New Activation System for Powers (PEACH)

[Orion]

I'm envisioning this system for my superhero game (see the sig), but it's potentially applicable to other games. I'd love to get someone else's opinion. It's very much in the "concept" stage right now, but I'd love to get people with math brains to look at it.

Right now, in Phoenix, every power (which includes magic and psi) has a power-point cost to activate, and a related cost to maintain it. A couple of people have commented that this is kind of a pain in the butt because you have to keep track of the power points (PPs), not just spending them but also regenerating them (kind of like HPs). Now, I've always found the Shadowrun "drain" system really interesting. In that game, when you cast a spell, you make a check to see if your brain/mind/soul can handle it. If you don't make the roll, the spell doesn't go off and you take the equivalent of non-lethal damage.

So I had an idea for how to implement that in d20. Every power has an Activation DC. When you use a power, you roll against that DC. If you meet or beat the DC, the power happens normally. If you fail, the power effect occurs normally, but you take a small amount of non-lethal damage (a few points, here and there, it would add up pretty quickly). You also get a bonus to make these Activation rolls, so if your bonus meets or exceeds the power's Act DC, then you can use the power "at will" (as it were). If you take enough non-lethal damage from activating expensive powers, you could pass out from strain (like Kitty Pryde trying to phase through the giant bullet in the recent Astonishing Annual).

Now, the crunchy bits:

Your Act bonus would, logically, be rigged by class. To make this system work, this Act bonus has to be unmodified by any ability scores, because it's just too easy to pump those up so high that you'd never need to roll it (getting super ability scores is particularly cheap and easy in this game). So you get a bonus based on your class and level, and it has a linear progression (see below for some ideas about the numbers).

Every power has a set Activation DC based more or less on the current power-point cost. The Act DC will go up if you use a more powerful version of it. For example, an Energy Attack that does 6d6 will have a higher Act DC than one that does 2d6.

I don't know exactly what the Act DC's will be yet, but I think they can be based pretty directly on the Act Bonuses that the classes get. The goal, here, is to make certain common powers effectively "free" for most people to activate (because their bonus equals or exceeds the DC), but more exotic or powerful powers should carry a risk.

Lowering the Act DC of a power should be extremely expensive because if you lower it by even 1 or 2 points, a power goes from potentially dangerous to effectively free, and there will be a lot of min/maxing to achieve exactly that. I don't especially have a problem with that, in this case, because it's only logical that you'll build a PC who can freely activate her primary power. I just don't want doing so to be overly easy.

So now the math part gets a little difficult. Let's assume that you have a class that gets +1 Act Bonus per level. Phoenix PCs start at 4th level, so common powers should have a base Act DC of 4. Then, the DCs should go up according to the class progression. I think I can rig this either relative to the present PP cost or the present Character Point (CP) cost (the cost of "buying" the power), although I'll have to jerry-rig the numbers in either case. Right now, the CP costs go from 1 to around 12, for base powers.

Also, there's going to be a different Act Bonus for different classes, from +1 to +4 (I'm thinking of assigning that bonus based on the current Power Die, which players use to roll their PPs every level, a lot like rolling HPs but based on either Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. Here's how I'd translate Power Die to Act bonus: 1d6 = +1, 1d8 = +2, 1d10 = +3, 1d12 = +4). So now, I have 4th-level characters with an Act Bonus of +4, +8, +12, and +16.

Now, if I'm going to base the Act DCs on the current Power Point costs, then I'd have to take that cost and, let's say, triple it? A 2pp power would have an Act DC of 6. That means that the melee-oriented classes couldn't quite reliably activate it, but all the the more F/X-oriented classes could. [NB: The melee classes get the lowest PP die right now because they, in theory, use powers that don't require PP expenditure.]

Those are just some numbers off the top of my head. They're very blunt right now.

Some Alternative Ideas:

Instead of taking non-lethal damage for failing the Act roll, you take conditions, like "shaken" and "fatigued." This has the benefit of making the character less effective instead of making the character half dead. The drain that comes with activating powers doesn't do damage to you, it just makes you weak and vulnerable. However, the "conditions" are not a linear progression. They're really hard to remember and they all have slightly different things that come with them.

The other option, then, is a linear progression of penalties: -2 to attack/damage, saves, and skill rolls for every time you fail an Act roll OR -1 per point by which you miss the Act roll (that latter option would be really vicious, but proportional).

So, the questions are these:

Does this idea hold any appeal? Would eliminating PPs enhance or detract from the game? Would it be any simpler, or am I in fact complicating it?

If you like the idea, can you think of a good way to do the math (i.e., the Act Bonus by class vs. the Act DC by power)?

