I'd like to say I've been busy, plugging away at my Trollbloods, but alas, I haven't. I'd like to get to work on my Swamp Troll but so far I haven't had a day spare that wasn't windy or wet to undercoat the poor guy. Tomorrow I'm going to stop by some engravers to find out the pricing for my Tartan Brawl dog tags. Hopefully when Janissa arrives I can sit down and plug away for a week, get all my half-painted stuff finished.
Having delved into the crack-addictive World of Warcraft and sampled their boss mobs of almost all varieties, it got me thinking on how good RPG fights against villains are designed. The PCs typically only get one chance at defeating a villain, so designing a complex encounter that requires puzzle solving may lead to an early demise for the adventurers. Conversely, a straight beat-'em-up encounter is exceedingly dull; how is the encounter different to the minions the adventurers just ploughed through? So, a successful and enjoyable encounter is one where the adventurers win (perhaps if only just) but the villain (of whatever rank) has some cool tricks that are blindingly obvious to solve.
That reminds me, will we see the IKRPG this year? I'm saying Highly Unlikely, but it would be nice if it did appear. I looked at the Warmachine/Hordes rules and realised both games are excessively deadly. Stuff dies, and in vast quantities. While this is a boon for adventurers killing monsters, this is not a good idea for monsters killing adventurers (unless you hate your adventurers). Thus, the adventurers must have more health, and quite a lot of it. They also need a way to recover health - healing is notoriously dismal in both games, a lack of health recovery once again leads to dead adventurers. There's more to think about (skills and spell choices specifically) but otherwise the game mechanics are already in place.
Maybe I'll round up the lads for a couple of set-piece scenarios with pre-made characters to see how the system works out. Worth a thought.
I wonder if the Pain of Healing effect will survive into the new IKRPG? If I remember rightly, the original game didn't really want clerics to be first aid kits on legs, and consequently made healing less viable and regular surgery (including tasty mechanika replacements) more attractive.
ReplyDeleteAdventurers do probably need above-the-curve DEF, ARM and health provision, though. Personally, I envisage the player characters having warcaster-like stats, making them hard to kill but not invulnerable, and allowing for different play by GMs, who can have stupid adversaries throw themselves at the PCs as individuals and clever ones work together to take them down, a la good Warmahordes tactics.