There have been a series of game design articles on the blog Square Fireballs recently, specifically offering some houserules for D&D 4E. Most recent was a compilation "playtest package" summarizing the first round of changes. They're definitely worth a look if you play 4E, as they address some issues with the system and offer solutions based on sound logic and play experience.
They're not perfect (not surprising this being the first draft and all), but they definitely have me intrigued. I particularly like the idea behind Action Point checks, and the new Dying and Healing Surge rules. I'd encourage anyone interested in making some "tweaks" to their game try some of these rules out; you can always not use them if you don't like them, and your experience might even help them get refined.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
13th Age Conversion of Combat In Motion
I recently posted a review for Combat In Motion, a 3rd party supplement for D&D 4E that layers some new "houserules" onto the game which attempt to better model the game world and/or dramatic structure, in addition to providing some interesting tactical considerations. Though the rules in the book are specific to a grid-based game with a high tactical combat component, many of the principles are of general interest from a perspective of game design. For example, how can the weaknesses of turn-based systems be addressed while still retaining a playable structure? Several new mechanics strive to address this goal, some of which are fairly novel to the realm of tabletop gaming.
I'll briefly get to the heart of many of the new concepts. Continuous motion is addressed by allowing previous moves to affect future moves, rather than allowing movement to be broken into "stop and go" segments defined by arbitrary "turns" which exist only for the sake of playability, and not in the imagined game world. New off-turn actions allow players to react to continuous motion in more believable ways; no longer can vast distances be covered without giving opponents the opportunity to respond. Off-turn actions are designed to not break the action economy, but rather switch things up a bit by allowing players to attack outside of their turns ("borrowing" actions from future turns). This keeps players engaged throughout combat, since the opportunity for tactically significant action can come up at any time. Some of these actions also grant players more freedom to manage their own offense vs defense in tactically interesting ways. Finally, strict adherence to a randomly generated initiative order is discarded; rather, the order in which combatants take their turns depends on the dramatic context and ever-changing momentum of the battle. Quite simply, it's a more effective way to tell a story.
While the specific rules that address these concepts will not be applicable to systems other than 4E, it's not too much of a stretch to adapt the content using the framework of a different system. In this case, 13th Age (which you can pre-order here). In addition to being a game that I have a lot of personal interest in currently, it makes a good first attempt for several other reasons. It's similar enough in that it's a d20 game with a lot of 4E inspiration, but other than that it has very different priorities. It boasts simplified, sometimes free-form rules, prioritizes story elements, and is gridless. Clearly a direct port with minor tweaks isn't going to happen! Some rules will best be left ignored, while others will be simplified to some extent. Instead of trying to make the existing 4E mechanics work within a different system, I'll instead try to write rules and make changes with the "spirit" of the concepts in mind.
Note that the following conversions are a work in progress, and may be subject to change as the ideas are refined. I haven't playtested any of this yet, but hopefully that will change in the near future. Some of these things can possible stand to diverge from the original 4E rules a little more, but I feel that it's a good starting point.
CHAPTER 1
Not applicable for the default TotM play style. Ignore this chapter.
CHAPTER 2
Most of this chapter is possibly too "crunchy" for 13th Age. For players who want to sacrifice a little simplicity for the advantages of modeling continuous movement, my conversion of the rules is as follows.
For alternative solutions and deleted rules blocks, see footnotes 1, 2, and 3.
Extended Moves
The conceptual value of the Extended Move mostly lies with the interaction with Outpace and Interdict (Chapter 3). The biggest issue that the authors were trying to solve were combatants covering a lot of ground without giving their opponents an opportunity to react. The best solution would be to preserve that intent while honoring the system's tendency toward simplicity.
To that end, perhaps the Extended Move rule can be distilled down to the following: whenever you move toward a far away target (such as by using a double move) you are considered to be in-motion and your movement may trigger the Outpace and/or Interdict action.
In-Motion
Halt
Can be used as-is; the concept is inherently simple and intuitive.
CHAPTER 3
This chapter introduces the concept of off-turn actions, as well as follows up with the consequences for last chapter's Extended Move (Outpace and Interdict). All five rules blocks for this chapter are retained (in an altered form).
Sapped and Tapped
Remove references to flanking, otherwise these remain unchanged. Very easy to remember, and the conditions are basically "placeholders" reminding you that you've borrowed an action from your upcoming turn.
Off-Turn Actions
Technically the first 2 bullet points just explain how individual off-turn actions will be described in their own rules blocks. Worth keeping in mind, though it does "clutter up" this rules block a bit, making it look more complex than it is. Delete reference to charging. Change "must not be dazed, stunned, surprised, or unconscious" to "Must not be Confused, Stunned, or unconscious." Change "immediate and opportunity actions" to "interrupt actions and opportunity attacks." While this rules block is necessary background information, for general reference you'll be referring to the individual actions.
Outpace
Use the rules block as-is, with the following changes. The last sentence of the second bullet point should read "you can't engage with motionless enemies." The third bullet point should simply read "you cannot outpace if you're engaged or otherwise unable to move."
Interdict
Use the rules block as-is, with these changes. The second bullet point should read "Effect: make a single ranged weapon attack (basic attack with no frills) or cast a single-target ranged at-will spell. On a hit the target must roll a normal save (11+) for its next move action; on a failure it doesn't reach its destination (your attack slowed it down)." The third bullet point can be edited thus: "you can only interdict if you are able to make a ranged attack (i.e. not stunned or unconscious), and only if you're unengaged."
CHAPTER 4
The Sprint action is the most important point in this chapter for the purposes of this conversion. Unfortunately, as-written in contains a lot of references to both grid-based movement and 4E mechanics not present in 13th Age. It's also a little complex. Therefore, I've completely re-written the rules block. Also, see footnote 4 regarding Soar/Cruise.
Sprint
The tactical consideration to keep in mind with Sprint is that it affords the opportunity to make a quick dash to present yourself as a moving target that is harder for ranged enemies to hit. If you don't think that such tactics add to your game, feel free to ignore it. It's recommended if you use Chapter 5, though, since the defense it provides against ranged attacks balances well with the primarily melee-centric active defenses and counter-offensives.
CHAPTER 5
This chapter might be too complicated for a game run using Theater of the Mind. 13th Age is already very liberal in how you describe combatants moving around the battlefield, and there aren't really grid-based mechanics that restrict that dynamic duel feeling. But there are also no mechanics (outside of the Rogue class) that specifically encourage it, either. Adaptations of this chapter are worth experimenting with, and if they're too crunchy ignore them. These are my recommendations for each of this chapter's mechanics.
Hit Point Healthy
Use a simple 3/4 HP adjustment instead. You're really just trying to avoid prolonging battles by offsetting the increase in durability that active defenses afford both the PCs and monsters.
Evade
Re-write the rules block as follows. Off-turn Move action. Trigger: Your AC is targeted with a melee or close-quarters attack. Effect: if you're engaged with only 1 enemy, pop off and take a move (you're sapped until the start of your next turn). You cannot use this move to engage with any foe. Reduce the damage taken by the triggering attack in half.
Press
Re-write the rules block as follows. Move Action on your turn. Follow an Evading enemy. If you succeed at a Hard save (16+) then the evading enemy is tapped instead of sapped.
Brace
In the first bullet point, replace "Fortitude or Will defense" with "Physical or Mental Defense." Delete the third bullet point.
Cower
Delete this action altogether. There's no prone or forced movement in 13th Age.
In the second bullet point remove references to prone and forced movement. Remove the 3rd bullet, and in the last bullet change "you're tapped..." to "you're tapped and vulnerable...".
I decided to add this back in because there are specific corner cases (Hold Person spell, grabs) where an Evade couldn't be used, so it actually is useful as a last resort.
Collapse
Remove references to prone and bloodied. I'm not sure if this action is needed, as I'm not sure if auto-damage is quite the problem in 13th Age as it is in 4E.
Ripost
Re-write the rules block as follows. Off-turn Move action. Trigger: An attack misses you. Effect: Make an unmodified basic melee attack against the creature that missed you. You can't ripost if you can't otherwise make attacks. You are sapped until the start of your next turn.
Note that Evade, Press, and Ripost work together quite well to model dynamic, 1-on-1 duels and provide significant tactical choices without necessarily requiring teamwork.
CHAPTER 6
This chapter breaks the "don't sweat the modifiers" advice in the 13th Age rulebook, but for those who like situational modifiers the option should be there.Everything can pretty much be used as-is, though for the Support option "Fortitude and Will" should be replaced by "Physical and Mental Defense."
Higher Ground
Change to the following: If the target has higher ground you take a -2 penalty to attacks that target AC or Physical Defense. GMs should use this bonus sparingly, and only in dramatically appropriate situations where terrain advantage would be significant (i.e. fighting on a staircase).
Lower Ground
Change to the following: If the target has lower ground you gain a +2 bonus to ranged attacks. GMs should use this bonus sparingly, and only in dramatically appropriate situations where terrain advantage would be significant (i.e. firing from a rooftop).
Precarious Position
Change to the following: If the target is near a hazard (like a cliff) or occupies challenging terrain (i.e. waist-deep water) and you are not, you gain a +2 bonus to melee and close quarters attacks. GMs should use this bonus sparingly, and only in dramatically appropriate situations where terrain advantage would be significant.
Optional - Circumstantial Advantage
If you want to stay true to the "don't sweat the modifiers" clause, you can substitute these bonuses/penalties for the Advantage/Disadvantage system from D&D Next.
CHAPTER 7
Dramatic Direction is arguably the most universal concept in Combat In Motion. I also think it has the most stylistic importance. Given that 13th Age has an inclination toward story game elements, why not employ a concept designed to structure action in a way that preserves narrative flow?
Called to Action
This is the simplest dramatic direction both conceptually and mechanically. I'm a huge supporter of this one, as it breaks combat up into dramatically relevant "scenes" instead of resolving actions as a randomly-determined jumble. Causal relationships aren't always clear when you interrupt the action with someone else's turn. No reason not to use this for any RPG with a numerical initiative system. The rules block works fine as-is for 13th Age.
Keep Rolling
This only matters if you're using Motion States. Basically, characters who are already committed to an action (by virtue of their being in the middle of it) should go first. Their momentum would give them a temporal advantage, and it makes narrative sense to resolve their actions as soon as possible. The rules block is fine as-written.
Held in Suspense
Change the trigger to the following: You're Held in Suspense if subject to the Stunned condition, if you're prevented from moving (such as by a spell or power), or if you've suffered a physical setback (such as falling off of a horse) before you've taken your turn this round.
Footnotes
1: Crunchier Alternative to Extended Moves: One solution is to use the rules block for "Change Your Motion State" and "Extended Move" as is. These rules aren't too crunchy, and mostly set the stage for the real meat of this chapter -- the In-Motion state and its bonuses and penalties. They're intuitive enough that once you get the general idea, you can apply them without thinking too much about it.
Though the Extended Move rules block contains 5 bullet points, for the purposes of 13th Age you can pretty much distill it down to the following summary: whenever you take a double move on your turn (such as when attempting to reach a far away target), you must end your first move and begin the second in-motion (important for triggering off-turn actions). Rogues need to pay closer attention, as they have standard actions that sometimes include movement components (personally I'd give them the option to change motion state or not; note that the class would get an initiative advantage via the Keep Rolling dramatic direction, which is at least thematically appropriate). Also remember that teleportation and triggered actions can ignore motion state requirements, and you may or may not want to keep the readied action restrictions (though as a situational rule, and an extra thing to remember at that, it's safe to ignore it without impacting the intent of the mechanic too much).
2: The "Complete an Action In-Motion" rules block is largely redundant for the purposes of this conversion. It provides clarifications for grid-based play that 13th Age simply doesn't employ. With a much simpler "facing" system described in the rules for In-Motion (and the system's encouragement for rulings over rules), this stuff need not be spelled out so exactly.
3: The final concepts in this chapter are too overly-specific and situational to really worry about for 13th Age. Forced Movement doesn't often occur with this system, and when it does squares aren't counted because play is gridless. Likewise the effects of Stumble and Crash are mostly irrelevant. The fact that Teleportation works a little differently as its movement isn't directly dependent on motion-state might be worth remembering, but the specifics (placement of the Trail and such) are irrelevant to this conversion.
4: I'm not even going to bother with conversions for Soar or Cruise. Not only will flight and vehicles/mounts possibly be covered in 13 True Ways, but these rules are very situational and quite crunchy. Not the best combination for inclusion into 13th Age. The gist of Soar is that when GMs are describing creatures in flight, do so in a way that makes sense. Don't exaggerate their maneuverability, and make them actually keep moving (unless they can specifically hover). Likewise, describe vehicle movement in a way that makes logical sense. The existing range band system doesn't model acceleration very well, so don't worry about it. Use cinematic narration and existing mechanics (skill checks) for things like chase scenes.
I'll briefly get to the heart of many of the new concepts. Continuous motion is addressed by allowing previous moves to affect future moves, rather than allowing movement to be broken into "stop and go" segments defined by arbitrary "turns" which exist only for the sake of playability, and not in the imagined game world. New off-turn actions allow players to react to continuous motion in more believable ways; no longer can vast distances be covered without giving opponents the opportunity to respond. Off-turn actions are designed to not break the action economy, but rather switch things up a bit by allowing players to attack outside of their turns ("borrowing" actions from future turns). This keeps players engaged throughout combat, since the opportunity for tactically significant action can come up at any time. Some of these actions also grant players more freedom to manage their own offense vs defense in tactically interesting ways. Finally, strict adherence to a randomly generated initiative order is discarded; rather, the order in which combatants take their turns depends on the dramatic context and ever-changing momentum of the battle. Quite simply, it's a more effective way to tell a story.
