Sycarion Diversions

I have been fascinated lately with variations on chess. The one played by many in Europe, including current Grandmasters, is Janus Chess. The board has two extra spaces (10 x 8 board) and each side has a Janus, a combination of a knight and bishop.

Having a combination piece means that a player can be checkmated with a Janus alone.

Reading about it, though, I stumbled upon a website with many, many different chess variants. People have combined pieces of all kinds, including ones from Shogi (chinese chess) and Tamerlane. Folks come up with some wild variations, including some rather unplayable ones. There’s a rabbit that can make as many knight moves in a counterclockwise fashion as it can. (Am I in check from your rabbit? Let me check.) There’s variations of the knight that make the “L” longer, wider, or both. There’s a checker piece that captures by jumping. The list is really large at chessvariants.org.

My favorite, however, is Chess with Different Armies. Four different armies have been playtested by the inventor and it is fascinating to see a game being played. Both sides are pretty much equal, but the tactics of each of definitely not the same. I imagine a tournament where players can switch armies between matches. I imagine two variant armies squaring off will be the most exciting matches.

If I ever live out my fantasy of opening a store, I’d like to create and sell Chess with Multiple Armies. It could be like the release of Deadwood with new armies every year. Heck, I may do that anyway.

Of course, I also like Arimaa, designed to confound computers. Enjoy the wikipedia reading.

It has come to my attention that another role paying game used the term ‘Hesperian’ to refer to a Roman-based society in an alternate future. Although I came up with Hesberian independent of them, the folks at Steve Jackson Games came up with it quite a bit earlier than I did. I do not want to infringe on their trademarks at all. It’s obvious to me that as they have prior art (I know it’s not a copyright thing) I need to change.

So, the Hesberian Empire material I came up with will have its name changed again. I am making certain that there are no duplication of specific people mentioned in other products. Awrelius will have a name change to Cutelium, but others with different names should be okay.

Henceforth, the empire that dominated Dira and influences Lenga is known as the Bedrian Empire.

NKQB

Nabrolus Kenuraque Bedrianus

For the Senate and Ken of Bedriana

Blogged with Flock

In finalizing Takteek, mrtool and I had an idea to use dice to determine the outcome. Basically, there would be one die for each rank. If a 3 attacks a 2, 3 six-sided would be rolled by the attacker and 2 six-sided dice would be rolled by the defender.

The idea is a sound one that I hope we get to test tonight.

However, I thought that it made sense to give the defending piece a small advantage. The reason being that in many pre-modern battles, a weaker force could defend against a much stronger force. One extreme example comes from Rome’s conquest of Britain. In one battle, the Romans were outnumbered 10 to 1, yet emerged victorious.

One idea was giving the defender an additional die. Another idea was giving the defender eight-sided dice to use. I compared these two scenarios with the default rules using an attack by a 2 piece on another 2 piece.

Under normal rules, the attacking piece will win outright 44.3673 % of the time, tie 11.2654% of the time and lose outright 44.3673% of the time. In English, both pieces have an equal chance of winning or losing (where a tie is considered losing because both pieces are demoted).

Adding a die to the defender, the attacking piece will win outright 15.2006 % of the time, tie 6.9444 % of the time and lose outright 77.8549 % of the time. In English, the defending piece has a huge advantage.

Allowing the defender to use eight-sided dice, the attacking piece will win outright 27.5608 % of the time, tie 8.5069 % of the time and lose outright 63.9323 % of the time. In English, the defending piece has a big advantage.

Thinking about this, I would lean more towards the eight-sided dice option, but the advantage still seems pretty large. It makes attacking with pieces with a rank of two almost useless. If you have a piece that has little more than a 1 in 4 chance of winning, presuming it attacks a piece with a rank of 2 is pretty dismal. Then again, they would serve as useful scouts, finding out the rank of the opposing piece.

Adding another die to the defender is definitely out. That’s just too much of an advantage.

In a perfect world, I think the defender should use seven-sided dice. The advantages are smaller, but still significant enough. However, I don’t have the money to purchase seven-sided dice at 5$ each. Besides, the goal is commonly available materials. Eight-sided dice are not as common as regular dice, but not very hard to get (and they tend to be inexpensive if you forgo the 733t dice used by role playing gamers).

Anywho, just a post to let everyone know that Takteek is not dead.

Blogged with Flock

I think I need to redo some of the Lenga traits. I originally had the power trait adding to the amount of Mana. That doesn’t work well. Instead, I propose this:

Tahares suffers penalities to TN and increase to mana ceiling. They cannot purchase the trait that provides bonuses to TN.

Paucalus suffers penalities to mana cieling and bonuses to TN. They cannot buy trait that increases mana ceiling.

The power trait will not increase the multiplier to compute mana for a spellcaster.

