:2 ratio. I'm also rethinking the statement that you should keep things between +/-5% at character creation. I think doubling it to +/-10% adds much more flexibility for players to get those outliers (Bricks and Speedsters) squeezed into the game. EGO is at 5% partially because I had 2 points left over 😁 Seriously though, many EGO powers like MC are directly tied to how high your ego is, so I think I think if anything perhaps it is still undervalued. It really all depends on the campaign and the commonality of psychic powers, also: pushing... it's all very subjective at the end of the day.
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I just cut a version called v0.0.1-alpha of the spreadsheet this morning... I reweighted the base percentages on the baseline table I think they're tighter and a little better, I dunno... you tell me I added some general statistics to the document I added a chart for people who like visuals (like me) The closer the character is to 0 the closer they are to the Rule of X The first character on the sheet is now used to run calculations on the subsequent characters I added the TTU and TTK columns to the character entries TTU is "Time To Unconscious" and it uses your STUN calc from the table you added TTK is "Time To Kill" and it uses the killing damage calc I did a pass through the 400 and 225-point characters we have on hand while messing around. 225pt has some egregious outliers like a 94 velocity on the Cheetah and 0 stats on the egoist. I added the "Standard Deviation" entry to the stats to try and shine a light on datasets with potential issues. These types of characters definitely will skew the calculations and one needs to be careful. The living brain things could be a very deadly fight for the players unless your campaign includes psychics to the point of it being common for Mental Defense, I wouldn't recommend pitting a group of egoists against a group of unprepared (low ego, no MD) players.
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I have just ported the spreadsheet from Excel to Google Sheets for faster collaboration. Here is a link - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_g56HAAm67LRC8u0T5KO-NCryRnBWFyu-aVBNqgip0U/edit?usp=sharing You will have to make a copy for now unless you (or anyone else who wants to collaborate) send me your email. I'll add you as an editor if you do. Let's keep the convo rolling here... I think it's a better place to collaborate for now.
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Slightly tweaked version... U4 (the sum of all weights) is now calculated instead of hardcoded I bumped the CSLs weight to 3 by dialing down the SPD/DC(oAP) weights by 0.5 points each rule_of_x r3.xlsx -
I think that we devalue BODY by 0.5 points and pop that onto the CSL weighting.
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Just because this has become a thing again for me, I wanted to (at the risk of rekindling a war) shine a light on some work being done on this old project.
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Wow, I love your addition to the sheet... cool stuff. I'm linking this post back to the main thread that spawned this ridiculous spreadsheet those years ago because there are probably people who may find this interesting but won't see the work on the forum itself because we're talking in a file thread (??? just guessing)
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Here's a new revision with multiple sheets and BODY in the calc... Have a look and let me know what you think. rule_of_x.xlsx
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I don't actually use that chart for much more than figuring out the general range I should be looking at. There was no scientific method used to get those numbers. Keep in mind that setting your bars low leaves room for growth. It's interesting to see the math as you have worked it out. I like my games a little more gritty, so I left rDEF low. It's ok to go over some things; for example, I often see a 6 SPD in my Champions games as average because players love to push this stat. It still fits into the overall 'Rule of X' calculation but costs them, which is fine because players should make choices. Conversely, I like to hard-cap DCs and AP in general for PLAYERS so there's a clear ceiling in what they can work with before needing to ask for an AP point-cap increase to meet a concept. 10 is a good number for DCs for 225. I like eight because it leaves room to grow for players, and they still are powerful enough to do fun stuff. Equipment bought off the shelf can be whatever it needs to be point-wise. It's ok if there's some scary stuff NPCs can use against the players. Are you allowing players to buy equipment off the shelf or asking them to pay points for them? That can have a pretty dramatic effect on your style of game and building. If I was a player and playing in a game where equipment can be bought and is equal to or more powerful than the PCs, then chances are you will see me gravitate towards equipment use and powers that enhance or aid me in other ways (Naked advantages, requiring a weapon to activate a power, etc). Yes, include anything the player has purchased as a defensive power with points. That means if they're a brick and purchased a lot of raw PD/ED you need to include the points spent there (the highest point value of PD/ED). I don't actually remember, it's been 5 years, but I think it gets its own entry because they are so versatile, able to apply to OCV/DCV or DC. Yes, we should work it into the equation. It's particularly relevant to your case if you're expecting players to get bloody.
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Question 1: How to calculate baselines for a given point value This is a big question, and it's hard to develop a simple calculation that applies to all entries on the chart in 6E1.35. The way I would suggest starting is to figure out your oAP and then work around that. Question 2: For what point value your baselines were calculated 400 points. I'm unsure what you mean by it slips in and out of Low and Standard supers. Question 3: What rules/assumptions undergird your calculations 3-4 hits from relatively equal-powered creatures should be enough to down the character seems reasonable to me; adjust as you feel fit. DEF should be around 2x to 2.5x the DC column rDEF should be about 40-70% of the DEF value (how deadly do you want the game?) As for your question about your calculations, they seem reasonable to me for 225-point characters. I did drop your oAP and DC columns significantly and re-adjust the DEF and rDEF columns. I just ballparked the dAP column. See the attached spreadsheet. I dropped the DCs so much because it keeps things fairly in line with the types of equipment you will find in those campaigns. This keeps the players' power in check by keeping their damage output relatively close to the types of equipment you will find in the books. I would love to work more with you on this. Perhaps we could modify the Spreadsheets and add tabs for each point level? What do you think? rule_of_x 225-r2.xlsx
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It really all depends on the type of game you are running. For a standard 4-color supers game in the Champions universe, I think the numbers in the baselines in the spreadhseet are ok.