While the specific rules that address these concepts will not be applicable to systems other than 4E, it's not too much of a stretch to adapt the content using the framework of a different system. In this case, 13th Age (which you can pre-order here). In addition to being a game that I have a lot of personal interest in currently, it makes a good first attempt for several other reasons. It's similar enough in that it's a d20 game with a lot of 4E inspiration, but other than that it has very different priorities. It boasts simplified, sometimes free-form rules, prioritizes story elements, and is gridless. Clearly a direct port with minor tweaks isn't going to happen! Some rules will best be left ignored, while others will be simplified to some extent. Instead of trying to make the existing 4E mechanics work within a different system, I'll instead try to write rules and make changes with the "spirit" of the concepts in mind.
Note that the following conversions are a work in progress, and may be subject to change as the ideas are refined. I haven't playtested any of this yet, but hopefully that will change in the near future. Some of these things can possible stand to diverge from the original 4E rules a little more, but I feel that it's a good starting point.
CHAPTER 1
Not applicable for the default TotM play style. Ignore this chapter.
CHAPTER 2
Most of this chapter is possibly too "crunchy" for 13th Age. For players who want to sacrifice a little simplicity for the advantages of modeling continuous movement, my conversion of the rules is as follows.
For alternative solutions and deleted rules blocks, see footnotes 1, 2, and 3.
Extended Moves
The conceptual value of the Extended Move mostly lies with the interaction with Outpace and Interdict (Chapter 3). The biggest issue that the authors were trying to solve were combatants covering a lot of ground without giving their opponents an opportunity to react. The best solution would be to preserve that intent while honoring the system's tendency toward simplicity.
To that end, perhaps the Extended Move rule can be distilled down to the following: whenever you move toward a far away target (such as by using a double move) you are considered to be in-motion and your movement may trigger the Outpace and/or Interdict action.
In-Motion
- -While in-motion your vision is limited; treat the entire battlefield except your forward-facing direction as if you were Dazed (apply the penalty to any Perception-type rolls as well as attacks). Your forward-facing direction includes the object, creature, or space that you're moving toward and anything directly in-between (replaces "your vision is limited" rules of the 4E version).
- -Gain +2 to melee attacks against engaged enemies in your forward-facing direction (replaces "gain combat advantage" rules).
- -If you are subject to an area attack targeting a number of creatures in a group (or all creatures engaged), make a normal save (11+) to avoid all effects of the attack (replaces "retreating target" rules).
- -You may pop free from any engaged enemy directly in front of you if you make a move starting in-motion (no disengagement check necessary) (replaces "move with momentum" rules).
- -You cannot reverse direction from the previous move that you ended in-motion (replaces "can't reverse" rules).
Halt
Can be used as-is; the concept is inherently simple and intuitive.
CHAPTER 3
This chapter introduces the concept of off-turn actions, as well as follows up with the consequences for last chapter's Extended Move (Outpace and Interdict). All five rules blocks for this chapter are retained (in an altered form).
Sapped and Tapped
Remove references to flanking, otherwise these remain unchanged. Very easy to remember, and the conditions are basically "placeholders" reminding you that you've borrowed an action from your upcoming turn.
Off-Turn Actions
Technically the first 2 bullet points just explain how individual off-turn actions will be described in their own rules blocks. Worth keeping in mind, though it does "clutter up" this rules block a bit, making it look more complex than it is. Delete reference to charging. Change "must not be dazed, stunned, surprised, or unconscious" to "Must not be Confused, Stunned, or unconscious." Change "immediate and opportunity actions" to "interrupt actions and opportunity attacks." While this rules block is necessary background information, for general reference you'll be referring to the individual actions.
Outpace
Use the rules block as-is, with the following changes. The last sentence of the second bullet point should read "you can't engage with motionless enemies." The third bullet point should simply read "you cannot outpace if you're engaged or otherwise unable to move."
Interdict
Use the rules block as-is, with these changes. The second bullet point should read "Effect: make a single ranged weapon attack (basic attack with no frills) or cast a single-target ranged at-will spell. On a hit the target must roll a normal save (11+) for its next move action; on a failure it doesn't reach its destination (your attack slowed it down)." The third bullet point can be edited thus: "you can only interdict if you are able to make a ranged attack (i.e. not stunned or unconscious), and only if you're unengaged."
CHAPTER 4
The Sprint action is the most important point in this chapter for the purposes of this conversion. Unfortunately, as-written in contains a lot of references to both grid-based movement and 4E mechanics not present in 13th Age. It's also a little complex. Therefore, I've completely re-written the rules block. Also, see footnote 4 regarding Soar/Cruise.
Sprint
- -You must complete a sprint action in-motion.
- -Your turn radius is limited to a generally straight path (as a guideline, you cannot round corners with a 90 degree turn, but you can get around them if approaching from a diagonal. GM has final say on what constitutes too sharp a turn).
- -While sprinting your vision is limited; as with the In-Motion state, treat the entire battlefield except your forward-facing direction as if you were Dazed (apply the penalty to any Perception-type rolls as well as attacks). Your forward-facing direction includes the object, creature, or space that you're moving toward and anything directly in-between.
- -You are considered Vulnerable to any melee attacks (including opportunity attacks), and to ranged attacks made generally parallel to your line of motion (shooting at you from ahead or behind).
- -Ranged attacks against you made perpendicular to your line of motion are penalized as if the attacker were Dazed. The GM has final say over whether an attack is made from parallel or perpendicular (there is no in-between), but as a general rule should favor ruling perpendicular.
The tactical consideration to keep in mind with Sprint is that it affords the opportunity to make a quick dash to present yourself as a moving target that is harder for ranged enemies to hit. If you don't think that such tactics add to your game, feel free to ignore it. It's recommended if you use Chapter 5, though, since the defense it provides against ranged attacks balances well with the primarily melee-centric active defenses and counter-offensives.
CHAPTER 5
This chapter might be too complicated for a game run using Theater of the Mind. 13th Age is already very liberal in how you describe combatants moving around the battlefield, and there aren't really grid-based mechanics that restrict that dynamic duel feeling. But there are also no mechanics (outside of the Rogue class) that specifically encourage it, either. Adaptations of this chapter are worth experimenting with, and if they're too crunchy ignore them. These are my recommendations for each of this chapter's mechanics.
Hit Point Healthy
Use a simple 3/4 HP adjustment instead. You're really just trying to avoid prolonging battles by offsetting the increase in durability that active defenses afford both the PCs and monsters.
Evade
Re-write the rules block as follows. Off-turn Move action. Trigger: Your AC is targeted with a melee or close-quarters attack. Effect: if you're engaged with only 1 enemy, pop off and take a move (you're sapped until the start of your next turn). You cannot use this move to engage with any foe. Reduce the damage taken by the triggering attack in half.
Press
Re-write the rules block as follows. Move Action on your turn. Follow an Evading enemy. If you succeed at a Hard save (16+) then the evading enemy is tapped instead of sapped.
Brace
In the first bullet point, replace "Fortitude or Will defense" with "Physical or Mental Defense." Delete the third bullet point.
Cower
In the second bullet point remove references to prone and forced movement. Remove the 3rd bullet, and in the last bullet change "you're tapped..." to "you're tapped and vulnerable...".
I decided to add this back in because there are specific corner cases (Hold Person spell, grabs) where an Evade couldn't be used, so it actually is useful as a last resort.
Collapse
Remove references to prone and bloodied. I'm not sure if this action is needed, as I'm not sure if auto-damage is quite the problem in 13th Age as it is in 4E.
Ripost
Re-write the rules block as follows. Off-turn Move action. Trigger: An attack misses you. Effect: Make an unmodified basic melee attack against the creature that missed you. You can't ripost if you can't otherwise make attacks. You are sapped until the start of your next turn.
Note that Evade, Press, and Ripost work together quite well to model dynamic, 1-on-1 duels and provide significant tactical choices without necessarily requiring teamwork.
CHAPTER 6
This chapter breaks the "don't sweat the modifiers" advice in the 13th Age rulebook, but for those who like situational modifiers the option should be there.
Higher Ground
Change to the following: If the target has higher ground you take a -2 penalty to attacks that target AC or Physical Defense. GMs should use this bonus sparingly, and only in dramatically appropriate situations where terrain advantage would be significant (i.e. fighting on a staircase).
Lower Ground
Change to the following: If the target has lower ground you gain a +2 bonus to ranged attacks. GMs should use this bonus sparingly, and only in dramatically appropriate situations where terrain advantage would be significant (i.e. firing from a rooftop).
Precarious Position
Change to the following: If the target is near a hazard (like a cliff) or occupies challenging terrain (i.e. waist-deep water) and you are not, you gain a +2 bonus to melee and close quarters attacks. GMs should use this bonus sparingly, and only in dramatically appropriate situations where terrain advantage would be significant.
Optional - Circumstantial Advantage
If you want to stay true to the "don't sweat the modifiers" clause, you can substitute these bonuses/penalties for the Advantage/Disadvantage system from D&D Next.
CHAPTER 7
Dramatic Direction is arguably the most universal concept in Combat In Motion. I also think it has the most stylistic importance. Given that 13th Age has an inclination toward story game elements, why not employ a concept designed to structure action in a way that preserves narrative flow?
Called to Action
This is the simplest dramatic direction both conceptually and mechanically. I'm a huge supporter of this one, as it breaks combat up into dramatically relevant "scenes" instead of resolving actions as a randomly-determined jumble. Causal relationships aren't always clear when you interrupt the action with someone else's turn. No reason not to use this for any RPG with a numerical initiative system. The rules block works fine as-is for 13th Age.
Keep Rolling
This only matters if you're using Motion States. Basically, characters who are already committed to an action (by virtue of their being in the middle of it) should go first. Their momentum would give them a temporal advantage, and it makes narrative sense to resolve their actions as soon as possible. The rules block is fine as-written.
Held in Suspense
Change the trigger to the following: You're Held in Suspense if subject to the Stunned condition, if you're prevented from moving (such as by a spell or power), or if you've suffered a physical setback (such as falling off of a horse) before you've taken your turn this round.
Footnotes
1: Crunchier Alternative to Extended Moves: One solution is to use the rules block for "Change Your Motion State" and "Extended Move" as is. These rules aren't too crunchy, and mostly set the stage for the real meat of this chapter -- the In-Motion state and its bonuses and penalties. They're intuitive enough that once you get the general idea, you can apply them without thinking too much about it.
Though the Extended Move rules block contains 5 bullet points, for the purposes of 13th Age you can pretty much distill it down to the following summary: whenever you take a double move on your turn (such as when attempting to reach a far away target), you must end your first move and begin the second in-motion (important for triggering off-turn actions). Rogues need to pay closer attention, as they have standard actions that sometimes include movement components (personally I'd give them the option to change motion state or not; note that the class would get an initiative advantage via the Keep Rolling dramatic direction, which is at least thematically appropriate). Also remember that teleportation and triggered actions can ignore motion state requirements, and you may or may not want to keep the readied action restrictions (though as a situational rule, and an extra thing to remember at that, it's safe to ignore it without impacting the intent of the mechanic too much).
2: The "Complete an Action In-Motion" rules block is largely redundant for the purposes of this conversion. It provides clarifications for grid-based play that 13th Age simply doesn't employ. With a much simpler "facing" system described in the rules for In-Motion (and the system's encouragement for rulings over rules), this stuff need not be spelled out so exactly.
3: The final concepts in this chapter are too overly-specific and situational to really worry about for 13th Age. Forced Movement doesn't often occur with this system, and when it does squares aren't counted because play is gridless. Likewise the effects of Stumble and Crash are mostly irrelevant. The fact that Teleportation works a little differently as its movement isn't directly dependent on motion-state might be worth remembering, but the specifics (placement of the Trail and such) are irrelevant to this conversion.
4: I'm not even going to bother with conversions for Soar or Cruise. Not only will flight and vehicles/mounts possibly be covered in 13 True Ways, but these rules are very situational and quite crunchy. Not the best combination for inclusion into 13th Age. The gist of Soar is that when GMs are describing creatures in flight, do so in a way that makes sense. Don't exaggerate their maneuverability, and make them actually keep moving (unless they can specifically hover). Likewise, describe vehicle movement in a way that makes logical sense. The existing range band system doesn't model acceleration very well, so don't worry about it. Use cinematic narration and existing mechanics (skill checks) for things like chase scenes.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Review: Combat in Motion
Introduction
Combat In Motion is a new 3rd party supplement for Dungeons and Dragons 4E. You can learn more about it (or order a copy) from the Enhanced 4E website. It's essentially a set of house rules that aim to provide more tactical depth to an already tactically-rich game. Most of these new rules are fairly intuitive, resulting in an increase in simulationism, a more accurate representation of the game-world, or an increase in cinematic structure. One might call many of these new rules "patches" for the weak spots in the core 4E rules, sometimes adding layers to the existing mechanics and other times replacing them outright.
