CryptRat
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2014
- Messages
- 3,567
Some more substance, although' despite spending a lot of time on the game I still don't really know where I'm going which is one of the reasons why I rarely post updates.
No spells, that'll be for a next game (too much overlapping with tools and high-tech weapons).
Maximum party size will very likely be fixed to 7. I like odd numbers, 9 is a lot and it's only natural players will assume the max number is a recommended number. Note that it's just a number to change in a .ini if you really want to play with more.
Still not sure about the setting. You'll have guns and you'll fight against humans and androids, possibly also animals and not-humanoid robots but it's not sure. I'm thinking of a desert which could either be some post-apocalyptic wasteland on Earth or maybe some Proxima Centauri B colony thing, but either way not with big outside area.
Now regarding the structure, I'm not sure either. I like SSI's kind of campaigns (or Wasteland/Dragon Wars) the very most but at this point it's much more likely the game will mostly be abstract dungeons because when it comes to writing campaings or events at all I'm losing too much time for ultimately barely passable stuff at most. I'll need to make something more elaborate someday, but probably not now.
Note that when it comes to dungeons, the more I work on them and the more I think you should not be able to get back until you've finished a dungeon (or more likely some part of a dungeon), which means if you don't have any left dynamite you'll need to choose another way, if you don't have a rope or fire extinguisher yet you'll need to choose another way and if you can't swim well enough you'll need to choose another way. Once you've finished you can always come back later, the aim is really not to prevent people from doing everything if they want, just to do with what tool you have at the moment. So it's likely you'll enter a dungeon by a couple of one-way doors (they can be broken so in that case it's not even impossible to get back), will fall down onto a pit or get teleported.
Some possible environments :
Also the outside one during the night :
I like shopping for initial weapons and tools at the beginning of a game so there will be shops in the beginning of the game, but for the rest it's possible there won't be much more except for enemy encounters, traps and abstract puzzles. Talking about shops, I added travelling merchant encounters. So far their inventory is completely randomized from all items in the game, and it will likely stays this way. Attacking them is an option just like shops (they trigger a hard random encounter, and it lowers your reputation making roamming enemies more agressive) and they are where stealing and haggling shine with interesting risk/reward (while with shops it's arguably a little meh).
I switched to D20 for chances to hit, I would have preferred to keep the same rules for chances to hit and mundane skill checks but it just does not work. Now one more point in attack or defense is less critical. Also critical failure on rolling 1 and critical success (= one more damage dice, but does not bypass resistance rolls) on rolling at least 20 - critical, which means scoring a critical hit does not depend on chances to hit anymore.
Current character creation screen is like this :
You roll stats at the beginning of the game and can't improve them later now (although' there's an option to play the game like To Hell With Guns). This was going to happen sooner or later, determining base stats in the beginning of the game is simply much more fun than base stats which you can raise during the game. The thing is that in To Hell With Guns it would have made levelling-up really simple but the character sheet has made a long way since then. First there are some more skills to choose from but feats were also added (I'm coming to them later).
Still only two different gun skills, the only reason why I may add more is that it can gives the false impression that you may want to use several melee weapon users, while the best number is probably none at all.
Also changed the stat implications quite a bit. You gain some experience bonus based on logic now (it felt a bit wrong previously when you could raise logic during the game, was the bonus retroactive or not), you need strength to throw grenades further away, and low perception gives an increasing penalty to chances to hit when targetting far away enemies (previously it prevented from targetting them).
Game is still fundamentally classless, archetypes simply give bonuses and maluses to stats so you can roll a bit less times to create your sniper guy or whoever else.
Biggest recent improvement was adding properties to items and monsters (other than stat bonuses and maluses). Very important both to customize to each type of human enemies (which use the same weapons as yours) as well as customizing robots and animals so that they're not simply the same as humans with different stats and different damage types/possible afflictions. All the explosion when dying, shield regaigning each turn, counterattacks and other bonuses when almost dead things.
Also, because of this I added feats to pick when levelling-up. Note that it's not completely impossible they get removed from the game at some point if they seem pointless because that's all the more properties to add to items instead, and I think that currently the item set is boring.
Here are the current feats offered to the player (and generally used by human enemies). You start with none and choose one when you gain a level. They are all combat related because for other things than combat I've not manage to make anything satisfying so far (I don't want stat/skill overlaps), maybe it'll stay that way, maybe it won't. The set will probably change a bit based on the final content of the game but probably not that much.
