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Post by egleris on Aug 16, 2010 12:52:43 GMT
Where does it say that the bonus of Mindblast and Weponskill are reduced to 1? I didn't found it anywere in Book 6. So, until prove is given, I'll suppose that Mindblast and Weaponskill are still working and giving you their +2 bonus.
Even so, if we are not considering the improvement that weapon mastery gain over time, I would put it to 7, as it's value is proportionally the same that it has in the Kai series, being the fact that it grant +3 and let you select your weapon compesated by your opponents being thougher.
If we consider the improvements though, I would not be opposed to it having 8, I would say it is even a good candidate for 9! It boost the bow ridicously, and once you start having three-four weapons mastered, you could as well add the +4 directly into your CS as you'll never be without the right weapon, even if you somehow don't have the Sommerswerd whit you. And even if you're unarmed, you lose just 1 CS, so... Weapon Mastery is easily the more powerful discipline in the Magnakai series, taking into account the bonus, so I'll agree with the 8 here and notice it could go up to 9 depending on personal value.
I agree whit Curing being a 7 because of the changes we made (otherwise it would be a 4) and I also think Invisibility, Nexus, AC and Huntmastery are ranked right.
Psi-Screen I feel is just as useful in the Magnakai series as Mindshield was in the Kai series, so should retain its 7, as especially in the later books it becomes determinant (with everybody mindblasting you as a form of greeting in the Daziarn and the costant checks in the Darklands...). Psi-Surge is a bit too dispendious at the start, but once it grow to +6 and losng only 1 become very helpful... except, as usual, in the fights were you would need it (Khima anyone?), so I say 6 is right for it, and it could be even ranked 7 knowing the evolution power.
Divination I felt is not as good in the Magnakai as Sixth sense in the Kai series; while there SS was better than Tracking, in the Magnakai series Pathsmanship is usually a better choice than Divination. So I would exchange their ranking, whit Pathsmanship being 7 and Divination being 6.
Any way, it seems like the only discipline that's not on par whit the others is.. (drumroll)... Animal Control. Why am I not surprised? And if we make AK retain the +4 bonus we give it in the Kai series, AC fall down to 0. So, to balance the disciplines, we have to resurrect AC in something worth taking... and then work on the lorecircles, because they are the real deal-breaker here.
Waiting to start the discussion on the Lore Circles until we've put Animal Control into a shape to fight. Anybody as ideas other than doubling the AK bonus we invented?
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Post by altwren on Aug 16, 2010 20:16:36 GMT
Magnakai time, is it? Ok, here's my personal feelings on the Disciplines. My reviews are just taking into account the original abilities, not the suggested modifications which I have not tried.
Weaponmastery - 9 Honestly, who doesn't have this as one of their first 3 disciplines chosen in a Magnakai runthrough. First, you get to pick your weapon. Second, you get multiple weapons. Third, the bonus moves you one to two columns up the Combat Results Table, and eventually becomes a garunteed 2 columns once the bonus hit's +4. However, these bonus' in and of themselves would not be too bad if it wasn't for it's true power: The Bow. A shiny new weapon to the Magnakai series, everyone wants to try one out and it's a great weapon. Arrows are plentiful and the bow can usually skip combats if your aim is true. +30% with the bow (+50% down the road) is a ridiculous bonus. Lastly, Weaponmastery has a good circle associated with it, Fire. It is the quinessential Magnakai skill. If the bow bonus reduced to +1, I'd only give this skill a 7.
Divination - 7 It was a really tough choice between this and Pathsmanship for second. Divination is not Sixth Sense, but it still gathers plenty of useful info. I'm a big believer in Knowledge=Power. The deciding factor for this high ranking is, of course, the circle of Spirit.
Nexus - 6 It's the second most useful piece of the Spirit Lorecircle. Nexus likes to just hang back and save you from some damage here or there. Maybe help with a couple of die rolls. It's more useful power is filtering air, which gets used quite a bit. It's like a little force field that keeps bad things out. Not sure if it saves from death at all, or just damage. Would rank at 7 if it can block some deaths too.
Psi-surge - 6* I didn't really know where I was going to put Psi-Surge. It, of course, adds 4 to CS and does 2 damage a round. Now let me say that ability sucks. Terrible. It will damage you more than you are damaging your opponent. The battles in Magnakai that are going to kill you (we know who they are) feature opponents with high EN. You need to outlast them, and hurting yourself 2 a round isn't helping. Just Terrible. Just when you want to give up on Psi-surge, it evolves into a +6/1 damage skill. Now this, is more than worth it. Better than Weaponmastery. That's why I marked its 6 score. Psi-surge goes from being a 3 overall to a 9 in the blink of an eye. Add in that it can block two instant-deaths (books 7 and 8) and I think it warrents a 6.
Pathsmanship - 5 Unlike Kai and Tracking, it's actually pretty easy to stay on the right path in Magnakai without Tracking's counterpart to lend a hand. Pathsmanship's big draw is it's versitility. Not only do you get tracking powers, but as you go on you gain access to other neat skills like pass without trace and detect ambush. Of course, the latter is kind of given for free by sections that like to ask "Can you detect ambushes? If so, turn to XXX. Oh, what? You can't? Well nothing, nevermind then. Carry on." It's Lorecircle bonus is rather sub-par as well. A neato skill, but if you want to live, best take it later.