As might be expected, the new rules are largely modular so that individual GMs can pick and choose what they want to use. After all, some of the new rules offer more complexity for the increased realism and not all GMs will want that much more complexity in their game. I have a feeling that few people will prefer to adopt every single new rule for their game, but few people would also pass up on every single new rule; after giving the book a read-through, most GMs (or players) would likely occupy a middle-ground, wanting to incorporate some but not all of the new material.
One of the highlights of this book is that whereas specific tactics utilized would often depend on your choice of class in core 4E, all of these new rules are universal. The one caveat is that characters without a strong basic attack are penalized by making some of the more attractive options virtually non-existent, so I would highly recommend giving out Melee Training for free, and possibly creating a similar house-rule that opens more classes up to Ranged Basic Attacks as well. By using this book you're already houseruling: you might as well ensure that you're being egalitarian about it.
As a final note I'd like to point out that while these new rules were designed to work with D&D 4E, and like the base system rely heavily on a battle grid, many of the new concepts can be applicable to other systems (even those employing a theater-of-the-mind combat style). Indeed, there are a few concepts that I found myself eagerly trying to mentally squeeze into the rules for drastically different systems, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to tweak your favorites to apply to your system of choice. Some of the new concepts are different from anything I've yet seen in tabletop RPGs, which is pretty exciting!
The New Battle Grid
This chapter is obviously dependent on grid-based play, and is arguably the most "independent" of the new concepts that the book introduces. What this chapter does is make the representation of the game world on a battle grid more closely resemble 3rd Edition than 4th Edition D&D. Instead of square fireballs and diagonal movement being equivalent to horizontal movement, these new rules seek to make the grid geometry fit more mathematically smoothly with the imagined world.
Unlike 3rd Edition D&D, which accomplishes this in purely numerical terminology, the Enhanced 4E system references the in-world metric of "paces." While this is pretty easy to wrap your head around, it does require some mental conversion, especially since it will sometimes be more convenient to measure things in-game using squares, and other times using paces. How it works is that there's a square-to-paces conversion, with movement across a square's diagonal costing more paces than horizontal movement. Likewise, even if a burst or blast still technically takes up a square area, a creature must still be specifically within range of the origin in paces. A creature within the square area but standing in one of the corners is thus not affected.
Personally, the spatial distortion of standard 4E never bothered me much. After all, we're all used to the phenomenon in real life even if we aren't aware of it -- a map is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object (the earth). All maps display distortion of some kind, with different map projections minimizing distortion of some variables while sacrificing others (variables include distance, area, shape, and direction). Think of a world map; the land near the poles appears proportionately larger than the land near the equator than it actually is (compare it to a globe to see for yourself). Anyways, if you think about standard 4E's simplified grid in the same way it seems a lot more tolerable. The tradeoff, of course, is for ease and speed of use. A square is a lot easier to mentally project onto a grid than a more complicated shape like 3E's area effect templates, and likewise counting squares is more quickly resolved than keeping track of how many diagonals you trace on your path and remembering to subtract additional paces.
Personally, this isn't a chapter I would use because the distortions of standard 4E's simplified measurements don't bother me, and their effect on the speed of play is something that I find extremely valuable. That said, for those who prefer the 3rd Edition system and/or those whose sense of immersion is strained by 4E's more simplified approach, this chapter is as good a solution as any. Indeed, the in-world "paces" terminology might be more intuitive than the default 3rd Edition system for some; at the very least there are now 3 options to choose from. Ultimately, this chapter caters to more simulationist gamers, but that's definitely not a bad thing. 4E already provides the default option for the gamists, and providing an alternative for those who prefer it can only be classified as a good thing.
Motion States
I personally find the concepts of this chapter to be a little jarring, but I haven't playtested anything in this book, so for all I know they work more fluidly in-play. Of course the reason why this chapter exists is because the authors found the stop-start movement of the default turn-based paradigm to be jarring, so your mileage may vary. In a nutshell, the new rules presented here provide the option for creatures to end standard and move actions in which they moved either "in-motion" or "motionless." In other words, over the course of multiple turns is the character whacking an enemy with his sword as he runs past, or is he running up, taking a few swings while standing toe-to-toe, and then running away?
The key here is that when in-motion, actions taken by a character will be mechanically influenced by actions previously taken. Some of the new action types presented later will trigger off of motion state, and creatures in-motion gain facing properties (spatially-based bonuses and penalties) and a "trail" (which influences facing, as well as where you can move later). Facing squares are an attempt to model the fact that you can't focus your attention on certain areas around you as you're zipping by, and creatively uses the existing rules for concealment and combat advantage for simplicity's sake. You can also take advantage of your momentum in new ways; you don't provoke OAs for moving into your forward-facing space, you gain a movement bonus, and you can move into your forward-facing square at no cost to make a melee basic attack as a standard action.
Like many of the new rules in this book, what makes motion states interesting is that they're not always the exact right answer. In standard 4E, for example, it was always a good idea to charge if possible (and especially if you had the "charge package" of feat, item, and power-based buffs to charging). Because there are no drawbacks, there's really no tactical choice; if you can do it, you should do it. Your choices really came into play during character-building, which is less interesting. Being in-motion can give you an advantage over some enemies, but cause you to be vulnerable to others. And this isn't just because of the flat bonuses and penalties it provides; it may also trigger off-turn actions for both your allies and enemies, to your advantage or inconvenience.
Off-turn Actions
I've heard the argument many times; the abundance of opportunity actions and immediate actions in 4E bogs down combat. Does that mean that the addition of a new type of off-turn action will bog down combat even more? Again, I've not playtested this yet, but I'm going to have to go with "not necessarily." The key to this is the concept of actions "borrowed" from future turns, tracked by the new "sapped" and "tapped" conditions. Sapped means you've already used your move action off-turn, and Tapped means you've already used your standard action (they are therefore not available when your real turn comes up). Effectively you're not gaining any more actions, but rather gaining flexibility in when you can use them. Again keeping things tactically interesting, both of these conditions also prevent you from flanking (otherwise using an action now would usually be the obvious choice).
The arguments for this concept are compelling. You add tactical depth with the question: "is my action more valuable right now, in response to something that someone else did, or later on, on my turn?" Players pay more attention to the game during other turns because there's always the possibility of having an action being triggered. Combat flows more realistically and cinematically if creatures can act in response to what you do. Why should a creature be able to move across the entire battlefield without anyone reacting to it just because it's that creature's "turn?" Sure, all turns are supposed to happen simultaneously, but it creates some serious suspension of disbelief when the tactical landscape changes because of those actions. Why should a creature be able to move and then charge, covering 60 feet across open space toward a ranged enemy without risk of being hit by a volley during that movement? Furthermore, why should such a crazy move actually be advantageous, possibly leading to the ranged enemy being locked down? Would you run toward someone pointing a bow (or gun) at you?
The first new action presented in this chapter is Outpace. Triggered by a creature (ally or enemy) ending a move action in-motion and costing a move action (aka resulting in the Sapped condition), you can move yourself (albeit with some restrictions). This allows creatures to flee from enemies coming toward them, or to rush out to meet approaching enemies (perhaps to ensure the melee occurs in a more advantageous or less vulnerable position). The second new action is Interdict, which lets you make a Ranged Basic Attack as a standard action when an enemy completes a move in-motion, and if hit the triggering enemy is slowed, to boot. A powerful option, and one that speaks to the advantage that ranged attacks would logically have, but was previously absent from the game.
Special Movement
The "Run" action is another one that is tactically boring in 4E; not because using it is obvious, but because it's actually almost never a good idea to use at all. A heap of penalties for a measly speed bonus that, more often than not, isn't even needed. The rule has been outright replaced in Enhanced 4E, and to avoid confusion the new action is called Sprint. It carries similar penalties to being in-motion (and requires that you end in-motion), though it's a bit harsher. You open yourself up to attack from adjacent enemies (grant CA), suffer concealment penalties even with close and area attacks (though you have no net disadvantage attacking targets in your forward facing square), and have a limited turn radius. In exchange, you get the speed bonus like the old Run action, you won't provoke OAs from entering and exiting your forward-facing square (if you began the sprint in-motion), and most interestingly you enjoy total concealment against non-adjacent ranged attacks firing perpendicular to your line of movement. It's tough to hit a moving target!
Other refinements in this chapter are the Soar and Cruise movement types. These are basically just updates to the rules for flight speed and vehicles, respectively. Instead of simply allowing flying creatures to move just like terrestrial creatures - but in 3D! - the Soar rules more realistically model how a flying creature would move, mostly by imposing new restrictions on such movement. Plus the Hover trait means a whole lot more, now, since flying creatures need to move forward every turn and have a limited turning radius. If you care for such realism then these rules do a good job, but there's no denying that they add more crunchy complexity for something that usually doesn't come up that often in-play (thus they're not likely to be memorized by anyone). I've never had a problem with just "winging it" as a GM (pun intended), and having my flying creatures behave in realistic ways similar to these new restrictions. Much easier to do that in my book, but these new rules are great for simulationists, and they will even provide a good baseline for GMs who would rather improvise to do so in a more consistent manner. A useful addition even if you won't follow the exact rules to a T.
The new vehicle rules, including the Cruise movement type, utilize the new motion states (moving vehicles are not surprisingly always in-motion). They also outline various restrictions for turning radius and forced movement. Perhaps most importantly, a tiered system for acceleration (both positive and negative) is introduced. Most vehicles can't just start up at top speed from a dead stop (especially something like a horse pulling a carriage!), and Enhanced 4E offers fairly simple mechanics for it. There are also special in-motion rules for the vehicle's driver, and separate rules for any passengers. The example figures show a chase scene where a red dragon is pursuing a horse and cart with ranged PCs pelting the dragon from inside the cart. Some guidelines on using theater-of-the-mind for chase scenes would have been helpful here, as the double move requirement of Cruise along with typically high vehicle speeds would make tracking a course on a battle mat pretty complicated.
Active Defense and Counter-Offensives
In most games with active defenses a creature simply rolls opposed to the attack instead of having the attack compared with a static number. This increases variability, but not tactical depth, and many argue that the increased number of rolls slows play down. That's not how Enhanced 4E does active defense, and it's a good thing, too, with 4E combat already being comparatively slow.
The first concept introduced in this chapter is the "hit point healthy" value. Basically it's a complicated way of saying that everyone gets 3/4 HP if you want to retain standard combat length while employing the other rules in this chapter. These other rules tend to allow creatures to reduce incoming damage, or at least give them to option to do so. You can use HP healthy without the other rules to speed combat up, and you can ignore HP healthy while employing the other rules to draw combat out. Personally I think HP healthy is filled with a lot of pointless caveats and crunch because they also retain the max HP value and the two relate to each other in odd ways. As an example, a character who boosts surge value (through feats, items, etc.) would actually reduce his HP healthy value with the standard rules. Also, characters spend comparatively more time bloodied (which is still half of max HP). Fortunately, the simple houserule to this houserule is to call 3/4 HP your maximum, and perhaps provide a small boost to surge value (otherwise healing might get too low relative to the game's higher intrinsic damage).
In order to model a swashbuckling melee with constant movement creatures can make use of the Evade and Press actions. Evade is an off-turn move action (so you're Sapped) that a creature can make when targeted by an attack that targets AC or Reflex. You can move half your speed (the first square won't provoke OAs), and you can reduce some of the damage that was taken. Press, on the other hand, is a minor action taken on your turn. You can use it to follow an Evading enemy (even if you're not the one whom it's evading from), and it allows you to move half your speed minus one square (along the path that the enemy took). This is tactically critical, because if you end your press adjacent to the evading enemy you replace its Sapped condition with Tapped. Hello action denial! The speed differential ensures that an evading enemy can always move farther than a pressing creature of equal speed, and this has two consequences. The first is that allies will have to work together to set up Press opportunities for each other (and enemies that don't "take the bait" will give up their Evade, so you're denying actions either way). The example figures in the book made this look really cool, as it showed the turn-by-turn duel between a Fighter (set up by a Warlord) vs a Hobgoblin on a rope bridge. The second consequence of relative speeds of Press vs Evade is that faster creatures have a distinct advantage, which is something that is not usually apparent in combat (unless the extra speed is needed to cross some distance). The example that immediately springs to mind (because I tend to play them a lot) is an Elven Predator Druid. That speed 8 will allow the Druid to consistently catch up to evading enemies (of speed 7 or less) with the Press action, leading to more independently-generated action denial. Speed matters more overall, and faster monsters at higher levels will shift the dynamic in interesting ways.
Much simpler (and seemingly less tactically interesting) is the Brace action. It's an off-turn standard action that's triggered off of being attacked vs Fort or Will. A standard action is pretty costly just to reduce some of your incoming damage, and so this action will likely see much less use. Of course one consequence of this is that Fort and Will attacks become slightly more valuable because the active method of defending against them is more costly. Similar to the Brace action is Cower, the differences being it's triggered off of taking damage (as opposed to being targeted by an attack). You can also resist a square of forced movement. Situational, but good to have in your back pocket I suppose.
Collapse is a "no action" active defense that you can take if ongoing or automatic damage would drop you. You're instead left with 1 HP, prone, sapped, and tapped. The advantages are in not making death saves and potentially goading an enemy into wasting an attack to deal 1 effective point of damage (presumably before an ally heals you up afterwards). More interesting, however, is that Collapse can be employed by minions, which are often wiped out by auto-damage zones and auras in-play. Collapse means that they'll be locked down, but they can resume the fight as soon as the source of auto-damage is gone.
