Couple of Questions: Average Characters and Attack Spells

[Tywyll]

Okay, I like what I see in Novus. It feels like a paired down 'heartbreaker' (but in a good way) of RM/Harp and I dig that.

So, is there anywhere I can see some example characters of various levels? One of the great things RM did was have sort of average characters statted up for levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. You know, if I need some bandits, other than reskinning goblins or making them myself, what do I do?

How does the system handle at high level? By that I mean what starts happening at level 10? Level 20. It seems like attacks and spells will always succeed with no chance of failure (barring rolling 1's).

How do levels relate to the average fantasy setting? I notice Orcs are level 5, so it seems like the Fellowship would be level 10+ each in this system... AT LEAST. Also, it makes first level characters feel like rank beginners (which is fine, but worth noting). So where does a journeyman fall? A master? And I'm just talking default RAW assumptions. What level would a veteran noble of many wars be? I know there is wiggle room for individual settings, but I guess I want to know at it's core what do the characters and levels really represent as mapped to the world around them?

Spell Casting
What's the point of increasing the base damage of an attack spell?
For 1 SP, I can inflict 4+stat+success on a target. If I have a +20 bonus  and am fighting an orc who I am familiar with, on average, for one SP I will inflict 4+stat mod+success.

If I wanted to increase the damage, I could say, increase the casting difficulty by 12 (28), the cost by 6 (7), and the damage by...3? So 7+stat+success.

I'm not entirely clear on if your Boons count from the CTN or from the DEF, but assuming they are from the DEF, this doesn't impact your Boons, but you've just spent 7 SP for a 3 point bonus.

I realize that for 2 Boon points you can double Base Damage, but our guy here is not likely to see that very often and it seems a huge waste of SP since that's effectively 6 more attacks doing 15+stat mod damage he's given up for one 18+stat mod attack.

So...am I missing something or does the math just not work? I know Harp attack spells had similar problems.

[imported_Rasyr]

Okay, I like what I see in Novus. It feels like a paired down 'heartbreaker' (but in a good way) of RM/Harp and I dig that.

I really dislike that term. I was in no way "trying to make RM/HARP only better". I was trying to make a new game. One which used features or

So, is there anywhere I can see some example characters of various levels? One of the great things RM did was have sort of average characters statted up for levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. You know, if I need some bandits, other than reskinning goblins or making them myself, what do I do?

My intention was to originally do up a bunch of NPCs like that. And I started that, but considering that I do this in my spare time, I kind of got redirected to other things that needed doing and never actually completed it.

How does the system handle at high level? By that I mean what starts happening at level 10? Level 20. It seems like attacks and spells will always succeed with no chance of failure (barring rolling 1's).

I will let the folks who playtested it answer that. But the thing to remember, there are natural caps to skill abilities, so that you cannot really get super super high in skills.

How do levels relate to the average fantasy setting? I notice Orcs are level 5, so it seems like the Fellowship would be level 10+ each in this system... AT LEAST. Also, it makes first level characters feel like rank beginners (which is fine, but worth noting). So where does a journeyman fall? A master? And I'm just talking default RAW assumptions. What level would a veteran noble of many wars be? I know there is wiggle room for individual settings, but I guess I want to know at it's core what do the characters and levels really represent as mapped to the world around them?

One thing that I never even gave any sort of consideration to while making Novus was how it compared to specific settings, most especially the Fellowship (though if you do want to go back to RM, I seem to recall that MOST of them actually were of pretty high level (except for the Hobbits, who tried to avoid combat most of the time.. hehe).

Now, in Libram Novus #5, I included a table of craftsmanship ranks. You could actually apply that table to any skill if you liked. Though I would only apply this towards a skill which is the primary focus for a character.

Apprentice -- 1-5 Ranks
Journeyman -- 6-12 ranks
Tradesman (Master) -- 12-20 ranks
Artisan (Master) -- 21-30 ranks
Grand Master -- 31+ ranks

So, a Veteran Noble of many Wars would likely be in the Artisan range, while your average Bandit would be in the high Apprenticeship or low Journeyman range (with the Bandit leader being more towards High Journeyman range).