And his donkey : Reduces by half the progressive penalty to movement for exceeding 1/2 of the max encumbrance.
Opportunist : Gains a bonus of 3 to chances to hit during the next turn when performing an accurate hit (which means the roll to hit the target was a critical success).
On A Run : Gains a bonus of 2 to initiative during the next turn when performing a cunning hit (which means the target critically failed the resistance test against the damage type associated with the damages).
Hitman : Adds 5 extra damage dices when performing a deadly hit (a both cunning and accurate hit).
Proud : The character regains all hit points when performing a deadly hit (a both cunning and accurate hit).
Survivalist : The character does not take an extra dice of damage when facing an accurate hit (all possible bonus dices and possible afflictions still work normally).
Resistant : The character does not take an extra dice of damage when facing a cunning hit (all possible bonus dices and possible afflictions still work normally).
Unstoppable : Ignore damages dealt by any damage roll (a base dice of damages + the directly associated extra damage dices and bonuses), if the damages are smaller or equal to 2.
Lucky : The character has 1 chance over 5 to ignore damage taken from any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses). Possible afflictions still applies.
Tough : Damages taken from any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses) is reduced by 1.
Invincible : The character can't take more than 12 damages from a damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses).
Explosive : One quarter of damage taken is also directly dealt to the attacker.
Assassin : Critical hit chances are increased by one when attacking a humanoid target.
Technophobe : One chance over two that one more equal damage dice is added to any damage dice when dealing damage to a robot.
Hunter : Adds the sleep affliction to every damage dice and direct affliction of an attack performed against a non-human animal.
Pyromaniac : If a target gets burnt by an attack performed by the character, it will immediately takes damages from burning.
Tesla fan : Instead of rolling lightning damage dices, the character rolls two dices and keeps the best. This applies to the base damage dice as well as to potential bonus damage dices.
Butcher : If all the possible damages dealt by an attack are of the edge type, adds an extra beheading direct "death" affliction of the edge type to the attack.
Ready : Gains a bonus of 3 to chances to hit on the first round of a battle.
Prepared : Starts every battle with the Insensitive status change, which allows to prevent the next damages taken.
Long-armed : The range of the weapon used is increased by one. This does not bypass any malus to chances to hit caused by too low perception.
Scaling to top : Adds a damage dice equal to the base damage dice to any damage roll dealt to a target with an endurance greater or equal to 6.
Heayv hitter : Doubles the strength bonus to melee damages.
Soldier : The character can freely change equipment during fights.
Resourceful : When appliable (attack against a single target), the character has one chance over three to get an extra hit during the round which won't use any ammo or thrown weapon.
Mad scientist : Adds a damage dice equal to the base damage dice to any damage roll for every two status changes (malign as benign) on the target.
Fortunate : Has 2 chances over 3 to ignore any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses) when the hit points are smaller or equal to 1/8 of the maximum and shield is 0.
Resilient : The character takes half damages when the hit points are smaller or equal to 1/4 of the maximum and shield is 0.
Light : When appliable (attack against a single target), the character gets an additionnal hit each round if encumbrance is smaller or equal to 1/4 of the maximum.
Covered : Takes 3 less damage dices from deadly hits.
Generous : Damage dealt by any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses) is increased by 1.
Chemist : When throwing a weapon, adds an 1D4 extra attack of the same type as the last one of the attack.
Ugly : An enemy attacking the character will have to successfully pass a mental resistance test or will get frightened.
Brawler : Enhances bare-handed attacks, by adding the suffocation afflictions to the Punch and Fast punch attacks and the stun affliction to the Sweep attack.
Contagious : The target gets a malus of 1 when rolling for resistance against afflictions given by the character.
Sweating : The character gets a +1 bonus when rolling for resistance against an affliction.
Coward : Chances of critical hit are increased by 1 when attacking a target which is at least 60 meters away.
Sly : The character gains the Insensitive status change when inflicting an affliction towards a target, which will prevents the next damages taken.
Efficient : Any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses) deals at least one half of the maximum value of the base dice.
Single-handed : Critical failures when rolling to hit are rerolled once when using a one-handed weapon.
Connoisseur : Positive effects of taken drugs are increased.