Finally, there's Ripost. Oh, what fun can be had with this action! It's triggered off of an attack that misses you, and for the price of an off-turn MOVE action you can make a Melee Basic Attack against your attacker. One interesting interaction is that multi-attacks like Twin Strike are taken down a peg; a Ripost can be taken if ANY individual attack in a power misses. Twin Strike always gave you double the chance of hitting at least once, but now you double your chances of triggering a Ripost too (and if you miss twice against two different targets you may trigger two!). This action is the main reason why a "free Melee Training" houserule is a very good idea. It's also worth noting that the ripost can trigger an Evade action, and the example figures show a dynamic sequence where the Fighter and Hobgoblin are constantly evading, pressing, and riposting each other, to different tactical effect depending on starting position and whether they or their opponent is already sapped or tapped. It all comes together into a set of organic options that don't boil down to "I use this power." Not that there's anything wrong with the power system, but it does tend to limit your viable options to what cards you're holding, and in Enhanced 4E that's no longer true. Besides, if these actions are hacked into a different system without specific powers, the increase in the amount of options might be even more significant.
Terrain Dimensions
The new rules in this chapter seek to expand the role of terrain in combat, and do so in a very simple way by providing mechanics for adjudicating modifiers. If the target of an attack has the high ground, your attacks vs Reflex and AC suffer a penalty. Likewise area and ranged attacks gain a bonus if the target is on low ground or significantly lower ground. If adjacent to a wall or other type of blocking obstacle a creature has support from it, and enjoys an effective bonus to Fort and Will depending on the size of the supporting object. Finally, the rules for Precarious Position mean that cliffs and pits aren't always dangerous when you take a fall, but also when you're adjacent to them. Some of your attention is always focused on not being subject to the adjacent terrain. Close and melee attacks against such creatures gain a bonus. Interestingly, occupying difficult terrain counts as being in a Precarious Position. That's cool, since powers that generate difficult terrain tend to be on the weak side (though there are some notable exceptions), and this is a nice buff.
Dramatic Direction
Before I got to this chapter I thought that I had a pretty good sense of what this book offered, but boy was I surprised! Dramatic direction is more or less a new system for adjudicating initiative, and it's one that places fluidity and narrative flow at the forefront. It opens by describing two fight sequences from a hypothetical movie, scene by scene. Warrior swings sword, cut to opponent blocking, cut to warrior getting knocked onto the ground, etc. While there are exceptions to the pattern in most movies (usually used to create suspense), the general idea is that related scenes should follow one-another to preserve the causal relationships between them. Which doesn't happen in most turn-based RPGs where initiative is either determined by a die roll, or with all PCs going together and then all NPCs going together. To illustrate how such a structure would look if applied to a movie the individual scenes from the two different fight sequences were then mish-mashed together. While chronologically accurate perhaps, one can imagine getting a headache trying to make sense of everything if actually watching it.
Ok, so movies and RPGs are different, but it's not so crazy to strive for similar presentation between the two mediums. The Enhanced 4E argument is that dramatic tension is lost when an enemy responds to an attack on his randomly-determined turn, in which 10 minutes of real-time may have passed. Even more off-putting are the effects that initiative order can sometimes have that strain suspension of disbelief. The example used (and a very good one at that) is a knight getting knocked off of his mount, and then because his turn arrives before the mount's he stands up from prone, remounts, and continues on as if nothing major happened. But the model fails to depict the game world here; that horse should be dozens of feet away before the knight can even get to his feet, and he's going to have to deal with the consequences of being dismounted, even if the horse turns back for him.
To solve these problems, mechanics for assigning priority in the initiative are provided. Initiative is still rolled and is still important for determining who will act first in the encounter, but the exact order will frequently be altered in order to preserve the narrative flow.
The first "cue" is Called to Action. If you're targeted by a close, melee, or grab attack and you haven't acted yet, your turn will occur immediately after your attacker's. This will tend to clump the action into spatially (and narratively) relevant groups. Fighter rushes up to the goblin shaman, you immediately see how that shaman responds. Cause and effect. That section of the battlefield is resolved, move onto another set of opponents. It certainly makes sense to me. As a GM I don't enjoy taking the unrelated turns of a group of enemies in rapid-fire succession (goblins 1 and 2 are attacking the warlord, goblin 3 is heading over toward the wizard, and goblin 4 is going to continue to attack the fighter, etc.). I'm not picturing the action very well when I do this (and the same probably goes for my players); rather I'm just trying to get all of these turns over with as fast as possible to keep the PCs engaged. Why break the action up into fragments of scenes if you don't have to? You're trying to tell a story here!
Keep Rolling is a dramatic direction that places creatures that are in-motion at the top of the initiative order. Such creatures haven't completed their full, in-game action; their scene isn't "finished." It makes most dramatic sense to resolve that scene (which is implicitly action-charged) as soon as possible. It also makes sense to establish what's going on with a vehicle during the current round before having its passengers take their turns. You could also argue that their momentum gives them a physical, in-world "edge," putting them where they want to be slightly faster than those who are motionless.
Finally, creatures that are immobilized or knocked prone are Held in Suspense. This neatly solves the "knight falls off his mount" conundrum. If you haven't taken your turn yet, you move to the top of the initiative for the next round. Why not the bottom of the current round? Because the Keep Rolling rule allows creatures in-motion to take priority, moving to the top of the initiative AFTER you've been placed there. Prioritizing the initiative this way models the fact that if you've been knocked to the ground while others continue to move, they're going to gain some distance on you. Initiative order shouldn't serve as a loophole to get around that.
Conclusions
So is the book worth picking up? I'd say definitely, yes. While it would seem to target an extremely niche market (players of D&D 4E, an edition soon-to-be-replaced, who want more tactical complexity from an already tactically-complex game), it does hold a wider appeal to more than just that niche. While the book is explicitly a set of house rules for 4E specifically, what I found most interesting were the game-design implications of its more novel concepts. Dramatic directions make so much sense I'm surprised I haven't encountered them before. They show that you can make this small tweak to a fairly minor mechanic (initiative) in order to create a specific style of play (more cinematic and consistent action sequences). Add to this the freedom that the new off-turn actions allow and you're no longer constrained by the restrictions of turns and initiative order, despite the fact that you're not abandoning those systems (which exist to give the game structure and actually make it playable). The additional rules complexity seems to be minimal, and the way in which combatants organically respond to each other is a huge reward, providing access to a whole new style of play. The chapter on active defenses illustrates new ways in which both PCs and monsters can gain control over their defensive stability vs offensive output, and the discussion of these options relative to HP healthy values provides a good starting point for GMs to start thinking about how they can alter the speed of combat and lethality in their games.
With D&D Next (5th Edition) on the horizon, it's also nice to know that third-party publishers can still breathe life into 4th Edition, perhaps even after WotC stops supporting the system. Indeed, I'd argue that the fresh and drastically different perspective offered in this book is a much better addition to the game than a lot of the official WotC stuff (how many "X Power" or "Adventurer's Vault" style books do we really need?).
As I was going through the book, I kept the possibility of system conversions ever-present in my mind. Lately I've been drawn more and more toward 13th Age and somewhat away from D&D, and so it was often the consequences of using these rules with that system that occupied my thoughts. Despite it being theater-of-the-mind by default, many of the concepts of Enhanced 4E can be distilled down, tweaked, and applied to 13th Age. In theory, at least (the caveat is that I haven't playtested these rules, nor have I even played 13th Age yet for temporary lack of a gaming group!). Still, it illustrates an important point because 13th Age is rules-light, somewhat freeform, fast-paced, and gridless (all things that 4E is not). Indeed, new tactical modules might be even more attractive for such a system since its burden of complexity is already low enough that new options would be unlikely to push it over the edge.
Ultimately, the biggest strength of tabletop RPGs is that they can greatly facilitate the ability to match the game and its rules to the group. In other words, they let you play the game that you want to play. A book packed with so many novel concepts can therefore be a great font for new ideas. Combat In Motion offers a new perspective, and one that will get you thinking about how to best run the game you want to play.
Combat In Motion is a new 3rd party supplement for Dungeons and Dragons 4E. You can learn more about it (or order a copy) from the Enhanced 4E website. It's essentially a set of house rules that aim to provide more tactical depth to an already tactically-rich game. Most of these new rules are fairly intuitive, resulting in an increase in simulationism, a more accurate representation of the game-world, or an increase in cinematic structure. One might call many of these new rules "patches" for the weak spots in the core 4E rules, sometimes adding layers to the existing mechanics and other times replacing them outright.
As might be expected, the new rules are largely modular so that individual GMs can pick and choose what they want to use. After all, some of the new rules offer more complexity for the increased realism and not all GMs will want that much more complexity in their game. I have a feeling that few people will prefer to adopt every single new rule for their game, but few people would also pass up on every single new rule; after giving the book a read-through, most GMs (or players) would likely occupy a middle-ground, wanting to incorporate some but not all of the new material.
One of the highlights of this book is that whereas specific tactics utilized would often depend on your choice of class in core 4E, all of these new rules are universal. The one caveat is that characters without a strong basic attack are penalized by making some of the more attractive options virtually non-existent, so I would highly recommend giving out Melee Training for free, and possibly creating a similar house-rule that opens more classes up to Ranged Basic Attacks as well. By using this book you're already houseruling: you might as well ensure that you're being egalitarian about it.
As a final note I'd like to point out that while these new rules were designed to work with D&D 4E, and like the base system rely heavily on a battle grid, many of the new concepts can be applicable to other systems (even those employing a theater-of-the-mind combat style). Indeed, there are a few concepts that I found myself eagerly trying to mentally squeeze into the rules for drastically different systems, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to tweak your favorites to apply to your system of choice. Some of the new concepts are different from anything I've yet seen in tabletop RPGs, which is pretty exciting!
The New Battle Grid
This chapter is obviously dependent on grid-based play, and is arguably the most "independent" of the new concepts that the book introduces. What this chapter does is make the representation of the game world on a battle grid more closely resemble 3rd Edition than 4th Edition D&D. Instead of square fireballs and diagonal movement being equivalent to horizontal movement, these new rules seek to make the grid geometry fit more mathematically smoothly with the imagined world.
Unlike 3rd Edition D&D, which accomplishes this in purely numerical terminology, the Enhanced 4E system references the in-world metric of "paces." While this is pretty easy to wrap your head around, it does require some mental conversion, especially since it will sometimes be more convenient to measure things in-game using squares, and other times using paces. How it works is that there's a square-to-paces conversion, with movement across a square's diagonal costing more paces than horizontal movement. Likewise, even if a burst or blast still technically takes up a square area, a creature must still be specifically within range of the origin in paces. A creature within the square area but standing in one of the corners is thus not affected.
Personally, the spatial distortion of standard 4E never bothered me much. After all, we're all used to the phenomenon in real life even if we aren't aware of it -- a map is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object (the earth). All maps display distortion of some kind, with different map projections minimizing distortion of some variables while sacrificing others (variables include distance, area, shape, and direction). Think of a world map; the land near the poles appears proportionately larger than the land near the equator than it actually is (compare it to a globe to see for yourself). Anyways, if you think about standard 4E's simplified grid in the same way it seems a lot more tolerable. The tradeoff, of course, is for ease and speed of use. A square is a lot easier to mentally project onto a grid than a more complicated shape like 3E's area effect templates, and likewise counting squares is more quickly resolved than keeping track of how many diagonals you trace on your path and remembering to subtract additional paces.
Personally, this isn't a chapter I would use because the distortions of standard 4E's simplified measurements don't bother me, and their effect on the speed of play is something that I find extremely valuable. That said, for those who prefer the 3rd Edition system and/or those whose sense of immersion is strained by 4E's more simplified approach, this chapter is as good a solution as any. Indeed, the in-world "paces" terminology might be more intuitive than the default 3rd Edition system for some; at the very least there are now 3 options to choose from. Ultimately, this chapter caters to more simulationist gamers, but that's definitely not a bad thing. 4E already provides the default option for the gamists, and providing an alternative for those who prefer it can only be classified as a good thing.
Motion States
I personally find the concepts of this chapter to be a little jarring, but I haven't playtested anything in this book, so for all I know they work more fluidly in-play. Of course the reason why this chapter exists is because the authors found the stop-start movement of the default turn-based paradigm to be jarring, so your mileage may vary. In a nutshell, the new rules presented here provide the option for creatures to end standard and move actions in which they moved either "in-motion" or "motionless." In other words, over the course of multiple turns is the character whacking an enemy with his sword as he runs past, or is he running up, taking a few swings while standing toe-to-toe, and then running away?
The key here is that when in-motion, actions taken by a character will be mechanically influenced by actions previously taken. Some of the new action types presented later will trigger off of motion state, and creatures in-motion gain facing properties (spatially-based bonuses and penalties) and a "trail" (which influences facing, as well as where you can move later). Facing squares are an attempt to model the fact that you can't focus your attention on certain areas around you as you're zipping by, and creatively uses the existing rules for concealment and combat advantage for simplicity's sake. You can also take advantage of your momentum in new ways; you don't provoke OAs for moving into your forward-facing space, you gain a movement bonus, and you can move into your forward-facing square at no cost to make a melee basic attack as a standard action.