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I like 6th edition's handling of Complications being less numerous and, by extension, a little more important. Complications/Disadvantages are a breath of fresh air compared to the traditional alignment systems and other systems that attempt to sum up an entire character's motivations in 2 words. Not to mention the number of arguments started by people on the nature of Good and Evil as they apply to fantasy games, I wouldn't say I like these philosophical debates these systems of morality cause in some games. What works in my Hero games is to write the character's background so that the Complications taken are reflected in the past motivations and actions. It makes for a believable character to say, "Karl enlisted and picked up the sword to defend his family and friends from the enemies of the crown after living in fear for his life on the kingdom's border." than "Karl's Lawful Good." One answer is boring and generic the other has something to work with motivation-wise. A story arc revolving around keeping the characters' home safe or DNPCs out of harm's way is hopefully more engaging to this player and the other players. Get people to bake the motivations into the character Complications and background story and you have a more cohesive picture and place to start playing from and planning games. It's a gigantic positive feature that is sometimes misunderstood as a chore.
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A Breakdown of Critical Role's new RPG
sentry0 replied to Scott Ruggels's topic in General Roleplaying
"The D&D monopoly ends here" Riiiiiiiiiiiiight... As an avid desktop Linux user, I support those crazy kids. Good luck with that 😂 -
I like the whole idea of this set of islands and think it is very well thought out. I can't comment on your concerns about representing something from the outside other than to say, treat it respectfully. It sounds like you are being quite thoughtful about the whole thing, which is a good sign.
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Yes, I can do this... I just did a quick Google search and saw an excellent library that does this for me; I should be able to pull it in. That feature branch is pretty old, but I think I could resurrect it without too much fuss. I can't promise anything because, if I remember correctly, I had to shim in many libs to get that to work. I will need to go back and see if my approach still works in today's modern environment and update some libs.
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It is funny you mention this feature because I was working on just such a feature right when COVID hit. It is sitting on a feature branch in the codebase. The idea was the GM would start a local server on their app. All players would join the game via a LAN connection, no remote connections. The GM can see player rolls but ONLY if they have have been focused by the GM in app. The GM could select the name of the player from a list and at that point on all rolls made by the player go to the GM. Also, I built in a simple message system that allows players and GMs to communicate. It got shelved when the world ground to a halt and the idea of playing in the same room became a little problematic. The main technical issue that I ran into was that both Android and iOS will put your app to sleep after a short period of time. For players, it's annoying because they have to rejoin the game. When the GM device goes to sleep, the game needs to be restarted. I'm a little mixed. I feel like because they devices go to sleep and muck up the connections it is too flakey to push into production. The idea of running a simple server somewhere to handle the issue is appealing to me, but I have no money to pay for it.
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I just popped into say there's a surpising amount of dark meat on a halfling.
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This commit should fix the costs issues with EC's. It also exposed a general issue with how lists were not reconciling exclusive modifiers. https://github.com/slackdaystudio/hero-system-mobile/commit/fdd73854a0179a7156b36c5703b7de13543015e6 I'm looking at the Mental Defense issue next then the HKA issue w/seconndary stats. Thanks for the characters... super helpful.
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I'm still determining where I'm going with this post, but I've been diving into the HSM code again, fixing some bugs, and it has me reflecting on the app itself. The app is coming up on its 5th anniversary, which is cool. Five years is a long time in development years, though, and a lot has changed in the React Native (React Native is a mobile app development framework, which HSM is built on) world in that time. Things continue to change in that world rapidly. When I built the app, I followed the suggested best practices at the time, which were then replaced by different best practices. Time has gone by, and I have built a few apps in that time using React Native. I follow the current suggested practices and work with up-to-date libraries whenever possible on my new apps. HSM is a bit long in the tooth and looks cluttered and janky to my eye now. It was the first app I ever developed, and it is showing its age. I want to table the idea of a ground-up rewrite of the app's user interface. Nothing changes in terms of how the app generally functions. You will still be able to load your Hero Designer characters up and use the app as you would today. I want to upgrade the app's main component library, for example. Upgrading this library is a breaking change in the HSM codebase (HSM uses v2 of the lib, and v3 is current) and would require a significant re-work. Upgrading the main component library will also change how the app looks and feels. Everything from input fields, sliders, dropdowns, and tabs would be affected. I also think there’s too much clutter in general in the UI. I want to re-think how some of the UI is presented to the user now. There’s too much information in the app, and maybe streamlining is in order. Anyways, let me know if you have any thoughts on the subject! The app is open source, and anyone who wants to help is welcome.
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My first session I GM'ed was basically ruined because one of our super soldier types rolled a 5d KA and rolled a ridiculous stun multiplier against the BBEG. Yes, this was when you rolled 1d6-1 to determine the stun multiplier so it was like over 130 stun or something IIRC. I faked it and said he was OK, I needed a few more rounds from him
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I don't know if I should be weighing in here of not but here goes. The effect of exploding dice is generally more noticeable if you have a smaller die pool. Why? Because less dice means less faces, less faces mean you have a greater chance at seeing the critical success or failure state come up. Finally, if you have a small dice pool to begin with, adding in an extra die (or more!) can make a big difference. If you roll a single die you have a 16.67% chance to score a 1 or a 6... that's a 33.33% crit chance. As you add in more dice, the probability of you seeing the critical state reduces. Here is a spreadsheet that I worked up to illustrate what I'm talking about - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AWGAPns9fgBKNxEo8fZz4gC76Yx92Ag8HuKJfYo5-1s/edit?usp=sharing You can see that on the low end it's quite swingy and unpredictible while the high end is much more predictible. D&D has a 10% crit state, 5% of the time your roll a natural 20 and 5% of the time you roll that nat 1. That's roughly about a 3D on the exploding dice crit percentage. Anywho, I hope my math is correct!
