General Discussion

[Merc]

New game time and schedule,yadda yadda. First post updated.

[Dracos]

Yarr :)

[Merc]

Logs are up and in order (Drac had missed a few between the ones he posted, so I just redid it all), as well as dated.

I haven't gone through them besides the quick clean-up yet, so no updated statistics, and you still have wall of text effect going on in there (not to mention typos and what have you).

I'll do that part later. Probably.

[Dracos]

Epic Mercenary!

[Merc]

Logs up (haha, did it immediately after session!). Congrats on hitting level 5. I'll poke Ataru to roll HP whenever I see him and so he can update his sheet from lv 3 (ouch?).

As usual, I welcome comments on sessions here or in suggestion thread (particularly from non-Drac/Navi *hint* *hint* people).

As has been mentioned, there are also a few concerns with tokens. If you have ideas, toss them up, otherwise when I come up with something, it might not consider some of your own issues.

I'll address other concerns as they come, based on how sessions show things going at this level range.

EDIT: Also, Zeph -may- come back and rejoin party. It will probably not be as Kheldar though. Khel is now an NPC through and through, hanging out with Rahz and his crew.

[Dracos]

Yay leveling.  Anyhow, as mentioned I'm gonna miss some sessions next month.  As a sunday game I'm less sure which though.  At least one.

My concern on Zeph coming back: don't bounce in and out of the game.  If ye come back, come back, but really try and come along as it slows us all down when Merc's introducing or exiting a character.

Tokens are a mess generally and very difficult to rebalance because they're involved with everything.  It's why I avoided entirely getting anywhere near them.  An 'easy' one would be tokens pools last per Day or Per Scene, but often there's only one battle in each of those anyway, so its not a big difference, except that its overruling any of the 'per enemy' (If you switch targets, you lose the tokens
that you have already built up for this ability) craziness that expects that you're fighting a single enemy in a one on oneish fashion for 3-50 rounds with several attacks flying each round.  It will power up all token based characters relative to Maya (and the enemies, which largely just do their abilities), but probably in a good way.  At least personally, I'm a believer that combat is more fun when everyone is getting to do cool things.  The token system locks cool things largely behind a build up system, so changes that increase the speed of gathering and the ability to hold them for use will result in more of that.  So my suggestion would be per game Day for build up, and possibly doubled build up for slow token pools (or 1.5 size for start of battle token pools, as appropriate).

[Dracos]

Additionally if history is any showing, Only Dracos has opinions. :P  So silly.

[Navilee]

Yay leveling.  Anyhow, as mentioned I'm gonna miss some sessions next month.  As a sunday game I'm less sure which though.  At least one.

My concern on Zeph coming back: don't bounce in and out of the game.  If ye come back, come back, but really try and come along as it slows us all down when Merc's introducing or exiting a character.

Tokens are a mess generally and very difficult to rebalance because they're involved with everything.  It's why I avoided entirely getting anywhere near them.  An 'easy' one would be tokens pools last per Day or Per Scene, but often there's only one battle in each of those anyway, so its not a big difference, except that its overruling any of the 'per enemy' (If you switch targets, you lose the tokens
that you have already built up for this ability) craziness that expects that you're fighting a single enemy in a one on oneish fashion for 3-50 rounds with several attacks flying each round.  It will power up all token based characters relative to Maya (and the enemies, which largely just do their abilities), but probably in a good way.  At least personally, I'm a believer that combat is more fun when everyone is getting to do cool things.  The token system locks cool things largely behind a build up system, so changes that increase the speed of gathering and the ability to hold them for use will result in more of that.  So my suggestion would be per game Day for build up, and possibly doubled build up for slow token pools (or 1.5 size for start of battle token pools, as appropriate).

I can understand why they made them 'if you switch enemy, you lose'.  Players being as they are, they will have the fighters do their thing while they just spend rounds building up tokens before using their best attacks against the big bad.  And, for fluff, it works well as most tokens are studying your target to find a weakness/what-have-you to exploit for massive damage.  That said, though, it's annoying as hell to be building tokens during a battle for the BSF to kill it right before you're getting ready to use it.

