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Subject: 
Re: BrikWars Supernatural Rules Bug Fix?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.gaming
Date: 
Mon, 7 Apr 2003 17:03:28 GMT
Viewed: 
2839 times
  
In lugnet.fun.gaming, Mike Rayhawk writes:
In general the SP system is not realy optimized for super-high-cost units;
for a more typical SP-user, setting aside 6 SP for Duratian is going to take
a big chunk out of his budget for making his effect effective.  A clever Bob
with 100 SPs to sling around could probably chew right through those armies
if employed correctly; I'll discuss some tweaks for that towards the bottom
of the post.

For the most part I think that's true-- I was thinking more for things where
the strength of the effect isn't as important, like creating weapons for
troops or 'fig enhancements (especially power where you don't need tons to
be ultra-effective).

There's the slight element of unpredictablity in that it might disappear in
6 turns or it might last 36; but I have the feeling that a large portion of
effects will have sharply diminishing tactical significance after their
first couple of turns anyway.

That's definitely something we've noticed, especially with fire effects.
They prove useful to one player for a couple rounds, then they just prove to
be a nuisance to keep track of.

Yeah, Shaun and I have discussed possibilities like this on a number of
occasions.  I always just thought that stuff like this would be really cool.
If your SP user is causing this much trouble and your enemies don't
prioritize finding a way to putting an end to him in the first three turns,
it's their own fault if he just keeps getting more and more powerful.

That's mostly what I was afraid of... if someone keeps their major magic
users away from harm, they have potential to get crazy powerful...

First, the 'layering' effect of Bob casting the same spell 20 turns in a row
can definitely be a problem, as much as I like it.  So I'm planning on
adding a change to the Duration rules that say any SP spent on Duration stay
'spent' until that effect finishes.  Or to put it in more practical terms:
whenever Bob casts an effect with Duration, you put a number of white Pips
next to the effect to show how much longer the effect will last.  For every
white Pip on the field, Bob has one fewer SP available to work with.  As
white Pips are gradually removed, Bob gradually gets his SP back.  And I'm
thinking that if Bob needs some of those SP back in an emergency, he should
have the option of instantly sacrificing any white Pips he has in play; I
haven't decided on the specifics of that yet though.

Huh. I kinda like that idea, especially when in an SP-capped game. While not
particularly effective against ridiculously powerful spellcasters, your
average BrikWars SP user is a bit more limited.

There's already a rule forbidding multiple Enduring Effects affecting the
same attribute, which I felt was the biggest potential abuse of this kind of
'layering.'

(doh!) After I posted that I went home and re-read the details for the
attribute enhancement rules and noticed that :)

Actually... Check out the 2nd example in SP.2.4 Skill:

"On each of the following turns, the executive spends 2 SP per turn to give
the glove 'instant' Skill boosts of 2d6, raising its Skill to 3d6-3 and
greatly improving its typing speed and accuracy."

Does this mean that animating the glove in the 1st place (with movement)
gave it a skill of 1d6-3, onto which is added 2d6 skill? Or is this just a
mistake from when enhancement modifiers could be stacked?

Dang. I just noticed this, too (same section):

"A unit can give Skill to an inanimate object as an enduring effect, paying
1 SP per enduring Skill point and then paying the appropriate SP for
Duration.  An animated object's Skill value must always have a random
component, so keep in mind that 1d6 is equivalent to 4 points (rounded up
from 3.5), and 2d6 is equivalent to 7 points.  Thus, 1 SP buys 1d6-3 Skill,
2 SP buys 1d6-2 Skill, and so forth."

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but shouldn't 2 SP buy an initial 1d6-3 of
skill, and an extra +1d6 of skill making it 2d6-3 skill? Or is it 1 SP per 1
skill? Or... um. Yeah, I'm misunderstanding something....

I'm also going to introduce another way to induce diminishing returns on
Duration which will be real simple: instead of rolling 1d6 to see if you
remove one Pip from a stack, you roll 1d6 for every Pip in the stack.  I.e.,
For an effect with 6 points of Duration, you roll 6d6, and for each doe that
comes up '1' you remove a Pip.  That way there's always a chance, however
small, that an effect will end immediately, regardless of how much Duration
it has left.  This should increase tension enormously.

Very interesting probability. I like this too! As it turns out, your
'average' duration seems to increase logarithmically (or whatnot) instead of
linearly. I like it. Means to be safe you have to buy extra duration; but at
the same you might get a lot more (or a lot less) than what you paid for...

My last idea, which I don't actually intend to use but I thought I'd throw
out here for interest's sake, is to think of some way to make enduring
effects a liability.  Like, if your Enduring Effect gets counteracted, then
you lose the SP you spent on Duration and don't get to use them again for
the rest of the battle, or you are exposed to some other kind of damage.

Ooo... ouch. Interesting-- certainly would make you less likely to abuse the
duration rules!

Oh yes, one more question while I've got your attention: Under SP.2.5
(Movement) you've got:

Example:  A malevolent Demon has been given the task of creating a
   terrible traffic jam in downtown New Blokton.  Rather than spending
   SP to decrease the movement of individual cars to zero, he locates a
   group of GarbageCans sitting next to the road on the curb.  He
   flies over to them and summons evil spirits to possess the Cans.
   After spending SP on Area to include all the GarbageCans in a single
   effect, he spends 2 SP on Duration and 5 SP on Movement to give each
   GarbageCan 5" of Movement for the next 2d6 turns.  The wicked
   GarbageCans now begin their infernal work, wandering out into
   traffic and causing terrible accidents.

So-- where do the 5 SP's come from? Does this assume there are 5 garbage
cans in the area of effect, hence 1 SP (for +1d6" movement) per animated
can? Or does the Demon suffer from Shaun-itice and roll 5 1's on the 5d6 he
spent on movement, making all affected garbage cans get only 5" movement
instead of their potential 30"?

DaveE



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: BrikWars Supernatural Rules Bug Fix?
 
(...) True enough, although I for one have no problem with letting wizards create stuff all over the map - I should make some kind of clarification to the Create Matter rules to say that a wizard can only create one continuous "thing" per effect, so (...) (21 years ago, 7-Apr-03, to lugnet.gaming)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: BrikWars Supernatural Rules Bug Fix?
 
(...) Well this is an issue I've given a lot of thought to, so let me counter each of your arguments in sequence so that it'll be a big surprise at the end when I turn the tables and agree with you. (...) First, any unit with SP's numbering in the (...) (21 years ago, 5-Apr-03, to lugnet.gaming)

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