Phoenix - Skill Mechanism

[Choinski, Burton]

|| One possibility for a combat/magic/skill mechanism for P&P
|| is to use the
|| Combat Table.
|| OCV-DCV or MEL-? or 0 plus or minus situational modifiers
|| (particularly
|| time) determines which line to use. Note that many skills (example
|| musician) do not allow extra time.

Problem is, the effect of EL in combat is nearly minimal (EL x 2 subtracted
from roll) as compared to the "other" skills (usually EL x 10 for most
skills, with others at a percentile level.

Remember 'EL 4' in a weapon is supposedly the same as a EL 40 skill (if "or
80").  If you go from EL5 to EL5 in a weapon you see a gain of 2% in combat,
where as other skills see a 10% gain.

One variant I had toyed with while doodling one day was to extrapolate the
CEL/MEL concept and apply it to all skills.  It was something like "Combat
Talent", "Magical Talent" for the existing CEL and MEL.  One would also have
"Survival Talent" (touches all skills involvig outdoors tasks), "Social
Talent" (Involving personal interaction), "Crafting Talent" (or Artistic
Talent), etc.

In this simplified system the player rolled 2d10+skill+any appreciable
talent to hit a target number, (or 10+opposing skill+opposing talent).  The
possible talents were never fleshed out, though.




----------------------------------------
Burton Choinski
Principal Software Engineer, Quality Engineering
email: burton.choinski at matrixone.com

phone: 978-322-2135
fax  : 978-452-5764

MatrixOne, Inc.
Two Executive Drive
Chelmsford, Ma 01824
www.matrixone.com

The First in Intelligent Collaborative Commerce
----------------------------------------


|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Alex Koponen [mailto:akoponen at MOSQUITONET.COM]
|| Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 12:38 PM
|| To: POWERS-AND-PERILS at GEO.CITG.TUDELFT.NL
|| Subject: Phoenix - Skill Mechanism
||
||
|| An incompletely worked up thought re skill mechanism is:
||
|| One possibility for a combat/magic/skill mechanism for P&P
|| is to use the
|| Combat Table.
|| OCV-DCV or MEL-? or 0 plus or minus situational modifiers
|| (particularly
|| time) determines which line to use. Note that many skills (example
|| musician) do not allow extra time.
||
|| The roll is then modified by:
|| - offensive EL, + defensive EL
|| or
|| - magic spell EL, + defensive MDV
|| or
|| - skill EL, + Cost to Learn (if unlearned).
||
|| All skills (except Carrying) would use (abilities) / (5 x #
|| of abilities).
|| This might even apply to spell skills with formula of (Prime
|| Requisite +
|| MEL)/10 for max.*
|| Sufficient resources (example: well equipped shop) could
|| modify EL by up
|| to ?.
||
|| Perhaps shields would modify DCV (towards shield facing)?
|| Missiles continue to use set range-based OCVs.
|| [Perhaps firer's CEL could offset defender's dodge + CEL]?
||
|| Naturally(?) aspected mana  fields and spells such as
|| Purification might
|| modify which line to use for certain spells, rather than
|| acting as EL.
||
|| *This suggests an optional rule of adding CEL as an ability
|| to the max
|| level formula for all combat skills. Thus combat skills would have
|| (abilities + CEL) / (5 x (# of abilities + 1)).
||
|| --------------------------------------------------------------
|| Another possibility is to work on getting rid of this divide by five
|| business and have skills ranging up to 100+. Lots of other
|| games already
|| do this.
|| Skills might then have a formula for max level of (total
|| abilities)/(# of
|| abilities / 2)? CEL and MEL may be added to the formula as
|| another ability
|| if appropriate.
||
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.powersandperils.org/pipermail/pnp/attachments/20031017/92cc4cf7/attachment.html>