Psi-Screen - 5 Not as useful a Mindshield. Still, it gets a 5, because it's part of Spirit. There are a few Helghasts to use it on, but not that many. Really, I'm not the best one to rank this. I always have it by Book 7, so I don't really know what life it like without it. From experience, it does what I expect it to do. Nothing more, nothing less. It earns a 5.
Huntmastery - 5 Ok, ok, I get it... You guys hate carrying meals. You'd much rather just grab Hunting and forget about it. Enjoy all your Blankets and Silver Combs and whatever else you like to fill your backpack with instead. Maybe I just like to think as a Kai Lord, my Lone Wolf would prefer to not slaughter innocent woodland animals for sustainance when he could just, you know, pack a lunch. Still, even if you don't carry meals regularly, Huntmastery in not that good. Hunting is still there, doing it's job. And even though it's part of two Lorecircles, the bonus' arent that great (+2/+5 for all Hunt-Circles, versus +4/+4 for Spirit, same amount of disciplines) Huntmastery's advantage comes in the random roll modification. It can actually save you from death a few times, I believe. As you see, it does a little bit everywhere, and I'd rank it a 5.
Curing - 4 Curing is the first talent to be ranked below 5, mainly because of Healing. Their power is redundant. Still, curing can heal non-combat damage, can block a death or two and gets you some nice bracers, so it has uses. Better skills out there though. And the Lore-Circle sucks.
Animal Control - 3 Not last?? That's right; I do think it's better than one skill. Animal Control got a boost since Kai, but not much of one. It now helps when LW is mounted (like someone suggested for Kai), avoids combats, and in one book it lets you summon a giant bear to beat on some wolves. Cool stuff. All in all, we all know just how useful it can be. Not very...
Invisibility - 2 So, I was playing through my Mongooses... Now I know, I've been told, this thread isn't for Mongoose stuff, but it's a valid point here. So yeah, I was like "Kimah and CM reduced?? I don't have to beeline for spirit! I can try picking Invisiblity first!" Well let me tell you, you aren't missing much. Even though I picked it first in Book 6, it rarely has proven useful during my adventure. I think I've only used it three times. The only notible thing it did was skip some sections in book 9 (where the lizard people are. I didn't have to fight them, I just snuck up and chatted with them). And that doesn't even help at all, since it only saves you some damage and then both paths give the Lorestone. Full health! This skill is easily forgetable.
All that being said, none of it matters if Kimah and CM aren't changed. Because of them, we all know the order the disciplines are chosen in.
Book 6 - Weaponskill + 2 Spirit Skills or Huntmastery (for a +1 against Altan.) Book 7 - Spirit Skill Book 8 - Spirit Skill Book 9 - Last Spirit Skill or Huntmastery Book 10 - Pathsmanship Book 11 - Invisiblity Book 12 - Curing (for Silver Bracers)
Change the abilities all you want, but if those two fights aren't changed, this is the order people will choose in.
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Post by pi4t on Aug 16, 2010 21:02:36 GMT
If you look back over my previous posts, you'll see that I suggested reducing the Weaponskill and Mindblast bonuses to 1CS each. As no one objected, I assumed that people were generally in agreement.
And I'd rather not alter the actual book, this thread is for balancing the DISCIPLINES. I'd prefer to give each discipline something that can be used against them. Curing, for instance, could have its Archmaster ability early, while Animal Kinship might allow you to summon an animal to fight for you once.
I reckon that we have a lot more flexibility here due to Lore Circles. We can fiddle about with their bonuses and requirements as much as we like, so that less good disciplines can have better Lore Circles.
Finally, upgraded disciplines. I've never been sure why having 8 other disciplines allows me to gain my 9th at a higher level than my 4th was when I got it. I suggest that we say that each time you gain a new discipline, all your others go up by 1 level, but they all start at Kai Master level.
So if my first 3 disciplines were (in this order) Huntmastery (which would be at Kai Master Superior), Weaponmastery (which would be at Kai Master Senior), and Nexus (which would be at Kai Master), then after completing book 6 I would have the Primate Huntmastery ability. I would not have the Primate Nexus ability yet because Nexus would still only be at Kai Master Superior.
Does this seem too complicated? It would make the Discipline choices more interesting, especially if you can see future discipline improvements. 'Do I pick a Discipline that's good now, or one that's nearly useless now, but will then become more powerful as I play through the series?'
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Post by egleris on Aug 16, 2010 21:34:11 GMT
So, it seems that invisibility is thought too weak? Well, I say we boost it with that suggestion of having it giving you the first round damage-free unless said otherwise. And maybe, to mantain the improvement skill, by book 10 it could extend that power to also the second round. This should push it at about 7, don't you think?