Or, y'know, I would assume as the only token ability I have I don't use as it would take a standard action (followed by an INT check) just to get the tokens to be able to use.  Soon, though, I should (maybe? I actually forget what my feat progression /gives/) be able to use a smaller amount of time for it.  And all my token abilities would contribute to the party's lethality which is nothing to scoff at.

tl;dr
I dunno.  Ask someone who uses tokens. :p

Edit:  Personally, I'm a little wary at how few Villain classes we've seen (unless the water dood was a Demonic Brute?).  The only one I can think of was the first 'baddie' who led those oh-so-squishy bandits to burn the village in fantasy tradition.

Edit^2:  Huh, if that dinosaur was Huge-sized and I'm reading this right I should be able to make it an awesome mount.  Still, it's prolly a bit late.  (psst, Merc, gimme something awesome to animate ^^)

[Namagomi]

RE:Tokens--the seeming problem with token-derived abilities for certain classes (Archers, Weaponmasters) is simple; you're giving up actions, or they build up so slow that they don't matter in the first place.  And in the process, damage potential.  This is a particularly egregious issue with Elise and Aleph, given that they have -just- gotten their second iterative attack.  Elise will pretty much crush things to begin with.  One attack is already notable off of her Strength; two moreso.  Aleph has to take aim actions; as of current, these range from move (1 token) to full-round(4).  For benefits that are not -quite- the damage potential of a full attack (Aleph has a potential damage, dicebot screwage aside, of 3d8+27 before crits, albeit factoring in armor three times.)  And, well, the issue is that that runs counter to how 3e d20 combat is usually played; full-out blitzing the enemy before they can mount a meaningful offense--and token actions, for the most part, are just not so conducive to this. (Would you really want to take a turn off just to impose -4 to an enemy's attack next turn, when you can instead smash them for over 65 damage over both turns?)

Just my two cents on the issue.

[Merc]

You've fought quite a few champions, actually, Navi.

I often use the Champion villain as a base to build enemies. It's pretty simple to use as a base for on-the-fly enemies. The little nightmare twins Wally/Molly were champions built like harriers, for example. The kidnapper from 1st adventure (forget her name), was also a champion. To name a few.

You guys skipped an encounter with a demonic brute at one point (don't recall exactly where, though I did have a CR 4 demonic brute), back when I was first starting to think of working in a more mystic/epic type setting (instead you guys got fish monsters).

I do have a dread sorceror with some warleaders around, but that's a matter of encountering him. He admittedly doesn't like you guys even if he's never met you (you've met one of his minions though!).

For the most part, I'm shying away from demonic minion/knight/brute for now though. They'll eventually come into play after the Vyrdam plot gets resolved, probably. That really just leaves the champion/warleader/dread sorc. And like I said, of the three, champion's easiest to modify to situation on the fly, so he gets used the most often.

As for the dino, yeah, it was huge sized. I think back when you fought it, you'd said you couldn't do anything with it being huge though. In regards to being able to animate something awesome, I suppose one concern is what to do when you're going into cities, and such. Necromancy is kinda odd to deal with, since it assumes you'll be taking around with you some undead minions to do your bidding, but at the same time, it takes forever to summon them (in a combat setting anyhow), and it's kinda awkward to have them just follow you around and such. It's something I'll have to muse over.

And yes, the tokens situation is very visible. So the question is how to make them viable combat options, without making them overpowering. Really, the only tokens I've really seen used at all so far are Elise once or twice when combat's gone into third or fourth round.

[Dracos]

Combat in IH goes longer than in D&D due to the HP buffs, but we still rarely hit the 4th round.  It was because of this that I avoided tokens.

Tokens are too hard to use.  They require not blitzkreiging but at the same time staying in damagable space for the most part.  They often require not taking actions or taking exceptional risks (Let enemy swing at you several times).