Expert : Ignore non critical resistance rolls of the target when performing an accurate hit.
Nothing to lose : Adds an equal damage dice to any damage roll if the sum of the base attributes of the target is higher or equal to 3/2 x the sum of the base attributes of the character.
Finisher : Roll max score on all damage dices if the target's hit points are below or equal to 1/5 of the max.
Lone Wolf : Adds respectively 1, 2 or 3 to chances of critical hit if the number of characters able to fight in the party is 3, 2 or 1.
I think and I hope the feats are better or worse depending on the stats and the type of weapons of a character, sometimes it's very obvious and sometimes it's less obvious and requires some more knowledge about the available weapons, I don't want to spoil too much and will let the players judge.
Not certain about "Nothing to lose", but otherwise they should be advantages in all circumstances and also not something you exploit in weird ways. Stronger stuff and stuff which can be a bonus or a malus depending on the situation is relegated to items and enemies, and exploitable stuff to enemies.
Not completely impossible that at some point I add the possibilty to upgrade one feat every ten levels or something, I've thought a bit about that.
Not sure what I previously shared with the beginning of a combat, this is the common encounter screen (it is different for example if the enemies are friendly, or if they're trying to flee, and you don't come across this screen when enemies took the party by surprise and directly attack) :
One skill I added recently is the Bestiary skill, depending on the score and of the rarity and strength of enemies you get more or less info (what you really want is the resistances so they're what requires the highest score) :
The skill set is definitely a bit boring so I've thought of having more combat skills and some of the feats could be upgradable combat skills. Note that with a system where each point in the skill costs more than the last it needs some thought, skills like "5% chances to dodge for each point" or "reduces damage of score" are very bad skills because all characters will simply put a few points, while something like "ignores damages if it is below score" are a little better since putting more and more points can make more sense. Anyway it's very possible I won't add more combat skills, just something I'm vaguely thinking about.
Getting back to the structure of the game, I currently have a lot of small parts that I try to put together in different ways and I always hate the result, also always discarding more parts that I added. I'd like to put together something small that I can share at some point but it's hard, in the level design part especially, not to spoil the final experience.
No spells, that'll be for a next game (too much overlapping with tools and high-tech weapons).
Maximum party size will very likely be fixed to 7. I like odd numbers, 9 is a lot and it's only natural players will assume the max number is a recommended number. Note that it's just a number to change in a .ini if you really want to play with more.
Still not sure about the setting. You'll have guns and you'll fight against humans and androids, possibly also animals and not-humanoid robots but it's not sure. I'm thinking of a desert which could either be some post-apocalyptic wasteland on Earth or maybe some Proxima Centauri B colony thing, but either way not with big outside area.
Now regarding the structure, I'm not sure either. I like SSI's kind of campaigns (or Wasteland/Dragon Wars) the very most but at this point it's much more likely the game will mostly be abstract dungeons because when it comes to writing campaings or events at all I'm losing too much time for ultimately barely passable stuff at most. I'll need to make something more elaborate someday, but probably not now.
Note that when it comes to dungeons, the more I work on them and the more I think you should not be able to get back until you've finished a dungeon (or more likely some part of a dungeon), which means if you don't have any left dynamite you'll need to choose another way, if you don't have a rope or fire extinguisher yet you'll need to choose another way and if you can't swim well enough you'll need to choose another way. Once you've finished you can always come back later, the aim is really not to prevent people from doing everything if they want, just to do with what tool you have at the moment. So it's likely you'll enter a dungeon by a couple of one-way doors (they can be broken so in that case it's not even impossible to get back), will fall down onto a pit or get teleported.
Some possible environments :
Also the outside one during the night :
I like shopping for initial weapons and tools at the beginning of a game so there will be shops in the beginning of the game, but for the rest it's possible there won't be much more except for enemy encounters, traps and abstract puzzles. Talking about shops, I added travelling merchant encounters. So far their inventory is completely randomized from all items in the game, and it will likely stays this way. Attacking them is an option just like shops (they trigger a hard random encounter, and it lowers your reputation making roamming enemies more agressive) and they are where stealing and haggling shine with interesting risk/reward (while with shops it's arguably a little meh).