Do you think the Act Bonus should be modified by something (the same way that most of a PCs stats are modified in d20)? If so, by what? My first thought was to use the ability associated with the class's Power Die, so that the Martial Artist would get her Wisdom modifier to Act rolls, and Mastermind would get his Charisma, for example. My hesitation is that everyone would then just pump those stats so high that they'd never need to make an Activation roll at all.

Do you like one of the three ways to implement Activation drain that I've suggested (non-lethal damage, "conditions," or penalties)? If you don't like any of them, can you suggest something better?

I'm at the point where I'd like to either make this work (because it's in my head and it won't go away), or be told that it's a load of dingo's kidneys, so if you have any thoughts, please share them.

[bkdubs123]

Ok, I did something like this a while back trying to balance magic out for 3.5. We playtested it, and it worked surprisingly well. All magic was at will, but you had to make a Spellcasting check everytime you cast a spell. The DC was higher as spell levels got higher and your roll was modified by your Base Spellcasting Bonus and your key ability score (Int for Wizards, Wis for Clerics, etc). I had a cascading success/fail chart. If you succeeded by a lot something nice happened, if you failed you cast the spell normally, but you took some nonlethal. If you failed by a lot, you still cast the spell normally, but you took some lethal. If failed REALLY badly your spell failed, you took more lethal damage and you became dazed for 1 round.

Now, I like the idea that you proposed that failure heaps on conditions, though I think damage is still good for if the PC fails miserably. Mostly though I had my cascading track because I was allowing players to cast spells higher than they normally would be allowed as long as they knew the spell (IE: Wizard had it in his spellbook, Sorcerer is looking at it on a scroll, etc).

Now, I do think that it makes sense for your system to allow the roll to be modified by a key ability. You seem hesitant to allow this because everyone will pump those stats. Well, my question is: Without this system in place, without the modifier to these rolls, are the players going to want to pump those stats anyway? It seems to me that the answer to that would be yes. Anyway, even if it isn't, you can assume that they will if you implement this system and allow the Act rolls to be modified by the stat. Now, there's no problem there. When you make the DCs make them high enough to be however challenging you want them to be for a player just under the really high optimization level. If a really high Op Char will have 40 Wisdom with a modifier of +15, then make the DCs assuming that the players have around a 34-36 Wisdom, something like that, you know?

I think with this system in place removing PPs from the game makes the most sense, but I'll let you get more feedback on that.

[Orion]

The problem with raising the Act DCs in such a way as they assume super-stats (25+ let's say) is that doing would effectively require that all PCs have stats in that range, and I want to leave them the freedom to leave their ability scores low in order to buy more expensive super powers.

Then you get the problem of assigning the stat that (hypothetically) modifies their Act roll. Right now, all my classes have a key ability to their Power Die, either Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, based on the class's "personality." So the Champion (superhero equivalent of a paladin) uses Charisma. The Soldier (a tactical/strategy class) uses Intelligence. The Martial Artist (attuned with the body and all of that) uses Wisdom. Again, then, if I raise the DCs to assume high numbers in those stats, then suddenly every Soldier will have a 25 Intelligence.

Hm... say... maybe this problem takes care of itself? If I do allow the Act rolls to be modified by ability scores, and I set the Act DCs against highish scores (high teens, low twenties), then I can just leave the PCs to sort out the balance themselves. If they take powers with high DCs (the more powerful powers), then they'll need to find a way to boost their Act bonus, otherwise they'll never be able to activate the power without knocking themselves unconscious.

But now another problem: the F/X classes (Mystic, Psionicist, Thinker, just in case you're interested) are already going to have high scores in their key abilities (Wis, Cha, Int) because they're mentally-oriented classes already. Therefore, they'll have a drastically increased chance of passing the Act rolls even without a class bonus. Conversely, the melee classes (Warrior, Soldier, Champion) will have a harder time because they'll likely sink their resources into Str/Dex/Con. And there are the inbetweeners, like the Martial Artist, which relies on Wisdom (for Defence), the Mastermind, which relies on Charisma (she's a "leader" class), or the Sneak (basically a super rogue). They will have pretty high mental stats, but not necessarily "super" high because they have other priorities as well.

If the goal is to balance the chances of passing the Act rolls, then the F/X classes need to have lower Act bonuses, and the melee classes need to have higher bonuses.

But if the goal is to encourage F/X classes to get the more powerful powers and encourage the melee classes to take the powers that don't require activation (of which there are a few, mostly super stats and stuff like that), then I should just leave it as is, let the F/X people have the natural advantage. This second option bothers me, though, because it might be yet another instance of "fighters can't have nice things."

Then, of course, there's the problem of figuring out the actual bonuses and DCs, but I'll tackle that later.

[bkdubs123]

The problem with raising the Act DCs in such a way as they assume super-stats (25+ let's say) is that doing would effectively require that all PCs have stats in that range, and I want to leave them the freedom to leave their ability scores low in order to buy more expensive super powers.