Blogged with Flock

How would you handle a trait type spell, like Growth (Trait: Tall), which increases the size of a character by one size level?
-Nightmask1

I hadn’t done this one yet, so here is the off-the-cuff idea:

Physical Growth – Earth Spell – TN 15 Cost 2
Duration: 30 sec per Skill Level
Range: 1 meter
Lenga Translation: (dictionary on another computer)

Narrative:
The subject of this spell doubles in size and increases their weight eightfold. The effect lasts only a few minutes. Clothing and nonmagical equipment increase proportionately in size as well. Magical items do not change size, as such this spell will not function on creatures wearing magical armor.

Game terms:
The subject of the spell increases one level on the size chart. They gain the temporary benefits of +2 STR and +1 LIF. Melee weapons gain an additional dice of damage and suffer -1 Init penalty for the duration of the spell. Penalties toward the TN for distance and target moving apply and are cumulative. The intended target must be in the line of sight for the spell to function.

Notes:
This spell cannot be used to crush the target in a confined space. If the target is wearing magical armor, the spell will fail. Use the Effect Number to find the greatest consequence on the Spell Failure table.

Meta:
(Shape) Double the cost for double the size increment and associates benefits, the spell cannot be used to ‘triple’ a creature’s size, it only works in factors of two.

(Shape) Double the cost for moving up one or down one step on the time chart to increase duration. (For example, by doubling the cost, the duration is 5 minutes per skill level)

(Control) One mana point can be spent to offset penalties for distance and target moving by one point.

Blogged with Flock

Its great, but that makes magic very cheap. One could say that Traits could be done in same manner. Or am I not reading this correctly? – Nightmask1

Magic is cheap in a sense, though the example I gave had the character foregos some attribute points in order to get more spells.



In the end, the person has one metamagic trait, 12 spells, plus 3 different (but for damage effectively the same) spells that focus damage at one target (bolt), an area (blast), or shields from damage (wall). In essence, one metamagic trait and 15 spells. He barely has enough left to have language skills, horse riding skills, herbology, at least one weapon skill, etc.



In D20, this is approx a 6th level sorcerer. The difference is mine *could* cast more spells, but at the risk of never being able to cast spells again. I’m still working out how that will work. With 65 mana, he can cast them all twice, which is equivalent to approx 11th level sorcerer, though the 11th level sorcerer has 28 different spells to choose from. A spellcaster with the same spells, but a different metamagic trait, though, could only cast all of his spells once.



Some spells become dead-easy for someone with a few skill points spent. Using the example I gave, trying to get a TN 15 with attr(7)+Skill(4) means rolling a 4 or better. Some of the more exotic, though, with a TN of 36 or 39…



If I had to guess how it would work in a trait system, I’d assume two spells as traits at the Edge level cost a total of ten points (Five points per spell, +6 to skill rolls for each spell). In my system, two spells with the same bonus could cost as little as 12 points (Six skill points on each spell and no purchase of a school) or as much as 52 points (five levels of two different schools, plus one skill point for each spell).



I guess that the schools could be a trait (2,5,10 points) and each spell could be its own trait dependent on the school trait. (2,5,10 points). Maybe the bonuses would be +1,2,3 instead of 3,6,9. I’m open to ideas, it could just be my flawed understanding.



I dunno, if I didn’t have schools, it would make more sense for them to be traits, though it seems odd to learn a trait. You could learn speed reading, I guess, but I cannot be taught tall. I figure that the ability to cast a spell at all is a trait (the choosing of being a paucalus or a tahares) and that each spell is a learned skill for someone with that trait. Again, though, that is just me. I think it could be argued either way. I have metamagic as a trait, though it is explained as something learned through practice in my notes.



The only reason I did the schools was for the history of the campaign world, not for any other reason. After that, it just occurred to me to make them skill groups.



Anything else I haven’t thought of? I appreciate the question, I really do. I’m not entirely clear thinking in every area of my system.

Blogged with Flock

I hope to have the ‘fire’ school finished and posted in the next few days.



I’m not sure that my system is playable, really. There’s a lot of upfront work to figure out abilities, then playing it is pretty straightforward. (At least I tried to do that.)



After designing the basic system, the rest is conversion. For example, there’s not five different spells to heal wounds. There’s one – Heal Injuries. The more mana spent, the more wounds are healed.



There is, however, a lot of dimensional travel type spells. I have to sort all that out in the ‘void’ school. That one will be last, definitely.



I’ll let you know and provide a pdf when I’m done.

Blogged with Flock

Skill groups representing the schools of magic cost the same as any other Skill Group. 5/lvl.

Spells are like skills 1/lvl.



I had this on a spreadsheet to get the numbers right. The wind spell that was purchased without the Wind Skill Group costs 3 CP. It should say:



Wind Spell – Invisibility +3 TN 15 Cost 2



Forgot to say that he has 65 Mana.