I switched to D20 for chances to hit, I would have preferred to keep the same rules for chances to hit and mundane skill checks but it just does not work. Now one more point in attack or defense is less critical. Also critical failure on rolling 1 and critical success (= one more damage dice, but does not bypass resistance rolls) on rolling at least 20 - critical, which means scoring a critical hit does not depend on chances to hit anymore.
Current character creation screen is like this :
You roll stats at the beginning of the game and can't improve them later now (although' there's an option to play the game like To Hell With Guns). This was going to happen sooner or later, determining base stats in the beginning of the game is simply much more fun than base stats which you can raise during the game. The thing is that in To Hell With Guns it would have made levelling-up really simple but the character sheet has made a long way since then. First there are some more skills to choose from but feats were also added (I'm coming to them later).
Still only two different gun skills, the only reason why I may add more is that it can gives the false impression that you may want to use several melee weapon users, while the best number is probably none at all.
Also changed the stat implications quite a bit. You gain some experience bonus based on logic now (it felt a bit wrong previously when you could raise logic during the game, was the bonus retroactive or not), you need strength to throw grenades further away, and low perception gives an increasing penalty to chances to hit when targetting far away enemies (previously it prevented from targetting them).
Game is still fundamentally classless, archetypes simply give bonuses and maluses to stats so you can roll a bit less times to create your sniper guy or whoever else.
Biggest recent improvement was adding properties to items and monsters (other than stat bonuses and maluses). Very important both to customize to each type of human enemies (which use the same weapons as yours) as well as customizing robots and animals so that they're not simply the same as humans with different stats and different damage types/possible afflictions. All the explosion when dying, shield regaigning each turn, counterattacks and other bonuses when almost dead things.
Also, because of this I added feats to pick when levelling-up. Note that it's not completely impossible they get removed from the game at some point if they seem pointless because that's all the more properties to add to items instead, and I think that currently the item set is boring.
Here are the current feats offered to the player (and generally used by human enemies). You start with none and choose one when you gain a level. They are all combat related because for other things than combat I've not manage to make anything satisfying so far (I don't want stat/skill overlaps), maybe it'll stay that way, maybe it won't. The set will probably change a bit based on the final content of the game but probably not that much.
And his donkey : Reduces by half the progressive penalty to movement for exceeding 1/2 of the max encumbrance.
Opportunist : Gains a bonus of 3 to chances to hit during the next turn when performing an accurate hit (which means the roll to hit the target was a critical success).
On A Run : Gains a bonus of 2 to initiative during the next turn when performing a cunning hit (which means the target critically failed the resistance test against the damage type associated with the damages).
Hitman : Adds 5 extra damage dices when performing a deadly hit (a both cunning and accurate hit).
Proud : The character regains all hit points when performing a deadly hit (a both cunning and accurate hit).
Survivalist : The character does not take an extra dice of damage when facing an accurate hit (all possible bonus dices and possible afflictions still work normally).
Resistant : The character does not take an extra dice of damage when facing a cunning hit (all possible bonus dices and possible afflictions still work normally).
Unstoppable : Ignore damages dealt by any damage roll (a base dice of damages + the directly associated extra damage dices and bonuses), if the damages are smaller or equal to 2.
Lucky : The character has 1 chance over 5 to ignore damage taken from any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses). Possible afflictions still applies.
Tough : Damages taken from any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses) is reduced by 1.
Invincible : The character can't take more than 12 damages from a damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses).
Explosive : One quarter of damage taken is also directly dealt to the attacker.
Assassin : Critical hit chances are increased by one when attacking a humanoid target.
Technophobe : One chance over two that one more equal damage dice is added to any damage dice when dealing damage to a robot.
Hunter : Adds the sleep affliction to every damage dice and direct affliction of an attack performed against a non-human animal.
Pyromaniac : If a target gets burnt by an attack performed by the character, it will immediately takes damages from burning.
Tesla fan : Instead of rolling lightning damage dices, the character rolls two dices and keeps the best. This applies to the base damage dice as well as to potential bonus damage dices.
Butcher : If all the possible damages dealt by an attack are of the edge type, adds an extra beheading direct "death" affliction of the edge type to the attack.
Ready : Gains a bonus of 3 to chances to hit on the first round of a battle.
Prepared : Starts every battle with the Insensitive status change, which allows to prevent the next damages taken.
Long-armed : The range of the weapon used is increased by one. This does not bypass any malus to chances to hit caused by too low perception.