Another point that I would like to strongly stress, levels in Novus are not like in some other games. Yes, they provide training break points, and provide caps on the maximum number of ranks that a character may have in a skill, but beyond the first couple of levels even that "cap" isn't much of a hindrance. It is mostly there simply to keep first level characters from min-maxing too much and putting every available point into a single skill.

Spell Casting
What's the point of increasing the base damage of an attack spell?
For 1 SP, I can inflict 4+stat+success on a target. If I have a +20 bonus  and am fighting an orc who I am familiar with, on average, for one SP I will inflict 4+stat mod+success.

If I wanted to increase the damage, I could say, increase the casting difficulty by 12 (28), the cost by 6 (7), and the damage by...3? So 7+stat+success.

I'm not entirely clear on if your Boons count from the CTN or from the DEF, but assuming they are from the DEF, this doesn't impact your Boons, but you've just spent 7 SP for a 3 point bonus.

Both actually. Since you are comparing the roll against 2 separate TNs (CTN and DEF), you would count out from each to determine Boons for each. And 1 Boon Point for casting would allow you to double that Base Damage (where a Combat Boon requires 2 Boons to do it).

I realize that for 2 Boon points you can double Base Damage, but our guy here is not likely to see that very often and it seems a huge waste of SP since that's effectively 6 more attacks doing 15+stat mod damage he's given up for one 18+stat mod attack.

So...am I missing something or does the math just not work? I know Harp attack spells had similar problems.

One thing to consider is that some options are included for completeness, and to simply allow for that to be an option.  Also, not every option would be good for every situation (if it were, then it would be abused more than likely). For increasing Base Damage, I wanted it to be possible, but I did not want it to be easy or something that could be easily abused. Especially since Boons can be gotten in more ways than simply rolling over TN, and that could easily lead to Abuse.

For example, the use of a Fate Point to increase the number of Boon Points earned on a roll, might make it possible to triple or quadruple the number of base hits.

As you pointed out, the base hits for most of the attack spells is 4+ Stat Bonus (let's give a stat bonus of +2 for this example). So our example does 6 Base Hits. One Spell Casting Boon Point, increases this base Damage from 6 to 12. If you had increase the Base Hits by 3, to 9, then your Boon took it from 9 to 18 Base Hits. And a second casting Boon would increase that to 27 Hits (if you had used casting options to increase base by 3.

So, while on the surface, increasing hits may be expensive, as long a you are using Boons, that cost is about right. You have to look at everything as a whole, not just one thing.

The Boons are NOT Rolemaster Criticals. For one thing, the Player selects what he spends his Boon Points on, it is not some random roll. So you cannot just dismiss them, unless you are making other changes to the system.

[Tywyll]

I really dislike that term. I was in no way "trying to make RM/HARP only better". I was trying to make a new game. One which used features or

Sorry, didn't mean to strike a nerve. And as I said, I didn't mean it in a negative light. But this game has the DNA of RM/Harp at it's core.

My intention was to originally do up a bunch of NPCs like that. And I started that, but considering that I do this in my spare time, I kind of got redirected to other things that needed doing and never actually completed it.

That's unfortunate, but understandable.

One thing that I never even gave any sort of consideration to while making Novus was how it compared to specific settings, most especially the Fellowship (though if you do want to go back to RM, I seem to recall that MOST of them actually were of pretty high level (except for the Hobbits, who tried to avoid combat most of the time.. hehe).

Now, in Libram Novus #5, I included a table of craftsmanship ranks. You could actually apply that table to any skill if you liked. Though I would only apply this towards a skill which is the primary focus for a character.

Apprentice -- 1-5 Ranks
Journeyman -- 6-12 ranks
Tradesman (Master) -- 12-20 ranks
Artisan (Master) -- 21-30 ranks
Grand Master -- 31+ ranks

So, a Veteran Noble of many Wars would likely be in the Artisan range, while your average Bandit would be in the high Apprenticeship or low Journeyman range (with the Bandit leader being more towards High Journeyman range).

