phantomwhale
August 1st, 2011, 14:10
Been pulling the combat tracker apart, and was looking today at Effects. I'd like some input from people as to what simple things we might do to improve them. But first...
What are effects ? - I believe these are used to track short-term combat effects; which is basically powers ("spells") to my mind.
So most of the time it's typing out the name of the power, with a "3" duration and a "-1" adjustment. Occasionally I'll add "[R]" to the end of the power name to mark it as a raise, and sometimes the duration is doubled for a good roll / certain arcane backgrounds. But that -1 is pretty much always -1, for me.
So the duration adjusts by the number in the adjustment box every time a new round starts, or whenever the person who cast the effect is activated (note: this does not include when the activation flag is dropped manually onto a combatant - this has been fixed for 3.2).
How might they change ? - Over to you ! How could we make them better ? I have a few ideas, of course:
1. Get rid of the adjustment box.
Get the ruleset to just automatically tick the duration down by one every time it's a new round (or the caster is activated, for effects tied to a caster). Could also add checks in the background to ensure it only ticks down at most once per round too if we did this. A blank round number = effect doesn't expire.
2. What about maintaining powers ?
Currently when a power reaches the 0 duration, it's chatted as expired (only to the GM - see next point). What if the combatant wanted to maintain it ? Now we have to re-add it to the tracker. So maybe there is a clever solution here; not sure
3. Players can't see effects
Should we show players active effects ? Or only some effects (in which case, how do we choose which ones ? The interface is minimal as is...) And how about durations ? I know my players end up tracking the durations themselves - which feels wrong, given it's their power that's going; and they need to mark off power points when it's being maintained too without any reminders.
4. Give effects effects
Enhance the FX creation from simple copies of what's in the combat tracker to allow adjustment of combat stats (+2 armor, +2 parry, +1 die type Strength) whilst the effect is in place. This is quite a big one - and certainly NOT a 3.2 change - but something I've toyed with in my head. With this in place, having a "one round" duration effects of -2 Parry for agility tricks would be a possibility as well
So there you go, more questions than suggestions. I quite like the idea of removing that "adjustment" box (it's always -1, right ? Or no ?). But feel there are probably more ideas too. So fire away - nows your chance ;)
What are effects ? - I believe these are used to track short-term combat effects; which is basically powers ("spells") to my mind.
So most of the time it's typing out the name of the power, with a "3" duration and a "-1" adjustment. Occasionally I'll add "[R]" to the end of the power name to mark it as a raise, and sometimes the duration is doubled for a good roll / certain arcane backgrounds. But that -1 is pretty much always -1, for me.
So the duration adjusts by the number in the adjustment box every time a new round starts, or whenever the person who cast the effect is activated (note: this does not include when the activation flag is dropped manually onto a combatant - this has been fixed for 3.2).
How might they change ? - Over to you ! How could we make them better ? I have a few ideas, of course:
1. Get rid of the adjustment box.
Get the ruleset to just automatically tick the duration down by one every time it's a new round (or the caster is activated, for effects tied to a caster). Could also add checks in the background to ensure it only ticks down at most once per round too if we did this. A blank round number = effect doesn't expire.
2. What about maintaining powers ?
Currently when a power reaches the 0 duration, it's chatted as expired (only to the GM - see next point). What if the combatant wanted to maintain it ? Now we have to re-add it to the tracker. So maybe there is a clever solution here; not sure
3. Players can't see effects
Should we show players active effects ? Or only some effects (in which case, how do we choose which ones ? The interface is minimal as is...) And how about durations ? I know my players end up tracking the durations themselves - which feels wrong, given it's their power that's going; and they need to mark off power points when it's being maintained too without any reminders.
4. Give effects effects
Enhance the FX creation from simple copies of what's in the combat tracker to allow adjustment of combat stats (+2 armor, +2 parry, +1 die type Strength) whilst the effect is in place. This is quite a big one - and certainly NOT a 3.2 change - but something I've toyed with in my head. With this in place, having a "one round" duration effects of -2 Parry for agility tricks would be a possibility as well
So there you go, more questions than suggestions. I quite like the idea of removing that "adjustment" box (it's always -1, right ? Or no ?). But feel there are probably more ideas too. So fire away - nows your chance ;)