Like many of the new rules in this book, what makes motion states interesting is that they're not always the exact right answer. In standard 4E, for example, it was always a good idea to charge if possible (and especially if you had the "charge package" of feat, item, and power-based buffs to charging). Because there are no drawbacks, there's really no tactical choice; if you can do it, you should do it. Your choices really came into play during character-building, which is less interesting. Being in-motion can give you an advantage over some enemies, but cause you to be vulnerable to others. And this isn't just because of the flat bonuses and penalties it provides; it may also trigger off-turn actions for both your allies and enemies, to your advantage or inconvenience.
Off-turn Actions
I've heard the argument many times; the abundance of opportunity actions and immediate actions in 4E bogs down combat. Does that mean that the addition of a new type of off-turn action will bog down combat even more? Again, I've not playtested this yet, but I'm going to have to go with "not necessarily." The key to this is the concept of actions "borrowed" from future turns, tracked by the new "sapped" and "tapped" conditions. Sapped means you've already used your move action off-turn, and Tapped means you've already used your standard action (they are therefore not available when your real turn comes up). Effectively you're not gaining any more actions, but rather gaining flexibility in when you can use them. Again keeping things tactically interesting, both of these conditions also prevent you from flanking (otherwise using an action now would usually be the obvious choice).
The arguments for this concept are compelling. You add tactical depth with the question: "is my action more valuable right now, in response to something that someone else did, or later on, on my turn?" Players pay more attention to the game during other turns because there's always the possibility of having an action being triggered. Combat flows more realistically and cinematically if creatures can act in response to what you do. Why should a creature be able to move across the entire battlefield without anyone reacting to it just because it's that creature's "turn?" Sure, all turns are supposed to happen simultaneously, but it creates some serious suspension of disbelief when the tactical landscape changes because of those actions. Why should a creature be able to move and then charge, covering 60 feet across open space toward a ranged enemy without risk of being hit by a volley during that movement? Furthermore, why should such a crazy move actually be advantageous, possibly leading to the ranged enemy being locked down? Would you run toward someone pointing a bow (or gun) at you?
The first new action presented in this chapter is Outpace. Triggered by a creature (ally or enemy) ending a move action in-motion and costing a move action (aka resulting in the Sapped condition), you can move yourself (albeit with some restrictions). This allows creatures to flee from enemies coming toward them, or to rush out to meet approaching enemies (perhaps to ensure the melee occurs in a more advantageous or less vulnerable position). The second new action is Interdict, which lets you make a Ranged Basic Attack as a standard action when an enemy completes a move in-motion, and if hit the triggering enemy is slowed, to boot. A powerful option, and one that speaks to the advantage that ranged attacks would logically have, but was previously absent from the game.
Special Movement
The "Run" action is another one that is tactically boring in 4E; not because using it is obvious, but because it's actually almost never a good idea to use at all. A heap of penalties for a measly speed bonus that, more often than not, isn't even needed. The rule has been outright replaced in Enhanced 4E, and to avoid confusion the new action is called Sprint. It carries similar penalties to being in-motion (and requires that you end in-motion), though it's a bit harsher. You open yourself up to attack from adjacent enemies (grant CA), suffer concealment penalties even with close and area attacks (though you have no net disadvantage attacking targets in your forward facing square), and have a limited turn radius. In exchange, you get the speed bonus like the old Run action, you won't provoke OAs from entering and exiting your forward-facing square (if you began the sprint in-motion), and most interestingly you enjoy total concealment against non-adjacent ranged attacks firing perpendicular to your line of movement. It's tough to hit a moving target!
Other refinements in this chapter are the Soar and Cruise movement types. These are basically just updates to the rules for flight speed and vehicles, respectively. Instead of simply allowing flying creatures to move just like terrestrial creatures - but in 3D! - the Soar rules more realistically model how a flying creature would move, mostly by imposing new restrictions on such movement. Plus the Hover trait means a whole lot more, now, since flying creatures need to move forward every turn and have a limited turning radius. If you care for such realism then these rules do a good job, but there's no denying that they add more crunchy complexity for something that usually doesn't come up that often in-play (thus they're not likely to be memorized by anyone). I've never had a problem with just "winging it" as a GM (pun intended), and having my flying creatures behave in realistic ways similar to these new restrictions. Much easier to do that in my book, but these new rules are great for simulationists, and they will even provide a good baseline for GMs who would rather improvise to do so in a more consistent manner. A useful addition even if you won't follow the exact rules to a T.
The new vehicle rules, including the Cruise movement type, utilize the new motion states (moving vehicles are not surprisingly always in-motion). They also outline various restrictions for turning radius and forced movement. Perhaps most importantly, a tiered system for acceleration (both positive and negative) is introduced. Most vehicles can't just start up at top speed from a dead stop (especially something like a horse pulling a carriage!), and Enhanced 4E offers fairly simple mechanics for it. There are also special in-motion rules for the vehicle's driver, and separate rules for any passengers. The example figures show a chase scene where a red dragon is pursuing a horse and cart with ranged PCs pelting the dragon from inside the cart. Some guidelines on using theater-of-the-mind for chase scenes would have been helpful here, as the double move requirement of Cruise along with typically high vehicle speeds would make tracking a course on a battle mat pretty complicated.
Active Defense and Counter-Offensives
In most games with active defenses a creature simply rolls opposed to the attack instead of having the attack compared with a static number. This increases variability, but not tactical depth, and many argue that the increased number of rolls slows play down. That's not how Enhanced 4E does active defense, and it's a good thing, too, with 4E combat already being comparatively slow.
The first concept introduced in this chapter is the "hit point healthy" value. Basically it's a complicated way of saying that everyone gets 3/4 HP if you want to retain standard combat length while employing the other rules in this chapter. These other rules tend to allow creatures to reduce incoming damage, or at least give them to option to do so. You can use HP healthy without the other rules to speed combat up, and you can ignore HP healthy while employing the other rules to draw combat out. Personally I think HP healthy is filled with a lot of pointless caveats and crunch because they also retain the max HP value and the two relate to each other in odd ways. As an example, a character who boosts surge value (through feats, items, etc.) would actually reduce his HP healthy value with the standard rules. Also, characters spend comparatively more time bloodied (which is still half of max HP). Fortunately, the simple houserule to this houserule is to call 3/4 HP your maximum, and perhaps provide a small boost to surge value (otherwise healing might get too low relative to the game's higher intrinsic damage).
In order to model a swashbuckling melee with constant movement creatures can make use of the Evade and Press actions. Evade is an off-turn move action (so you're Sapped) that a creature can make when targeted by an attack that targets AC or Reflex. You can move half your speed (the first square won't provoke OAs), and you can reduce some of the damage that was taken. Press, on the other hand, is a minor action taken on your turn. You can use it to follow an Evading enemy (even if you're not the one whom it's evading from), and it allows you to move half your speed minus one square (along the path that the enemy took). This is tactically critical, because if you end your press adjacent to the evading enemy you replace its Sapped condition with Tapped. Hello action denial! The speed differential ensures that an evading enemy can always move farther than a pressing creature of equal speed, and this has two consequences. The first is that allies will have to work together to set up Press opportunities for each other (and enemies that don't "take the bait" will give up their Evade, so you're denying actions either way). The example figures in the book made this look really cool, as it showed the turn-by-turn duel between a Fighter (set up by a Warlord) vs a Hobgoblin on a rope bridge. The second consequence of relative speeds of Press vs Evade is that faster creatures have a distinct advantage, which is something that is not usually apparent in combat (unless the extra speed is needed to cross some distance). The example that immediately springs to mind (because I tend to play them a lot) is an Elven Predator Druid. That speed 8 will allow the Druid to consistently catch up to evading enemies (of speed 7 or less) with the Press action, leading to more independently-generated action denial. Speed matters more overall, and faster monsters at higher levels will shift the dynamic in interesting ways.
Much simpler (and seemingly less tactically interesting) is the Brace action. It's an off-turn standard action that's triggered off of being attacked vs Fort or Will. A standard action is pretty costly just to reduce some of your incoming damage, and so this action will likely see much less use. Of course one consequence of this is that Fort and Will attacks become slightly more valuable because the active method of defending against them is more costly. Similar to the Brace action is Cower, the differences being it's triggered off of taking damage (as opposed to being targeted by an attack). You can also resist a square of forced movement. Situational, but good to have in your back pocket I suppose.
Collapse is a "no action" active defense that you can take if ongoing or automatic damage would drop you. You're instead left with 1 HP, prone, sapped, and tapped. The advantages are in not making death saves and potentially goading an enemy into wasting an attack to deal 1 effective point of damage (presumably before an ally heals you up afterwards). More interesting, however, is that Collapse can be employed by minions, which are often wiped out by auto-damage zones and auras in-play. Collapse means that they'll be locked down, but they can resume the fight as soon as the source of auto-damage is gone.
Finally, there's Ripost. Oh, what fun can be had with this action! It's triggered off of an attack that misses you, and for the price of an off-turn MOVE action you can make a Melee Basic Attack against your attacker. One interesting interaction is that multi-attacks like Twin Strike are taken down a peg; a Ripost can be taken if ANY individual attack in a power misses. Twin Strike always gave you double the chance of hitting at least once, but now you double your chances of triggering a Ripost too (and if you miss twice against two different targets you may trigger two!). This action is the main reason why a "free Melee Training" houserule is a very good idea. It's also worth noting that the ripost can trigger an Evade action, and the example figures show a dynamic sequence where the Fighter and Hobgoblin are constantly evading, pressing, and riposting each other, to different tactical effect depending on starting position and whether they or their opponent is already sapped or tapped. It all comes together into a set of organic options that don't boil down to "I use this power." Not that there's anything wrong with the power system, but it does tend to limit your viable options to what cards you're holding, and in Enhanced 4E that's no longer true. Besides, if these actions are hacked into a different system without specific powers, the increase in the amount of options might be even more significant.
Terrain Dimensions
The new rules in this chapter seek to expand the role of terrain in combat, and do so in a very simple way by providing mechanics for adjudicating modifiers. If the target of an attack has the high ground, your attacks vs Reflex and AC suffer a penalty. Likewise area and ranged attacks gain a bonus if the target is on low ground or significantly lower ground. If adjacent to a wall or other type of blocking obstacle a creature has support from it, and enjoys an effective bonus to Fort and Will depending on the size of the supporting object. Finally, the rules for Precarious Position mean that cliffs and pits aren't always dangerous when you take a fall, but also when you're adjacent to them. Some of your attention is always focused on not being subject to the adjacent terrain. Close and melee attacks against such creatures gain a bonus. Interestingly, occupying difficult terrain counts as being in a Precarious Position. That's cool, since powers that generate difficult terrain tend to be on the weak side (though there are some notable exceptions), and this is a nice buff.
Dramatic Direction
Before I got to this chapter I thought that I had a pretty good sense of what this book offered, but boy was I surprised! Dramatic direction is more or less a new system for adjudicating initiative, and it's one that places fluidity and narrative flow at the forefront. It opens by describing two fight sequences from a hypothetical movie, scene by scene. Warrior swings sword, cut to opponent blocking, cut to warrior getting knocked onto the ground, etc. While there are exceptions to the pattern in most movies (usually used to create suspense), the general idea is that related scenes should follow one-another to preserve the causal relationships between them. Which doesn't happen in most turn-based RPGs where initiative is either determined by a die roll, or with all PCs going together and then all NPCs going together. To illustrate how such a structure would look if applied to a movie the individual scenes from the two different fight sequences were then mish-mashed together. While chronologically accurate perhaps, one can imagine getting a headache trying to make sense of everything if actually watching it.
Ok, so movies and RPGs are different, but it's not so crazy to strive for similar presentation between the two mediums. The Enhanced 4E argument is that dramatic tension is lost when an enemy responds to an attack on his randomly-determined turn, in which 10 minutes of real-time may have passed. Even more off-putting are the effects that initiative order can sometimes have that strain suspension of disbelief. The example used (and a very good one at that) is a knight getting knocked off of his mount, and then because his turn arrives before the mount's he stands up from prone, remounts, and continues on as if nothing major happened. But the model fails to depict the game world here; that horse should be dozens of feet away before the knight can even get to his feet, and he's going to have to deal with the consequences of being dismounted, even if the horse turns back for him.
To solve these problems, mechanics for assigning priority in the initiative are provided. Initiative is still rolled and is still important for determining who will act first in the encounter, but the exact order will frequently be altered in order to preserve the narrative flow.
The first "cue" is Called to Action. If you're targeted by a close, melee, or grab attack and you haven't acted yet, your turn will occur immediately after your attacker's. This will tend to clump the action into spatially (and narratively) relevant groups. Fighter rushes up to the goblin shaman, you immediately see how that shaman responds. Cause and effect. That section of the battlefield is resolved, move onto another set of opponents. It certainly makes sense to me. As a GM I don't enjoy taking the unrelated turns of a group of enemies in rapid-fire succession (goblins 1 and 2 are attacking the warlord, goblin 3 is heading over toward the wizard, and goblin 4 is going to continue to attack the fighter, etc.). I'm not picturing the action very well when I do this (and the same probably goes for my players); rather I'm just trying to get all of these turns over with as fast as possible to keep the PCs engaged. Why break the action up into fragments of scenes if you don't have to? You're trying to tell a story here!