Another point that I would like to strongly stress, levels in Novus are not like in some other games. Yes, they provide training break points, and provide caps on the maximum number of ranks that a character may have in a skill, but beyond the first couple of levels even that "cap" isn't much of a hindrance. It is mostly there simply to keep first level characters from min-maxing too much and putting every available point into a single skill.

Okay, cool. That helps. Thanks.

Both actually. Since you are comparing the roll against 2 separate TNs (CTN and DEF), you would count out from each to determine Boons for each. And 1 Boon Point for casting would allow you to double that Base Damage (where a Combat Boon requires 2 Boons to do it).

But on page 58 its says, "Casting Boons may only be
applied to spells that are not Vs. DEF. Those spells that are Vs.
DEF will use the Combat Boons table.". Has this been errated?

One thing to consider is that some options are included for completeness, and to simply allow for that to be an option.  Also, not every option would be good for every situation (if it were, then it would be abused more than likely). For increasing Base Damage, I wanted it to be possible, but I did not want it to be easy or something that could be easily abused. Especially since Boons can be gotten in more ways than simply rolling over TN, and that could easily lead to Abuse.

For example, the use of a Fate Point to increase the number of Boon Points earned on a roll, might make it possible to triple or quadruple the number of base hits.

As you pointed out, the base hits for most of the attack spells is 4+ Stat Bonus (let's give a stat bonus of +2 for this example). So our example does 6 Base Hits. One Spell Casting Boon Point, increases this base Damage from 6 to 12. If you had increase the Base Hits by 3, to 9, then your Boon took it from 9 to 18 Base Hits. And a second casting Boon would increase that to 27 Hits (if you had used casting options to increase base by 3.

So, while on the surface, increasing hits may be expensive, as long a you are using Boons, that cost is about right. You have to look at everything as a whole, not just one thing.

The Boons are NOT Rolemaster Criticals. For one thing, the Player selects what he spends his Boon Points on, it is not some random roll. So you cannot just dismiss them, unless you are making other changes to the system.

I wasn't dismissing Boons, I was just pointing out that they weren't likely enough for someone to spend that many SP to justify it. 1, 2, or 3 points per 2 SP spent and needing big rolls/fate points doesn't seem worthwhile.

But saying you didn't want it to really happen that often is fine, that explains it for me.

[imported_Rasyr]

I really dislike that term. I was in no way "trying to make RM/HARP only better". I was trying to make a new game. One which used features or

Sorry, didn't mean to strike a nerve. And as I said, I didn't mean it in a negative light. But this game has the DNA of RM/Harp at it's core.

I spent 8 years working for ICE (Mjolnir, LLC), so there is obviously SOME influence from RM (and obviously HARP since I was the author of it as well). Having said that, however, I wrote Novus to be a game that I liked, not to be "xx but using this" and yes that included some of the concepts and ideologies found in RM/HARP. But all of those concepts could also be found in other game systems as well. I know, because at the time I wrote Novus, I had to be very careful and make sure that I could point at other sources for inspiration as well.

What I mainly objected to was the use of the term "heartbreaker" as that does have a very specific and derogatory connotation and definition.

Both actually. Since you are comparing the roll against 2 separate TNs (CTN and DEF), you would count out from each to determine Boons for each. And 1 Boon Point for casting would allow you to double that Base Damage (where a Combat Boon requires 2 Boons to do it).

But on page 58 its says, "Casting Boons may only be
applied to spells that are not Vs. DEF. Those spells that are Vs.
DEF will use the Combat Boons table.". Has this been errated?

Ah! I forgot about that. You are correct. And no it has not been the subject of errata yet. So never mind that bit hehehe.... The point still stands that Fate Points can also sometimes be used, and now that I think about it, the double of Base Damage is a 2 pointer, to reduce the chances of it happening.

It has been a few years, so trying to recall my reasoning is not always easy... heheh

I wasn't dismissing Boons, I was just pointing out that they weren't likely enough for someone to spend that many SP to justify it. 1, 2, or 3 points per 2 SP spent and needing big rolls/fate points doesn't seem worthwhile.

But saying you didn't want it to really happen that often is fine, that explains it for me.

Cool! It was one of those situations where I wanted it to be possible, but not something done so often as to make it a common occurrence, nor to be something that can be done often at lower levels of skill either.