What the hell do the stats actually do?!

Rainbay wrote:I sort of liked the idea of agility being used to try to dodge an incoming attack.

Perhaps we can combine them? I mean, direct-damage spells are projectiles anyway, nothing's stopping you from using agility to move out of the way just like you'd do for a sword swing.

Hexx wrote:

Rainbay wrote:I sort of liked the idea of agility being used to try to dodge an incoming attack.

Perhaps we can combine them? I mean, direct-damage spells are projectiles anyway, nothing's stopping you from using agility to move out of the way just like you'd do for a sword swing.

Maybe. I have an alternative to the combat system as well, but it's in early alpha, and currently to complicated to field. If I can't get it worked out, and/or if nobody likes it when/if I do post it (which is quite likely, given where it's at now), then good idea. I guess I'm just thinking ahead of myself right now though...

Hexx wrote:

Rainbay wrote:I sort of liked the idea of agility being used to try to dodge an incoming attack.

Perhaps we can combine them? I mean, direct-damage spells are projectiles anyway, nothing's stopping you from using agility to move out of the way just like you'd do for a sword swing.

Of course, why not?

Also, what do you mean about avoiding nondamage magic, glipp? If we treat magic as being mostly a projectile, agility would dodge that. If we treat it as just resisting it, willpower would cover direct damage magic too, with agility just covering ranged and melee attacks.

I think things like charm, silence, etc.

I dunno. It was just a thought.

GLIPP wrote:I dunno. It was just a thought.

Thoughts are good! It's the whole reason we're here.

EDIT: Perhaps we make it so that agility is for dodging attacks, willpower being your ability to resist the effects of magical effects that do hit. Thoughts?

I've honestly never liked dodge rolls. It needlessly complicates things, in my opinion.

Could agility maybe be subtracted from your oppts attack roll or added to your defense, and willpower could subtract from magical damage or provide some sort of saving throw?

I was thinking, since the game mechanic had an effective 100% hit rate on spells (assuming your target didn't move or block it with another spell or an arrow), that we should represent the ability to avoid spells differently than we represent the ability to avoid blows. I was thinking about spell hits being (relevant skill)+(intelligence)-(opponent agility). Sort of a speed of thought vs. fleetness of foot thing.

GLIPP wrote:I was thinking, since the game mechanic had an effective 100% hit rate on spells (assuming your target didn't move or block it with another spell or an arrow), that we should represent the ability to avoid spells differently than we represent the ability to avoid blows. I was thinking about spell hits being (relevant skill)+(intelligence)-(opponent agility). Sort of a speed of thought vs. fleetness of foot thing.

I like it. Especially the way you put it. So that can be the spells chances of hitting, and then when we calculate damage, that goes off willpowers?

But, don't forget. Spells have a chance to fail, depending on difficulty and caster level and such. Do we really want 3 rolls for each spell cast on an enemy?
Magic isn't really well developed of course, so this could easily be changed. Perhaps we should focus more on getting that out of the way now that fatigue is solidified?

Rainbay wrote:But, don't forget. Spells have a chance to fail, depending on difficulty and caster level and such. Do we really want 3 rolls for each spell cast on an enemy?
Magic isn't really well developed of course, so this could easily be changed. Perhaps we should focus more on getting that out of the way now that fatigue is solidified?

I like the way Fantasycraft handled spell failure, in that your spellcasting roll was both your spell failure AND your to hit roll. How about we subtract a spell difficulty modifier from the formula above. That way we can represent the ability to dodge and the ability to fail a casting in one roll.

Could you explain a bit more how that would work?

LessRudeScrib wrote:Could you explain a bit more how that would work?

Well, I was thinking we could make it (relevant skill)+(intelligence)+(difficulty modifier)-(opponent agility)

So, an easy spell may have a modifier of +20, while a doomsday spell would have a modifier of -80. This way, the difficulty of casting the spell and the possibility of evading it are represented in the same equation.

That sounds do-able.

So if you had 100 in the relevant skill for the spell, and 100 intelligence, you could cast a -100 ultra-bajeesus spell and still have a 100% cast success rate if you used it on an ally, such as a powerful boost or heal spell?

Rainbay wrote:So if you had 100 in the relevant skill for the spell, and 100 intelligence, you could cast a -100 ultra-bajeesus spell and still have a 100% cast success rate if you used it on an ally, such as a powerful boost or heal spell?

I don't actually see anything wrong with that. 100 puts you among the greatest casters alive, and 100 int. puts you among the smartest people on Tamriel, so... yeah, I can see an ultra-bajeezus spell working 100% of the time. It will still cost you fucklots of Magicka. And more importantly, it allows you to cast spells that border on godlike in power, such as resurrecting the dead - but I'd say that imposes at least a -150%, if not more, and comes with truly daunting consequences for caster and corpse alike.

Another issue. This makes sense for on target or on touch spells... but what about ones that have an area of effect? Adding an area of effect would make the spell harder to cast raising spell difficulty and would make it harder to hit the enemy. But shouldn't the area of effect make it easier to effectively hit the enemy? Just a thought, something we need to handle at some point.

Rainbay wrote:Another issue. This makes sense for on target or on touch spells... but what about ones that have an area of effect? Adding an area of effect would make the spell harder to cast raising spell difficulty and would make it harder to hit the enemy. But shouldn't the area of effect make it easier to effectively hit the enemy? Just a thought, something we need to handle at some point.

Good point. How about (relevant skill)+(intelligence)+(difficulty modifier) to cast, and anyone within a designated blast can roll agility to move out of it immediately. More rolls, true, but it's still not too bad.

GLIPP wrote:

Rainbay wrote:Another issue. This makes sense for on target or on touch spells... but what about ones that have an area of effect? Adding an area of effect would make the spell harder to cast raising spell difficulty and would make it harder to hit the enemy. But shouldn't the area of effect make it easier to effectively hit the enemy? Just a thought, something we need to handle at some point.

Good point. How about (relevant skill)+(intelligence)+(difficulty modifier) to cast, and anyone within a designated blast can roll agility to move out of it immediately. More rolls, true, but it's still not too bad.

Not really any more rolls than a bunch of reflex saves in the DeeAnDee