Keep Rolling is a dramatic direction that places creatures that are in-motion at the top of the initiative order. Such creatures haven't completed their full, in-game action; their scene isn't "finished." It makes most dramatic sense to resolve that scene (which is implicitly action-charged) as soon as possible. It also makes sense to establish what's going on with a vehicle during the current round before having its passengers take their turns. You could also argue that their momentum gives them a physical, in-world "edge," putting them where they want to be slightly faster than those who are motionless.
Finally, creatures that are immobilized or knocked prone are Held in Suspense. This neatly solves the "knight falls off his mount" conundrum. If you haven't taken your turn yet, you move to the top of the initiative for the next round. Why not the bottom of the current round? Because the Keep Rolling rule allows creatures in-motion to take priority, moving to the top of the initiative AFTER you've been placed there. Prioritizing the initiative this way models the fact that if you've been knocked to the ground while others continue to move, they're going to gain some distance on you. Initiative order shouldn't serve as a loophole to get around that.
Conclusions
So is the book worth picking up? I'd say definitely, yes. While it would seem to target an extremely niche market (players of D&D 4E, an edition soon-to-be-replaced, who want more tactical complexity from an already tactically-complex game), it does hold a wider appeal to more than just that niche. While the book is explicitly a set of house rules for 4E specifically, what I found most interesting were the game-design implications of its more novel concepts. Dramatic directions make so much sense I'm surprised I haven't encountered them before. They show that you can make this small tweak to a fairly minor mechanic (initiative) in order to create a specific style of play (more cinematic and consistent action sequences). Add to this the freedom that the new off-turn actions allow and you're no longer constrained by the restrictions of turns and initiative order, despite the fact that you're not abandoning those systems (which exist to give the game structure and actually make it playable). The additional rules complexity seems to be minimal, and the way in which combatants organically respond to each other is a huge reward, providing access to a whole new style of play. The chapter on active defenses illustrates new ways in which both PCs and monsters can gain control over their defensive stability vs offensive output, and the discussion of these options relative to HP healthy values provides a good starting point for GMs to start thinking about how they can alter the speed of combat and lethality in their games.
With D&D Next (5th Edition) on the horizon, it's also nice to know that third-party publishers can still breathe life into 4th Edition, perhaps even after WotC stops supporting the system. Indeed, I'd argue that the fresh and drastically different perspective offered in this book is a much better addition to the game than a lot of the official WotC stuff (how many "X Power" or "Adventurer's Vault" style books do we really need?).
As I was going through the book, I kept the possibility of system conversions ever-present in my mind. Lately I've been drawn more and more toward 13th Age and somewhat away from D&D, and so it was often the consequences of using these rules with that system that occupied my thoughts. Despite it being theater-of-the-mind by default, many of the concepts of Enhanced 4E can be distilled down, tweaked, and applied to 13th Age. In theory, at least (the caveat is that I haven't playtested these rules, nor have I even played 13th Age yet for temporary lack of a gaming group!). Still, it illustrates an important point because 13th Age is rules-light, somewhat freeform, fast-paced, and gridless (all things that 4E is not). Indeed, new tactical modules might be even more attractive for such a system since its burden of complexity is already low enough that new options would be unlikely to push it over the edge.
Ultimately, the biggest strength of tabletop RPGs is that they can greatly facilitate the ability to match the game and its rules to the group. In other words, they let you play the game that you want to play. A book packed with so many novel concepts can therefore be a great font for new ideas. Combat In Motion offers a new perspective, and one that will get you thinking about how to best run the game you want to play.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Charged Magic Items
I just read this blog post on Dungeon's Master, and I must admit that it intrigued me. I'm seriously considering implementing this as a house rule in both 4E and 13th Age, both systems which lack a charged magic item mechanic. Though some modern games (like the aforementioned two) have done away with them, I think that charged magic items hit a sweet spot in magic item design.
Consider two extremes in design; the do-anything magic item system of 3rd edition D&D vs the bland system of 4th. In the first case magic items are arguably too easy to acquire and too powerful (for parties decked out with a lot of them), and in the other they simply weren't interesting even if they remained easy to acquire. Having charged items as one element of the magic system was something that 3rd edition did right, though.
I'm specifically thinking of a middle ground here. A system where PCs are not dependent on keeping a suite of magic weapons, implements, armors, etc up-to-date just to maintain baseline competency, but with items being interesting enough to feel "magical." They should be rare, tough or impossible for PCs to create themselves, and should have certain limitations or drawbacks depending on the item's specific power level. Charges are perfect for this! More powerful items have fewer charges, less powerful items have more. Some items might require a skill check to activate, while others would be more widely useable. Best of all, a flexible system that gives GMs plenty of guidelines (trial and error is fine too, if you're house-ruling) would foster the creation of custom items. Theoretically, any game element (a maneuver, spell, monster's power, etc.) could be replicated as limited-use magic, with the GM tweaking skill check requirements, number of charges, and recharge rolls to account for how s/he envisions the item impacting the party dynamics.
Besides which, deciding how/when to expend charges gives the PCs some interesting resource-management decisions outside of any full rest/daily mechanic that may be present in the system.
Consider two extremes in design; the do-anything magic item system of 3rd edition D&D vs the bland system of 4th. In the first case magic items are arguably too easy to acquire and too powerful (for parties decked out with a lot of them), and in the other they simply weren't interesting even if they remained easy to acquire. Having charged items as one element of the magic system was something that 3rd edition did right, though.
I'm specifically thinking of a middle ground here. A system where PCs are not dependent on keeping a suite of magic weapons, implements, armors, etc up-to-date just to maintain baseline competency, but with items being interesting enough to feel "magical." They should be rare, tough or impossible for PCs to create themselves, and should have certain limitations or drawbacks depending on the item's specific power level. Charges are perfect for this! More powerful items have fewer charges, less powerful items have more. Some items might require a skill check to activate, while others would be more widely useable. Best of all, a flexible system that gives GMs plenty of guidelines (trial and error is fine too, if you're house-ruling) would foster the creation of custom items. Theoretically, any game element (a maneuver, spell, monster's power, etc.) could be replicated as limited-use magic, with the GM tweaking skill check requirements, number of charges, and recharge rolls to account for how s/he envisions the item impacting the party dynamics.
Besides which, deciding how/when to expend charges gives the PCs some interesting resource-management decisions outside of any full rest/daily mechanic that may be present in the system.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Radiance RPG Review
Introduction
The text of Radiance RPG begins with a "letter" to the gamer outlining the design principles the game employs. These do a good job of framing the basis for everything else a reader will find in the pages thereafter; in other words, this letter brings transparency to the forefront, which is a good thing. The first principle is familiarity; the game contains the major tropes of D&D and fantasy in general, including things like Magic Missile, owlbears, etc. These familiar tropes ground the players, allowing the authors to add more setting-specific details that some might find a bit "out there" (more on that later). The rules are also very streamlined, with a minimum of sub-systems and simple rules that don't necessitate constant reference during play. This is extremely valuable in my opinion, given the heavy influence of 3rd Edition D&D (with its cumbersome rules being one of the big weaknesses of the system). Glad that's not a problem here. The game also aims to be flexible and modular, although not to the extent of D&D Next perhaps. Electrotech has its own chapter, as does magic items, etc., with few references to a specific subject in other chapters, making it very straightforward to simply not use a certain chapter in order to cater to a specific style (the example given being that not using the Electrotech chapter makes for a pretty stereotypical medieval fantasy game, assuming certain classes are also not chosen). Finally, the game strives for balance. I'm not sure that they've necessarily succeeded here, but without actually playing it's hard to tell. Certain options (class features) seem to be obviously better/worse than others, but all classes seem to have equal access to similar kinds of class features. In other words, while trap options exist and can lead to weaker characters, a player's choice of class/race will not likely "punish" them.
The Setting
Different types of setting are outlined early on, and these include things like classical myth, gritty medieval, comical mash-up, Lovecraftian horror, high fantasy, multiplanar epic, space fantasia, swashbuckling renaissance, Tolkien saga, Victorian steampunk, and zippy electrotech. Because specific mechanical options are not present in most other fantasy RPGs, the system probably does electrotech and steampunk the best. The technology can be as high as power suits, which bring to mind Iron Man or Samus Aran (at least that's what I think of). Thus, one could pretty easily run a "modern" (or even futuristic) game with classic fantasy tropes like vorpal swords and elves. Or not; just as electrotech can be cut to play a medieval-style game, the fantasy elements (while admittedly more entwined in the mythos and mechanics than electrotech) can also conceivably be cut to represent a modern setting without the fantasy elements. Honestly though, you almost have to see the art in order to get a feeling for what "default" setting the authors seem to have in mind.
Character Building - Structure
Choosing a race/class/theme combo, assigning ability scores (the familiar Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha), and buying equipment will all make sense to anyone who has played D&D or a similar RPG before. For those who haven't, character creation seems to be laid out concisely in an intuitive way. That said, some sacred cows were slain in the making of this game, and it's about time too!
There are no feats, spell lists, or powers; everyone simply chooses from a list of class features with enough options for heavy customization. Whereas a Wizard might pick up Fireball or Detect Magic, a Fighter would choose Defensive Block or Power Attack. These class features are organized into tiers (basic, intermediate, advanced, and paragon) with higher levels granting access to features from higher tiers. Additionally, class identity is maintained by giving every character 3 core abilities automatically. Fighters get Combat Focus, Rapid Attack, and Weapon Focus, whereas Wizards get Arcane Training, Magic Missile, and Spellbook. Class features also grant skill bonuses, and while there's a defined skill list there's otherwise no way to gain bonuses in skills. That's right, unless you take a skill-specific feature, the skill list is nearly meaningless, being a simple ability check by default. An example of this is that a Wizard can choose to take Dark Lore (+5 to Arcana and Dungeoneering), but might have to give up Mage Armor for it. Considering that there are some class features that boost Comeliness (an attribute that is described as having no mechanical value, but rather a numeric for assisting roleplaying), you can see how intra-class balance can be a bit off.
Another sacred cow slain: hit points! Sort of. Your race grants you Wound points (as an example, Humans are average and get 8) which represent bodily harm, and these never increase. Your level gives you Vitality points equal to (5x level) + Con and these represent energy, luck, and skill. You chew through vitality first, and when that's depleted damage starts applying to your wounds. Wounds recover more slowly than vitality, and vitality is also used to fuel many class features (which is how a Wizard's spells are balanced against a Fighter's maneuvers; both classes would tap into vitality for their more powerful abilities. This also has interesting implications for magical vs non-magical healing, and as an example Witches get an ability that lets them kiss allies to heal vitality.
What else is gone? Armor class. Yep, Radiance uses an "armor as DR" system that arguably makes a lot more sense. So what do opponents use as a target number for their attacks? There are 3 defenses straight out of 4E: Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. Like 4E, Fort is keyed off of the higher of Str or Con, etc. The math for the defenses is a lot cleaner than 4E's discrepancies between weapon and implement attacks, and AC vs NADs (non-AC defenses).
Choice of deity (or lack thereof) contains mechanical weight, as there's a Faith Point system that grants deity-specific boons. There are also guidelines for factions, alignment, and cultures to make sure that characters have ties to the game world, which is a general trend in fantasy RPGs that I'm fond of (13th Age and Dungeonworld have mechanics that serve a similar purpose).
Races
This game has a ton of races. Races provide ability score adjustments (both bonuses and penalties), physical traits (including racial powers and traits that all members of the race get), and Racial Abilities which function much like class features and allow for customization (some players might be happy to note that cultural adjustments would appear here). To provide an idea of scope here, Humans have a list of 27 abilities that you can choose from. Like class features, some of these provide skill bonuses (ex: Army Skills grants +2 to Athletics, Endurance, Handle Animal, Intimidate, and Warcraft), others grant combat bonuses (ex: Pride's Power grants +1 to all attack rolls), and still others offer limited-use powers (ex: Violent Ambition grants a +10 bonus to next attack once daily as a move action). Half Elves have a particularly interesting ability: "Interlude: After 1 hour of uninterrupted romantic intimacy with another person, that person regains 1d4+1 vitality. A person can benefit only once daily from this ability. Costs 1 vitality." Yep, apparently Half-Elves are natural prostitutes. Healing people by having sex with them might bring new meaning to the ubiquitous phrase "I need a heal!" Like the "Intoxicated" condition in the D&D Next playtest, I find mechanics like this to be a bit silly and potentially disruptive, but I guess it's worth a laugh.
The list of races includes Humans, Asimar, Atlan (aquatic people from Atlantis), Drack (Dragonborn), Dromite (insect people), Drow, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Goblin, Goliath, Grippli (frog people), Half Elf, Half Orc, Halfling, Hobgoblin, Kobold, Lizardfolk (with the worst Lizardfolk art EVER), Pygmy (mythological fey people, not meant to parallel real-world pygmies), Rakasha (cat-folk, basically half Rakshasa), Slith (Githzerai and Githyanki), Tengu (Kenku, or bird people for those not familiar with D&D Kenku), Tiefling, and Warmech (Warforged, but even more like robots and less like golems). Doesn't lack for choices, eh?