Then you get the problem of assigning the stat that (hypothetically) modifies their Act roll. Right now, all my classes have a key ability to their Power Die, either Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, based on the class's "personality." So the Champion (superhero equivalent of a paladin) uses Charisma. The Soldier (a tactical/strategy class) uses Intelligence. The Martial Artist (attuned with the body and all of that) uses Wisdom. Again, then, if I raise the DCs to assume high numbers in those stats, then suddenly every Soldier will have a 25 Intelligence.

Hm... say... maybe this problem takes care of itself? If I do allow the Act rolls to be modified by ability scores, and I set the Act DCs against highish scores (high teens, low twenties), then I can just leave the PCs to sort out the balance themselves. If they take powers with high DCs (the more powerful powers), then they'll need to find a way to boost their Act bonus, otherwise they'll never be able to activate the power without knocking themselves unconscious.

But now another problem: the F/X classes (Mystic, Psionicist, Thinker, just in case you're interested) are already going to have high scores in their key abilities (Wis, Cha, Int) because they're mentally-oriented classes already. Therefore, they'll have a drastically increased chance of passing the Act rolls even without a class bonus. Conversely, the melee classes (Warrior, Soldier, Champion) will have a harder time because they'll likely sink their resources into Str/Dex/Con. And there are the inbetweeners, like the Martial Artist, which relies on Wisdom (for Defence), the Mastermind, which relies on Charisma (she's a "leader" class), or the Sneak (basically a super rogue). They will have pretty high mental stats, but not necessarily "super" high because they have other priorities as well.

If the goal is to balance the chances of passing the Act rolls, then the F/X classes need to have lower Act bonuses, and the melee classes need to have higher bonuses.

But if the goal is to encourage F/X classes to get the more powerful powers and encourage the melee classes to take the powers that don't require activation (of which there are a few, mostly super stats and stuff like that), then I should just leave it as is, let the F/X people have the natural advantage. This second option bothers me, though, because it might be yet another instance of "fighters can't have nice things."

Then, of course, there's the problem of figuring out the actual bonuses and DCs, but I'll tackle that later.

Okay, well what it looks like is that you've set up a poor ability score dependency balance. It seems that Soldiers need to have high Str and Con, but also want to have high Int. It seems that Thinkers just need a high Int. This will need to be addressed before you do anything else. After that, you can offer powers with Act modified by Str, Con, or Dex, instead of forcing everyone to use Int, Wis, or Cha in some way. But then don't just make all the warrior classes' powers physical stat based and all the "mage" classes' powers mental stat based. Allow for mix and match, that way players can create as many feasible character types as possible.

[Orion]

Yeah, that's a good point. I inherited the system, and the original rules called for Power Dice based on Int, Wis, or Cha, but it has always bugged me, and precisely because the F/X classes clearly benefited from that arrangement.

But now this raises a question, how in the world would Strength raise your Act bonus to use something like an Energy Attack (optic blast, heat vision, etc.)? The mental stats made a certain amount of sense because power points are based on ephemeral qualities within the character, which is basically the same reason that all spell-casting in D&D works off of Int, Wis, or Cha.

The other problem is that if you can use your key ability to feed your Act bonus, you're give one score more things that it can do, and thus pushing players to put even more of their resources into that one score (i.e., to min/max). Ideally, your Act bonus would be based on your dump stat, which would force the players to optimise rather than min/maxing (if I understand the difference between those two concepts correctly).

Now all that being said, if I were to link the Act bonus with the class's key ability, then I could freely assume high scores and adjust the DCs accordingly, but that basically forces every character to make out their key ability, and more or less eliminates the possibility of a character with low stats and MONDO powers (which is kind of a "type" in superhero comics). That said, I'm essentially doing that right now with the Power Die.

See, this is why I tended to drift towards the idea that the Act bonus would be unmodified.

Le sigh...

[bkdubs123]

Well, you can always go back to being unmodified if you think it will ruin the game and make certain archetypes impossible to play effectively. I understand that completely.

Now, you should still address the inherent imbalance the classes seem to have with their ability score dependencies. 4E made every class have 1 or 2 primary stats with two secondary stats that provided very attractive bonuses. I thought this was very well done, one of the few things I liked about 4E. So instead of having a Fighter that needed Str, Con, and Dex and a Wizard that just needed Int, now you have a Fighter (Soldier) who needs Str/Dex, Con and Wis and a Wizard (Mystic?) that needs Int, Dex, and Wis.

[Orion]

Yes, that is a serious problem, but it's one that I think will be eliminated once I remove the Power Die. As soon as you're not deriving your Power Points from your key ability, then the duplication disappears and you're down to the, ahem, inherent imbalances of the six ability scores, which I don't feel like it's necessarily my job to fix.