My warrior example from an earlier post was wrong, he should have 18 Mana, not six.

Formula for Mana is (ENR + DIS) * 3



The spellcaster has 65 because of the Elemental Power Trait.



The bonus is +2 to the multiplier for spellcasters, making his (ENR + DIS) * (3 + 2)

The trait also provides a bonus to spells that attempt to increase damage/range/area of effect. More on that later.

NOTE: The determination of 65 mana may change. On further review it seems extreme.

Blogged with Flock

Here’s a rough draft of a full-fledged spellcaster:



Campaign setting: Start with all 3s and you get 30 AP and 75 CP



Note: This character uses 24 AP and converts the rest.



Body – Mind – Para

STR 3 | PRE 6 | ENR 7

REF 5 | INT 7 | DIS 6

HLT 5 | WIL 5 | OBT 7



That give him 135 CP to use on Skills and Traits



Trait – Tahares +2 (5 points)

Trait – Elemental Power +2 (5 points)



Skill Group – Earth spells +3

* Earth Spell – Titan Strength +1(+4) TN 15 Cost 2

* Earth Spell – Open Magical Seal +1(+4) TN 15 Cost 2

* Earth Spell – Change Form – Self +1(+4) TN 15 Cost 2

* Earth Spell – Obscure from Divination +1(+4) TN 18 Cost 3

* Earth Spell – Fabricate +1(+4) TN 24 Cost 5



Skill Group – Fire spells +3

* Fire Spell – Summon Creatures +1(+4) TN varies Cost varies

* Fire Spell – Create Light +1(+4) TN 12 Cost 1

* Fire Spell – Cast Spell Through Another – Self +1(+4) TN 24 Cost 5



Skill Group – Water spells +3

* Water Spell – Levitate +1(+4) TN 15 Cost 2

* Water Spell – Slippery Area +1(+4) TN 15 Cost 2

* Water Spell – Create Dense Fog +1(+4) TN 24 Cost 5



Wind Spell – Invisibility TN 15 Cost 2 +3



That cost 70 CP leaving 65 CP for other things such as weapons, social skills, horse riding, etc. Knowledge Skills are common choices.

Blogged with Flock

One other thing that I didn’t mention was that there is a type of magic that is used by non-spellcasters called Everyday Magic. It includes spells like Spice that extend a pinch of spice into 2-3 tbsp. Since folks that use everyday magic do not use Mana (they didn’t purchase the trait to choose tahares or paucalus), these spells cause nonlethal damage to themselves. Success for a piece of Everyday Magic is 3+Skill+3d6 vs TN 12.



It should also be mentioned that this world has no undead. In a sense, they are no ‘real’ necromancers in the D20 sense of the word. There are spellcasters that use LIF taken from others to cast spells, but no turning or zombie creators. (However, there are automatons and golems that spellcasters create.)



It’s the culmination of about 2 years of work to think through the mechanics of magic and how it works. One of the reasons I like A!S is that it made more sense for characters to be able to learn one or two spells to survive in a world where magic is encountered periodically.



For example, take a warrior-type knowing a spell to purify a quart of water in order to survive in the wilderness. No crazy ‘dual class’ stuff, just someone learning from another how to survive. (That’s why spells are skills and not traits.) In this example, the warrior spent anywhere from 3 to 10 skill points for this. Two points for the trait to be a spellcaster, and 1 to 8 points on the spell in order to be able to reliably able to cast this spell. It would be listed on his sheet as Purify Water +1-8



The purify water spell is TN 15 and has a cost of 2.

Assuming that this guy spent no attribute points on magic skills, he/she has a Mana of 6.

Also assuming that the warrior decided to be a paucalus with a two point cost giving a +1 bonus to spell success.

He did not purchase the Elemental Skill Group, so he spent 1 to 8 points on the specific Purify Water skill. He cannot cast a wall, bolt, or blast.



The roll for success is 3 (Attribute is 3) + Skill + 1 (Paucalus) + 3d6 against TN15.



The fact that the spell is in the Earth (Lur) school and focuses on the “Power” Attribute is not really important to the character or the player. The Attribute isn’t important because the character is all 3s in that group. The school is unimportant because the character did not purchase the skill group.



Let’s say that he decided to purchase the Earth skill group. This would cost anywhere from 8 to 14 Skill points. In addition to being able to purify water, he can cast a bolt, blast, and wall against a TN12. However, he cannot spend more than 3 mana in casting them. In game terms, that give you a bolt that does 3d6 lethal/special damage, a blast that does 2d6 lethal/special damage, or a wall that provides 3d6 points of protection. He could cast two bolts, blasts, and/or walls, but that would use all his mana and the risk was mentioned in the previous post.



His skills would be:

Earth School +1

Purify Water +1 – 8 (+2 – 9)



An example of a ‘dedicated’ spellcaster is forthcoming.

Blogged with Flock