Classes
Each class has a prime attribute that they use for attacks. Fighters use Str, Clerics Wis, Wizards Int, etc. Medium and Heavy weapons target Fort, light and ranged weapons target Reflex, and magic can target pretty much any defense. A rather long list of party roles is discussed, but each class isn't shoehorned into one of 4 roles like in 4E; rather, a single class can cover multiple roles, and often gets a choice of which role(s) it fills. The roles are as follows: anti-mage, booster (buffing), brute, crafter, defender, devastator, face, healer, manipulator, scout, sneak, striker, summoner, traveler. As you can see, these aren't all combat roles, and perhaps that's enough to encourage people to pick up skill-boosting class features. Of course with anywhere between 1 and 5 class/race features gained at any given level, perhaps the sheer volume is enough to ensure that some of the "weaker," more situational, or fluff-based options get chosen. Or perhaps it will just facilitate min-maxing; without having played the system, I don't know.
Multiclassing exists as an optional rule, and it's more or less 3rd edition style. You forego the usual benefits from leveling up in your class, instead gaining the core abilities and 1 basic ability from your new class. Multiclassing takes time and money, and you're usually limited to a handful of classes by race (Humans can do whatever, as is expected).
Like the list of races, the class list is quite extensive: Artificer, Barbarian, Bard, Blackguard, Cleric, Dhampir (Vampire), Druid, Elementalist, Fighter, Gallant (Swashbuckler), Gunslinger, Inquisitor, Invoker, Mageblade, Medicant, Monk, Necromancer, Paladin, Pathfinder (Indiana Jones), Psion, Ranger, Rogue, Sage, Shadowcaster, Shaman, Shifter (Lycanthrope), Sorcerer (Dragon lineage, can transform into one), Warlock (explicitly evil), Witch (enchanter/illusitionist/empath flavor), and Wizard.
Combat
Combat is pretty similar to the newer editions of D&D, albeit more streamlined that 3rd or 4th edition. Like, the-whole-chapter-is-only-8-pages streamlined. The suite of standard, move, swift, and immediate actions will be familiar to many gamers, though Radiance allows for up to 3 swift actions during a turn. Yikes! Many of these fall under what would have been free actions before, though. There is also a list of special maneuvers that require the use of 1 or more actions (up to a full turn), and these include Forfeit Turn, Full Defense, Full Withdrawal, Full Aid, and Readied Action. The 4E Line of Sight vs Line of Effect rules are used. Organization is a little weird with status effects here, as some are presented in their own sections (for example, Blinded is in the Senses section), while others are in the dedicated list of Conditions. Contrary to the otherwise streamlined nature of the system, there is a surprisingly large amount of specific conditions much like 3rd edition D&D (ex. 3 different fear conditions; shaken, frightened, and panicked. Fatigued, Exhausted, and Lack of Sleep are all separate conditions. Etc.). All told there are 20 status effects in just the conditions section, 4 more under Senses, 4 under Special Protection (cover, etc.), 3 under Attacking, 1 under tracking damage, and Death, if you count that. That's 32 (or 33 if Death counts)!!!!! Too many, and it's a major hit against an otherwise very solid combat system. Few gamers can remember the nuances between that many conditions, the differences between sickened and nauseated, etc., and this will inevitably lead to rules-referencing during play, which is counter to the goals of the system. Personally I'd probably port the conditions list from D&D 4E or 13th Age into the game (perhaps with some modifications) because it would run a lot more smoothly. Other than that the chapter very concisely explains moving (with a section on using a grid), attacking, damage, terrain, size, opportunity attacks, area effects, surprise, initiative, and healing. Standard stuff.
Monsters
The Monster Folio is pretty sparsely populated, but as part of a free download with the PHB I guess you can't complain too much. You've got some of your very basic fantasy staples, a few weird things, and not much else. Gnolls are present, but no goblins or orcs? Ok, sure, if you say so.
Without having actually tried to GM the system, I'm inclined to say I don't like how monsters are presented. Each one takes up a full page of just crunch. Some of this is for different variations of the monster, but still. The stat block is concise if you think about it, but something about the layout just doesn't pull your eye to the important bits, and then outside the stat block you need to keep different abilities in mind. For example, the bulette has 5 base abilities (improved knockback, leap attack, resist mundane arrows, scent, and tremorsense) with variations adding even more (Death's Head bulette gets 3 more abilities on top of the base, and Ironworks bulette gains a whopping 5 more for a total of 10 abilities). Add on to this a list of numerical modifications to the stat block for these bulette variations (presented in sentence form, without a separate stat block, yuck!) and running anything other than the base creature will require the GM to reference a lot of different spots on the page, including mentally adjusting the numbers in the stat block or else re-writing the whole stat block with the changes factored in manually. It's simply not user-friendly.
A more extreme example can be shown with devils. There's a base devil stat block with 10 base abilities. Your different varieties of devil (osyluth, erinyes, kyton, etc.) add 3 to 5 additional abilities, and with the exception of the Balor all use the same base stat block, which is on a different page, of course. Fortunately these devil variants don't adjust the numerical values, but that's still a lot of flipping back and forth just to run a single monster, never mind encounters with multiple different kinds of monsters. One could probably get used to this, but with a trend toward simpler monster presentation in many systems why bother? The GM has a lot to worry about, and adding to that workload (even if it's just a little bit for each monster) has the potential to slow the game down.
If you're too discouraged by this section don't necessarily write the game off completely; this is arguably the system's biggest weakness, and it definitely bears pointing it out up front. GMs used to running 3rd edition D&D might not even notice the problem, and would enjoy an otherwise much more streamlined system.
Townies
There's a whole chapter on People, which is to say NPCs. This is where the Factions and Cultures are, but also Townies. Townies are a neat way of quickly generating memorable and mechanically meaningful NPCs of various professions. These can be hired by PCs or simply used by the GM. There's a simple Townie stat block, and then a list of 100 (!!!) different variations. These range anywhere from Witch Doctor (who can heal, possess animals, and make voodoo dolls, among other things; 8 abilities in all) to courtesans (who can heal your vitality if you have sex with them). A lot of these entries are very cool, and serve as a great source of inspiration for GMs at a loss for interesting NPCs.
Closing Thoughts
With such a wide variety of fantasy RPGs on the market these days, any given game needs something unique to draw in players and cause it to stand out from its competitors. I'd say that the selling points for Radiance are the following:
So when all is said and done, will I play it? Like Dungeon World and D&D Next it's a game that I'd love to take for a spin, but overall I think 13th Age does a better job of giving me what I want in a fantasy RPG. I probably won't run a long-term campaign with it, but I'm intrigued enough to play around with it and possibly steal some mechanics from it. Can't complain about having "too many" good games available, for it's certainly better than not having enough!
The text of Radiance RPG begins with a "letter" to the gamer outlining the design principles the game employs. These do a good job of framing the basis for everything else a reader will find in the pages thereafter; in other words, this letter brings transparency to the forefront, which is a good thing. The first principle is familiarity; the game contains the major tropes of D&D and fantasy in general, including things like Magic Missile, owlbears, etc. These familiar tropes ground the players, allowing the authors to add more setting-specific details that some might find a bit "out there" (more on that later). The rules are also very streamlined, with a minimum of sub-systems and simple rules that don't necessitate constant reference during play. This is extremely valuable in my opinion, given the heavy influence of 3rd Edition D&D (with its cumbersome rules being one of the big weaknesses of the system). Glad that's not a problem here. The game also aims to be flexible and modular, although not to the extent of D&D Next perhaps. Electrotech has its own chapter, as does magic items, etc., with few references to a specific subject in other chapters, making it very straightforward to simply not use a certain chapter in order to cater to a specific style (the example given being that not using the Electrotech chapter makes for a pretty stereotypical medieval fantasy game, assuming certain classes are also not chosen). Finally, the game strives for balance. I'm not sure that they've necessarily succeeded here, but without actually playing it's hard to tell. Certain options (class features) seem to be obviously better/worse than others, but all classes seem to have equal access to similar kinds of class features. In other words, while trap options exist and can lead to weaker characters, a player's choice of class/race will not likely "punish" them.
The Setting
Different types of setting are outlined early on, and these include things like classical myth, gritty medieval, comical mash-up, Lovecraftian horror, high fantasy, multiplanar epic, space fantasia, swashbuckling renaissance, Tolkien saga, Victorian steampunk, and zippy electrotech. Because specific mechanical options are not present in most other fantasy RPGs, the system probably does electrotech and steampunk the best. The technology can be as high as power suits, which bring to mind Iron Man or Samus Aran (at least that's what I think of). Thus, one could pretty easily run a "modern" (or even futuristic) game with classic fantasy tropes like vorpal swords and elves. Or not; just as electrotech can be cut to play a medieval-style game, the fantasy elements (while admittedly more entwined in the mythos and mechanics than electrotech) can also conceivably be cut to represent a modern setting without the fantasy elements. Honestly though, you almost have to see the art in order to get a feeling for what "default" setting the authors seem to have in mind.
Character Building - Structure
Choosing a race/class/theme combo, assigning ability scores (the familiar Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha), and buying equipment will all make sense to anyone who has played D&D or a similar RPG before. For those who haven't, character creation seems to be laid out concisely in an intuitive way. That said, some sacred cows were slain in the making of this game, and it's about time too!
There are no feats, spell lists, or powers; everyone simply chooses from a list of class features with enough options for heavy customization. Whereas a Wizard might pick up Fireball or Detect Magic, a Fighter would choose Defensive Block or Power Attack. These class features are organized into tiers (basic, intermediate, advanced, and paragon) with higher levels granting access to features from higher tiers. Additionally, class identity is maintained by giving every character 3 core abilities automatically. Fighters get Combat Focus, Rapid Attack, and Weapon Focus, whereas Wizards get Arcane Training, Magic Missile, and Spellbook. Class features also grant skill bonuses, and while there's a defined skill list there's otherwise no way to gain bonuses in skills. That's right, unless you take a skill-specific feature, the skill list is nearly meaningless, being a simple ability check by default. An example of this is that a Wizard can choose to take Dark Lore (+5 to Arcana and Dungeoneering), but might have to give up Mage Armor for it. Considering that there are some class features that boost Comeliness (an attribute that is described as having no mechanical value, but rather a numeric for assisting roleplaying), you can see how intra-class balance can be a bit off.
Another sacred cow slain: hit points! Sort of. Your race grants you Wound points (as an example, Humans are average and get 8) which represent bodily harm, and these never increase. Your level gives you Vitality points equal to (5x level) + Con and these represent energy, luck, and skill. You chew through vitality first, and when that's depleted damage starts applying to your wounds. Wounds recover more slowly than vitality, and vitality is also used to fuel many class features (which is how a Wizard's spells are balanced against a Fighter's maneuvers; both classes would tap into vitality for their more powerful abilities. This also has interesting implications for magical vs non-magical healing, and as an example Witches get an ability that lets them kiss allies to heal vitality.
What else is gone? Armor class. Yep, Radiance uses an "armor as DR" system that arguably makes a lot more sense. So what do opponents use as a target number for their attacks? There are 3 defenses straight out of 4E: Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. Like 4E, Fort is keyed off of the higher of Str or Con, etc. The math for the defenses is a lot cleaner than 4E's discrepancies between weapon and implement attacks, and AC vs NADs (non-AC defenses).
Choice of deity (or lack thereof) contains mechanical weight, as there's a Faith Point system that grants deity-specific boons. There are also guidelines for factions, alignment, and cultures to make sure that characters have ties to the game world, which is a general trend in fantasy RPGs that I'm fond of (13th Age and Dungeonworld have mechanics that serve a similar purpose).
Races
This game has a ton of races. Races provide ability score adjustments (both bonuses and penalties), physical traits (including racial powers and traits that all members of the race get), and Racial Abilities which function much like class features and allow for customization (some players might be happy to note that cultural adjustments would appear here). To provide an idea of scope here, Humans have a list of 27 abilities that you can choose from. Like class features, some of these provide skill bonuses (ex: Army Skills grants +2 to Athletics, Endurance, Handle Animal, Intimidate, and Warcraft), others grant combat bonuses (ex: Pride's Power grants +1 to all attack rolls), and still others offer limited-use powers (ex: Violent Ambition grants a +10 bonus to next attack once daily as a move action). Half Elves have a particularly interesting ability: "Interlude: After 1 hour of uninterrupted romantic intimacy with another person, that person regains 1d4+1 vitality. A person can benefit only once daily from this ability. Costs 1 vitality." Yep, apparently Half-Elves are natural prostitutes. Healing people by having sex with them might bring new meaning to the ubiquitous phrase "I need a heal!" Like the "Intoxicated" condition in the D&D Next playtest, I find mechanics like this to be a bit silly and potentially disruptive, but I guess it's worth a laugh.
The list of races includes Humans, Asimar, Atlan (aquatic people from Atlantis), Drack (Dragonborn), Dromite (insect people), Drow, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Goblin, Goliath, Grippli (frog people), Half Elf, Half Orc, Halfling, Hobgoblin, Kobold, Lizardfolk (with the worst Lizardfolk art EVER), Pygmy (mythological fey people, not meant to parallel real-world pygmies), Rakasha (cat-folk, basically half Rakshasa), Slith (Githzerai and Githyanki), Tengu (Kenku, or bird people for those not familiar with D&D Kenku), Tiefling, and Warmech (Warforged, but even more like robots and less like golems). Doesn't lack for choices, eh?