Scaling to top : Adds a damage dice equal to the base damage dice to any damage roll dealt to a target with an endurance greater or equal to 6.
Heayv hitter : Doubles the strength bonus to melee damages.
Soldier : The character can freely change equipment during fights.
Resourceful : When appliable (attack against a single target), the character has one chance over three to get an extra hit during the round which won't use any ammo or thrown weapon.
Mad scientist : Adds a damage dice equal to the base damage dice to any damage roll for every two status changes (malign as benign) on the target.
Fortunate : Has 2 chances over 3 to ignore any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses) when the hit points are smaller or equal to 1/8 of the maximum and shield is 0.
Resilient : The character takes half damages when the hit points are smaller or equal to 1/4 of the maximum and shield is 0.
Light : When appliable (attack against a single target), the character gets an additionnal hit each round if encumbrance is smaller or equal to 1/4 of the maximum.
Covered : Takes 3 less damage dices from deadly hits.
Generous : Damage dealt by any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses) is increased by 1.
Chemist : When throwing a weapon, adds an 1D4 extra attack of the same type as the last one of the attack.
Ugly : An enemy attacking the character will have to successfully pass a mental resistance test or will get frightened.
Brawler : Enhances bare-handed attacks, by adding the suffocation afflictions to the Punch and Fast punch attacks and the stun affliction to the Sweep attack.
Contagious : The target gets a malus of 1 when rolling for resistance against afflictions given by the character.
Sweating : The character gets a +1 bonus when rolling for resistance against an affliction.
Coward : Chances of critical hit are increased by 1 when attacking a target which is at least 60 meters away.
Sly : The character gains the Insensitive status change when inflicting an affliction towards a target, which will prevents the next damages taken.
Efficient : Any damage roll (base damage dice + bonuses) deals at least one half of the maximum value of the base dice.
Single-handed : Critical failures when rolling to hit are rerolled once when using a one-handed weapon.
Connoisseur : Positive effects of taken drugs are increased.
Expert : Ignore non critical resistance rolls of the target when performing an accurate hit.
Nothing to lose : Adds an equal damage dice to any damage roll if the sum of the base attributes of the target is higher or equal to 3/2 x the sum of the base attributes of the character.
Finisher : Roll max score on all damage dices if the target's hit points are below or equal to 1/5 of the max.
Lone Wolf : Adds respectively 1, 2 or 3 to chances of critical hit if the number of characters able to fight in the party is 3, 2 or 1.
I think and I hope the feats are better or worse depending on the stats and the type of weapons of a character, sometimes it's very obvious and sometimes it's less obvious and requires some more knowledge about the available weapons, I don't want to spoil too much and will let the players judge.
Not certain about "Nothing to lose", but otherwise they should be advantages in all circumstances and also not something you exploit in weird ways. Stronger stuff and stuff which can be a bonus or a malus depending on the situation is relegated to items and enemies, and exploitable stuff to enemies.
Not completely impossible that at some point I add the possibilty to upgrade one feat every ten levels or something, I've thought a bit about that.
Not sure what I previously shared with the beginning of a combat, this is the common encounter screen (it is different for example if the enemies are friendly, or if they're trying to flee, and you don't come across this screen when enemies took the party by surprise and directly attack) :
One skill I added recently is the Bestiary skill, depending on the score and of the rarity and strength of enemies you get more or less info (what you really want is the resistances so they're what requires the highest score) :
I didn't add feats to the description yet, technically they should be but a lot of those don't have a name leave alone a text description.
The skill set is definitely a bit boring so I've thought of having more combat skills and some of the feats could be upgradable combat skills. Note that with a system where each point in the skill costs more than the last it needs some thought, skills like "5% chances to dodge for each point" or "reduces damage of score" are very bad skills because all characters will simply put a few points, while something like "ignores damages if it is below score" are a little better since putting more and more points can make more sense. Anyway it's very possible I won't add more combat skills, just something I'm vaguely thinking about.
Getting back to the structure of the game, I currently have a lot of small parts that I try to put together in different ways and I always hate the result, also always discarding more parts that I added. I'd like to put together something small that I can share at some point but it's hard, in the level design part especially, not to spoil the final experience.
is a classic party-based role playing game in the vein of titles such as the original Wasteland.