As for the idea of having the disciplines grow book by book, I can see you point, with the disciplines growing by 1 only if you have them, but I will have to disagree for several reason. First of all, all abilities grow every two books, but they START growing with different timing; it would mean that the discipline that power up one level earlier could be choosen later than the others. It creates unbalance. I always thought that the "improvement" weren't due to practice into a single discipline, but more into your disciplines boosting one another; so the more you know, the more powerful they are. The system of levelling each one separately by the others I can see as useful in a RPG, but in the gamebooks would defy the entire purpouse of having them balanced.
So, no suggestion on powering up Animal control? I think doubling the bonus from AK (making Animal Control a +8 if you have to fight animals, mounted etc.) seems to make it too powerful... than again, do is true that it would not be used all that much.
I'm itching to start talking about the Lore Circles.
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Post by pi4t on Aug 18, 2010 12:09:32 GMT
Invisibility: Yes, that would really help with the common CR11+ fights, which are often over in 2 rounds anyway due to an instant kill.
All right with the upgrades, hadn't thought of it like that.
I think that with the SS, weaponmastery, etc, most standard fights are CR 7+ anyway, so increasing the bonus to +8 really isn't that useful. No, we need to think of a better way.
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Post by egleris on Aug 18, 2010 12:34:25 GMT
Ah, but if we give Invisibility that bonus, it would become INVALUABLE against enemies like Khima or Shinzar, don't you think? Just thought of all the times that you go "No, if only I hadn't taken those damages there!" against those enemies. Then again, I'm suggesting this just because altwren suggested that, to some, Invisibility could result unuseful.
As for Animal Control... I'm at a loss. What could be done to turn it into something useful? There are no random rolls involving animals, and a CS boost is out of the way... I don't know what could be done to make it better.
Except making the Lorecircle that include it the best one, of course.
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Post by pi4t on Aug 18, 2010 17:13:59 GMT
Um. We can't do anything to do with animals, then let's extend it to more than just animals, rather like MOM upgrades to Nexus. What could it be, though?
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Post by egleris on Aug 18, 2010 17:22:57 GMT
Well, put that way, maybe help against animal-like monsters? Like Targazin and the Zadragon? That may help, though we would be careful to note in the Animal Kinship that its bonus doesn't work against monstrous creatures but only common animals... where do you draw the line? If the two-headed snake in Kalte is an animal, the snake Haakon send against you if you don't have the Sommerswerd how should be classified? It would open a big classification problem.
Opinions?
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Post by askhati on Aug 19, 2010 7:19:44 GMT
Haakon's snake is magical, hence the Jewelled Mace bonus that you get against it. The JM also gives you anti-magic bonuses in alter adventures against snakes and/or summoned creatures, memory serving.
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Post by egleris on Aug 19, 2010 10:46:30 GMT
Where did you used the jewelled mace again? Other than LW 5, I never found any other book where it gave any bonus. Please, give me some references, as it would be greatly helpful in this discussion.
Also, I had a thought on AC. We already have the +4 CS bonus that would carry on from the Kai series on all animals. What f, other than extending the bonus to also not-speaking creatures that are not animals, we hadded a Roll bonus? Not to just random rolls involving animals (As I don't remember if there even are rolls involving animals in the books) but an actual Combat Roll enhancher? Let's say a +2 to all rolls; that way the actual combat results one got are 3-0, instead of 1-0, with 0 being considered as 10. I can't remember if the two vordaks at the end of book 8 are mounted, but if they are, that would make playing that book as a standalone possible, right?
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Post by askhati on Aug 20, 2010 6:49:21 GMT
I'll go look for those references, but it might take a while.
As for your Animal Control idea... Vordaks are psychic undead spawn. How is a knowledge of how to communicate with animals going to help you in combat with these guys?
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Post by egleris on Aug 20, 2010 9:53:44 GMT
I did say "IF they were mounted," didn't I? If they are mounted, then knowledge of how to fight enemy on animals would help him know the better ways to defend himself. In LW, as Book 4 teach us, flying cavalry exists, so LW animal lore would also make him know that, and since we're extending AC to non-sentient creatures including monster (so also Kraan), it would make use of the mounted bonus.
It would obviously only work if those Vordaks are mounted, and I'm not sure about that.
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Post by askhati on Aug 20, 2010 10:17:18 GMT
Must have missed it... Anyway, I remember sections in the books where being on horseback and having Animal Kinship/Control/Mastery would allow you to increase your CS for the duration of the fight. I specifically remember a section where it says that with AK/C/M you order the horse to attack with its hooves as well, hence the CS bonus.
Plus, if a Kai can summon wolves to protect him while he sleeps (LW 15), I'm sure he can convince a horse to develop a taste for human meat and Russian dancing...
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Post by Dave on Aug 20, 2010 20:24:41 GMT
I am intrigued by these modified Discipline rules... It makes me want to incorporate them into Seventh Sense as a gameplay option... (But not until *after* the Magnakai release!)
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Post by altwren on Aug 20, 2010 22:35:54 GMT
Here's an idea for invisiblity. How about you can automatically flee combats. No one round of damage. That's not too much of an increase, but it would help low stat LWs avoid damage by fleeing from everyone. Makes sense too. Kinda hard to hit someone if they just disappear on you.
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