Any boost here will strengthen the rest of the party versus maya, but hopefully in a fun way for both us AND the enemies, who should get whatever advantages here.

Removing the 'lose on switch' means that flunkies can be used to build tokens.  Instead lose them on end of battle (Calming down), or end of scene or day.

Having say, every fighting class gain 1 token per hit delivered and 2 per kill means that they can build during dealing with flunkies and thus have a reason not to immediately swarm the big bad, a tactical choice to provide a meaningful option to not just swarming the top guy.

I don't know about the mage, but probably a daily token pool might work well.  Something like level*2 tokens available per day?

All of these options provide the likelihood that more abilities will be used in the first or second round of combat.  A rapid shot could be used to build up 3 tokens and then follow with a charged shot the next round.  A flurry can lead into a powered up weapon smasher.  Etc etc.  Fun stuff.

But the same thing should go for our enemies, especially if they ever are PC based, where they can lash out with cool effects on round 1 or 2 by spending their token pools.

[Dracos]

RE:Tokens--the seeming problem with token-derived abilities for certain classes (Archers, Weaponmasters) is simple; you're giving up actions, or they build up so slow that they don't matter in the first place.  And in the process, damage potential.  This is a particularly egregious issue with Elise and Aleph, given that they have -just- gotten their second iterative attack.  Elise will pretty much crush things to begin with.  One attack is already notable off of her Strength; two moreso.  Aleph has to take aim actions; as of current, these range from move (1 token) to full-round(4).  For benefits that are not -quite- the damage potential of a full attack (Aleph has a potential damage, dicebot screwage aside, of 3d8+27 before crits, albeit factoring in armor three times.)  And, well, the issue is that that runs counter to how 3e d20 combat is usually played; full-out blitzing the enemy before they can mount a meaningful offense--and token actions, for the most part, are just not so conducive to this. (Would you really want to take a turn off just to impose -4 to an enemy's attack next turn, when you can instead smash them for over 65 damage over both turns?)

Just my two cents on the issue.

btw, just for tactical reference, Aleph gains the most advantage out of there being widespread folks, while Elise has the biggest with single solo weapon wielders.  The biggest advantage an archer has isn't just that he can attack without being in danger range, but that you can full attack without being in range at all.  In large room type battles, you can often just sit in one place and pluck full attacks every round from the start even from a hundred feet away.  This means you generally will have the most opportunities to hit of anyone in the party.

[Navilee]

Oh, no.  Arcanists don't have token pools.  The Spiritualists do, but they were confusing as hell to me on my initial read-through so I opted out.  The only token pool I have access to is the 'Strategy' pool which I get from feats.

I agree that having the tokens not dissipate immediately would make them infinitely more usable but, IMHO, would require a degree of revision for each as they bonuses they give might unbalance the game needlessly.

Again, though, I've no clue.  Just getting 1/hit and 2/kill kinda makes them lose all their fluffy goodness, though.

[Dracos]

fluffy goodness? They're never used!  :P

Truthfully, the setup right now leads to those 'unbalancing things' being too useless.  The rules can always be twinked back if they are unbalancing, or it can simply end up as smaller passive bonuses for those of us (maya, anassia, monsters) that don't have tokens.

Generally, I'm suggesting rebalancing the token acquiring side, not the effect side, because thats over a hundred small random rules you're talking about needing a degree of revision.  Kinda like rewriting half of the IH book there.

[Merc]

I suppose that leads the question of:
- Are people happy with IH, even if it requires a lot of tweaking?

It's entirely possible that I do like you did in Drac's pirate game, and just have a system switch (to d&d 3.5e). I don't mind either way, the main reason to use IH was as an experiment, but it's still possible to switch.

Similarly though, it's also not a problem to simply keep with the system, and just bring in tweaks as needed. Right now, the only outstanding concerns for me in IH are:
(a) Make tokens useful without being overpowering.
(b) Similarly make Anassia's necromancy main school be more useful without being overpowering, since the whole summoning undead minions is going to be awkward with any place with people (not to mention just party members, probably).