Classes
Each class has a prime attribute that they use for attacks. Fighters use Str, Clerics Wis, Wizards Int, etc. Medium and Heavy weapons target Fort, light and ranged weapons target Reflex, and magic can target pretty much any defense. A rather long list of party roles is discussed, but each class isn't shoehorned into one of 4 roles like in 4E; rather, a single class can cover multiple roles, and often gets a choice of which role(s) it fills. The roles are as follows: anti-mage, booster (buffing), brute, crafter, defender, devastator, face, healer, manipulator, scout, sneak, striker, summoner, traveler. As you can see, these aren't all combat roles, and perhaps that's enough to encourage people to pick up skill-boosting class features. Of course with anywhere between 1 and 5 class/race features gained at any given level, perhaps the sheer volume is enough to ensure that some of the "weaker," more situational, or fluff-based options get chosen. Or perhaps it will just facilitate min-maxing; without having played the system, I don't know.
Multiclassing exists as an optional rule, and it's more or less 3rd edition style. You forego the usual benefits from leveling up in your class, instead gaining the core abilities and 1 basic ability from your new class. Multiclassing takes time and money, and you're usually limited to a handful of classes by race (Humans can do whatever, as is expected).
Like the list of races, the class list is quite extensive: Artificer, Barbarian, Bard, Blackguard, Cleric, Dhampir (Vampire), Druid, Elementalist, Fighter, Gallant (Swashbuckler), Gunslinger, Inquisitor, Invoker, Mageblade, Medicant, Monk, Necromancer, Paladin, Pathfinder (Indiana Jones), Psion, Ranger, Rogue, Sage, Shadowcaster, Shaman, Shifter (Lycanthrope), Sorcerer (Dragon lineage, can transform into one), Warlock (explicitly evil), Witch (enchanter/illusitionist/empath flavor), and Wizard.
Combat
Combat is pretty similar to the newer editions of D&D, albeit more streamlined that 3rd or 4th edition. Like, the-whole-chapter-is-only-8-pages streamlined. The suite of standard, move, swift, and immediate actions will be familiar to many gamers, though Radiance allows for up to 3 swift actions during a turn. Yikes! Many of these fall under what would have been free actions before, though. There is also a list of special maneuvers that require the use of 1 or more actions (up to a full turn), and these include Forfeit Turn, Full Defense, Full Withdrawal, Full Aid, and Readied Action. The 4E Line of Sight vs Line of Effect rules are used. Organization is a little weird with status effects here, as some are presented in their own sections (for example, Blinded is in the Senses section), while others are in the dedicated list of Conditions. Contrary to the otherwise streamlined nature of the system, there is a surprisingly large amount of specific conditions much like 3rd edition D&D (ex. 3 different fear conditions; shaken, frightened, and panicked. Fatigued, Exhausted, and Lack of Sleep are all separate conditions. Etc.). All told there are 20 status effects in just the conditions section, 4 more under Senses, 4 under Special Protection (cover, etc.), 3 under Attacking, 1 under tracking damage, and Death, if you count that. That's 32 (or 33 if Death counts)!!!!! Too many, and it's a major hit against an otherwise very solid combat system. Few gamers can remember the nuances between that many conditions, the differences between sickened and nauseated, etc., and this will inevitably lead to rules-referencing during play, which is counter to the goals of the system. Personally I'd probably port the conditions list from D&D 4E or 13th Age into the game (perhaps with some modifications) because it would run a lot more smoothly. Other than that the chapter very concisely explains moving (with a section on using a grid), attacking, damage, terrain, size, opportunity attacks, area effects, surprise, initiative, and healing. Standard stuff.
Monsters
The Monster Folio is pretty sparsely populated, but as part of a free download with the PHB I guess you can't complain too much. You've got some of your very basic fantasy staples, a few weird things, and not much else. Gnolls are present, but no goblins or orcs? Ok, sure, if you say so.
Without having actually tried to GM the system, I'm inclined to say I don't like how monsters are presented. Each one takes up a full page of just crunch. Some of this is for different variations of the monster, but still. The stat block is concise if you think about it, but something about the layout just doesn't pull your eye to the important bits, and then outside the stat block you need to keep different abilities in mind. For example, the bulette has 5 base abilities (improved knockback, leap attack, resist mundane arrows, scent, and tremorsense) with variations adding even more (Death's Head bulette gets 3 more abilities on top of the base, and Ironworks bulette gains a whopping 5 more for a total of 10 abilities). Add on to this a list of numerical modifications to the stat block for these bulette variations (presented in sentence form, without a separate stat block, yuck!) and running anything other than the base creature will require the GM to reference a lot of different spots on the page, including mentally adjusting the numbers in the stat block or else re-writing the whole stat block with the changes factored in manually. It's simply not user-friendly.
A more extreme example can be shown with devils. There's a base devil stat block with 10 base abilities. Your different varieties of devil (osyluth, erinyes, kyton, etc.) add 3 to 5 additional abilities, and with the exception of the Balor all use the same base stat block, which is on a different page, of course. Fortunately these devil variants don't adjust the numerical values, but that's still a lot of flipping back and forth just to run a single monster, never mind encounters with multiple different kinds of monsters. One could probably get used to this, but with a trend toward simpler monster presentation in many systems why bother? The GM has a lot to worry about, and adding to that workload (even if it's just a little bit for each monster) has the potential to slow the game down.
If you're too discouraged by this section don't necessarily write the game off completely; this is arguably the system's biggest weakness, and it definitely bears pointing it out up front. GMs used to running 3rd edition D&D might not even notice the problem, and would enjoy an otherwise much more streamlined system.
Townies
There's a whole chapter on People, which is to say NPCs. This is where the Factions and Cultures are, but also Townies. Townies are a neat way of quickly generating memorable and mechanically meaningful NPCs of various professions. These can be hired by PCs or simply used by the GM. There's a simple Townie stat block, and then a list of 100 (!!!) different variations. These range anywhere from Witch Doctor (who can heal, possess animals, and make voodoo dolls, among other things; 8 abilities in all) to courtesans (who can heal your vitality if you have sex with them). A lot of these entries are very cool, and serve as a great source of inspiration for GMs at a loss for interesting NPCs.
Closing Thoughts
With such a wide variety of fantasy RPGs on the market these days, any given game needs something unique to draw in players and cause it to stand out from its competitors. I'd say that the selling points for Radiance are the following:
- Players who like the familiarity of D&D (primarily 3rd edition) but want less rules and option glut (which lead to a faster game) could stand to gain from giving this game a look.
- While the game is blatantly grounded in D&D, the designers weren't afraid to slay some sacred cows to make the game that they want (wound/vitality instead of HP and armor as DR instead of AC stand out the most).
- Character-building is simple (each class entry is 2 pages, and doesn't require flipping around looking for feats or assigning skill points), and for a core book the variety of race and class choices is simply astounding.
- Core rules for both magic and electrotech, as well as the existence of a few "modern" class concepts and "horror archetypes" not typically found in fantasy settings, allows for a lot of world, story, and character-building possibilities. If you like the direction Eberron went, Radiance goes even farther catering to styles as far disparate as gritty medieval to futuristic space fantasia, and nearly anything in between.
- Despite monsters looking like they'll be a pain to run, GMs get a lot of tools for creating unique worlds and stories, with sleek mechanics and rules that allow for fast-pace and narrative priority.
- Player-friendly business model of offering the PDF for free, and the hardcovers are pretty cheap too!
So when all is said and done, will I play it? Like Dungeon World and D&D Next it's a game that I'd love to take for a spin, but overall I think 13th Age does a better job of giving me what I want in a fantasy RPG. I probably won't run a long-term campaign with it, but I'm intrigued enough to play around with it and possibly steal some mechanics from it. Can't complain about having "too many" good games available, for it's certainly better than not having enough!
Friday, October 19, 2012
Radiance RPG
I've been meaning to review this game for over a week now, and as soon as I have time to read more of it I'll do so. In the meantime, definitely check out this link to the FREE download. Yep, the full PDF of the core game is completely free. You wouldn't be able to tell it from the quality of the product (as well as its design).
From what I've read so far, Radiance is largely a streamlined mix of 3rd and 4th edition D&D, heavy on the 3rd in design and presentation. In my opinion it's a much better product than either 3rd edition or Pathfinder, however. It's not quite so simulationist, and the math and balance are both a LOT cleaner. There are a ton of races and classes, and other selling points include no feats and no spell lists. Everything comes from class features, and there are plenty of options within each class for customization. The presentation is very sleek and concise, however, so it looks very easy to run overall.
The assumed fluff is also quite interesting; this ain't no generic fantasy world. It has a Victorian-era feel but with magic, elves, etc. And "electro-tech." Kind of steampunk, but not quite. Classic fantasy Fighters and Wizards mingle with Gunslingers and Medicants (both core classes). You know what else are (basically) core classes? Vampires and Werewolves (under the name Dhampir and Shifter). There's perhaps too much to work with as it's a bit overwhelming, but better to provide the crunch and have most groups cut out what they don't want, right?
Anyways, check it out for yourself. It's free, why not?
From what I've read so far, Radiance is largely a streamlined mix of 3rd and 4th edition D&D, heavy on the 3rd in design and presentation. In my opinion it's a much better product than either 3rd edition or Pathfinder, however. It's not quite so simulationist, and the math and balance are both a LOT cleaner. There are a ton of races and classes, and other selling points include no feats and no spell lists. Everything comes from class features, and there are plenty of options within each class for customization. The presentation is very sleek and concise, however, so it looks very easy to run overall.
The assumed fluff is also quite interesting; this ain't no generic fantasy world. It has a Victorian-era feel but with magic, elves, etc. And "electro-tech." Kind of steampunk, but not quite. Classic fantasy Fighters and Wizards mingle with Gunslingers and Medicants (both core classes). You know what else are (basically) core classes? Vampires and Werewolves (under the name Dhampir and Shifter). There's perhaps too much to work with as it's a bit overwhelming, but better to provide the crunch and have most groups cut out what they don't want, right?
Anyways, check it out for yourself. It's free, why not?
D&D Next update
The last Legends and Lore article offers a glimpse of what's to come in the next D&D Next playtest packet, as well as the direction that the game is headed in overall. I'll admit that I haven't followed the playtest very closely recently. Without a face-to-face group (temporarily, fortunately) and because I've been following other games so closely (The One Ring, 13th Age, Edge of the Empire, and Radiance; I'll get a review of that last one up as soon as I have time to read more of the pdf), D&D just hasn't been a huge priority. I also disliked a lot of changes made to the recent playtests. Failure became virtually non-existent for Rogues making skill checks (looks like that's changing), skill became tied to ability scores again instead of applying as a bonus to any applicable ability check (thankfully that sub-system is gone as well), and Warlocks and Sorcerers muddied the waters a bit, especially with the Wizard traditions not even previewed yet (that one might get addressed).
Ultimately, the playtest is in a constant state of refinement, which is absolutely a good thing. Rules will go in undesirable directions, and the players (and designers!) will learn from that. Hopefully the game will end up more polished because of it. Honestly, the brand faces a lot of competition, and that will likely continue to increase. For fantasy roleplaying, 13th Age, Radiance, and Dungeon World are all new games that bring a lot to the table. Those games have specific goals and they meet those goals very well. For players seeking that specific niche, they might be unparalleled. It's tough for a versatile, "do everything" type of system like D&D Next to hold up well in those niches.
But perhaps all is not lost. Being able to apply a familiar core mechanic with modular options to a wide variety of gaming styles is desirable for groups that like to alternate between different styles. They won't have to constantly remember different rules every time they start up a new game. Additionally, mechanics from one of those other systems can possibly even be hacked onto D&D Next without too much effort (13th Age in particular has several mechanics that can easily port into another system, namely the Escalation Die, Backgrounds, One Unique Thing, and the Icon Relationship Dice).
I guess the best part of all this is that there's never been a better time to be a tabletop gamer. We have so many options these days that pretty much anyone should have a game that meets their needs, and for those who like to sample a lot of different games it's tough to get bored, even within a single genre.
Ultimately, the playtest is in a constant state of refinement, which is absolutely a good thing. Rules will go in undesirable directions, and the players (and designers!) will learn from that. Hopefully the game will end up more polished because of it. Honestly, the brand faces a lot of competition, and that will likely continue to increase. For fantasy roleplaying, 13th Age, Radiance, and Dungeon World are all new games that bring a lot to the table. Those games have specific goals and they meet those goals very well. For players seeking that specific niche, they might be unparalleled. It's tough for a versatile, "do everything" type of system like D&D Next to hold up well in those niches.
But perhaps all is not lost. Being able to apply a familiar core mechanic with modular options to a wide variety of gaming styles is desirable for groups that like to alternate between different styles. They won't have to constantly remember different rules every time they start up a new game. Additionally, mechanics from one of those other systems can possibly even be hacked onto D&D Next without too much effort (13th Age in particular has several mechanics that can easily port into another system, namely the Escalation Die, Backgrounds, One Unique Thing, and the Icon Relationship Dice).
I guess the best part of all this is that there's never been a better time to be a tabletop gamer. We have so many options these days that pretty much anyone should have a game that meets their needs, and for those who like to sample a lot of different games it's tough to get bored, even within a single genre.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)