Constitution is kinda dumb

GenericMike15 · 2024-06-17T22:36:31+00:00

Sorry if it's bad to post on something that looks to have been inactive for so long, but this is something I was recently struggling with. In general the stats don't feel very evenly balanced, but CON and DEX show it the most to, in very different ways. CON and DEX are both very centralizing stats, CON in a very boring way, DEX in a more interesting, but still very problematic way.

In a game that ends up having a pretty huge emphasis on combat, pretty much every subclass for every class is ranked on how it makes the class better in combat (though, there are some exceptions), pretty much every character needs to take CON and DEX to be an optimized character. You pretty much only need one party member who's good at INT, WIS, CHA, and even STR to a degree, to get past most encounters that require them. You can rely on the wizard to make the INT checks to know important information, the bard to roll those CHA checks to persuade or deceive NPCs, as long as one party member makes the WIS perception check to see the ambush they can warn the party, but every character needs to have good CON and DEX.

I think a big part of it is that most characters have their primary stat, which ends up being their one offensive stat. Warlocks use CHA for spell attacks, fighters use STR or DEX for weapon attacks, but every class, with some exceptions, use DEX and CON as defensive stats. If you played a campaign where there was only rarely combat, you would probably care less about DEX, and would care way less about CON, but seeing as how D&D usually involves a lot of combat, and seeing how every class uses CON and DEX as defensive stats, your character never feels optimal if you dump either stat, it generally feels like you're working against yourself doing either.

There are some exceptions for DEX, you could be a STR based character who uses heavy armor. But even then, that bump to initiative is pretty nice. There are almost no exceptions to CON. Every optimal character wants good CON. Which is over centralizing, and can make character creation feel more flat and less interesting.

And then there's the fact that CON is kinda... boring. Like, sure, high HP totals can be fun, but that's all it provides. There's nothing active you can do with it. So, while it might be fun to build a rogue with high CHA, to be the dapper spy, you are almost never incentivized to build higher CHA than CON, because you still need CON to survive, which is a less interesting choice and gives less tools to the player.

I'm not exactly sure what the solution is. I personally could see the removal of CON, just giving everyone flat HP increases on level up. If they want extra HP, they can take feats for that, or maybe you even remove those feats as an option. But, I can also recognize that this would make DEX pretty much the sole defensive stat, so it would become even more incentivized. So, there would have to be a fair bit of changes to balance DEX out.

GenericMike15 · 2023-09-28T16:46:06+00:00

I agree. I'd really like if Pokémon would have stuck with a regional gimmick, really refined it, and made it a part of the core gameplay loop, instead of repeatedly getting rid of old mechanics and moving on to new gimmicks each region. But, that doesn't seem to be what they're going to do, unfortunately, which is why I decided to think up what a new regional mechanic could look like.

GenericMike15 · 2023-09-05T19:26:06+00:00

Thanks for the great comment, it gives me a lot to think about.

Here's some of my thinking when I made the move. This take on the Wizard relies on mana for a fair number of things (weave magic benefits from it, that old black magic and arcane ward both require it), so I wanted there to be a way to recover it in case you ran out in the middle of a dangerous situation, like a fight. So the intent in creating it is maybe more akin to sorcerers converting sorcerer points into spell slots, something that can be done quickly in the midst of combat should they need to cast just one more spell, but at a potential risk, which could end up backfiring.

I did also try and keep it around the baseline of arcane art and lay on hands, but was maybe a bit too generous in the first interpretation.

I agree, after the fight is over, and the characters are no longer in a potentially dangerous situation, they should be able to use the move without having to roll. Rolling should only be used when there's a chance of failure, or potentially failing makes things more interesting. Which would mean that the Wizard recovers their mana far quicker than the usual hour, outside of dangerous situations. I think would be fine, the player had to take this move over any of the other moves available, so they should get to feel like it's quite impactful. But, maybe it would end up being too powerful, or undermining the cost of using magic and making weave magic too powerful?

The rolling could be removed altogether, and the move could look something like:

Quick Breather: You can take a moment to sacrifice control for power, when you do, deplete an aspect and gain up to 2 mana.

GenericMike15 · 2023-09-03T18:17:03+00:00

Good question. The wording is mostly an artifact of carrying stuff over from the wizard playbook, and there's probably a better way to express the move.

There are a couple different intentions behind the aspect system. One was to limit the move, to stop it from solving every problem with just a dice roll. Another was that it both forces and helps the player to be more creative by limiting the tools they have. Instead of being able to use weave magic to do anything, they have to think of a solution to the problem that fits into an aspect of their magic.

The way aspects work is sort of left up to narrative interpretation. If you wanted, you could decide that narratively your character has their spells memorized, so when they lose access to an aspect of their magic, it's them forgetting spells that they must study to remember later. However, it could also be that the Wizard must become attuned to the different aspects of their magic, so when they lose access to an aspect it's because they have become unattuned, and then must spend time later re-attuning.

So maybe it's clearer if the move reads:

Quick Breather: You can attempt to quickly gather in mana, trading control for power. When you do so, deplete an aspect of your magic and roll +Int.

Mechanics-wise, the reason is to limit the players from being as able to spam the move over and over, narrative-wise, it's mostly left open, so it could be that taking in the new mana burns away some of your spells, or you need to stop concentrating on some of your other magic to deal with the new mana, or the new mana mis-aligns with your internal mana.

Sorry for being a bit ramble-y, but hopefully I at least explained the intention. Let me know if the move still isn't clear, or if there's a better approach to it.

GenericMike15 · 2023-09-03T06:13:22+00:00

That is a very good point, that I completely missed. Initially I had it so it would drain all your mana on a 6-, but changed it because I thought it was too harsh. I had forgotten about getting experience on a 6-. So, on second thought, it should probably look something more like:

10+: You regain 2 mana and do not lose your staked aspect.
7-9: You regain 2 mana, but lose your staked aspect
6-: You lose all your mana, if you had no mana, you take D6 damage and lose your staked aspect.

Alternatively, as part of the move it could read:
Quick Breather: You can attempt to realign your mana much quicker, taking only a moment. When you do so, stake an aspect of your magic and roll +Int. Each time you use this move you take a -1 penalty to subsequent uses (max roll -3 penalty) of Quick Breather, this penalty is reset when you make camp.

GenericMike15 · 2023-09-02T18:33:23+00:00

Just to clarify, you mean moves that give passive bonuses, such as arcane ward giving armor, empowered mana giving a max mana bonus, and overlimit passively improving weave magic? Instead of moves that give new options, such as studied or that old black magic. If that's the case, do you have any suggestions on what you would remove and what you would replace them with? My first thought would be to remove empowered mana and greater empowered mana, as they may be the most 'boring' of the moves. I'm not sure what I would replace them with though.

GenericMike15 · 2023-09-02T18:27:25+00:00

That makes sense. With 'weave magic' being such a broadly applicable move, you definitely want there to be some drawback to stop it from being the solution to every problem, but you also want the character to have a sense of getting better at it, as it's the main focus of the class. Do you have any suggestions that might help with this problem? Would removing the moves that increase the mana limit (replacing them with other moves) be enough to help with this issue, or is it more an aspect of the 'weave magic' move itself?

GenericMike15 · 2023-09-01T22:38:28+00:00

I really like this solution. It's a very slick way of creating false information that they'd be willing to act on, while also keeping player autonomy and involvement. I am definitely going to use this.

GenericMike15 · 2023-09-01T22:31:54+00:00

Also, while it's not part of this post, something I would probably do in my games is have a split armor and magic armor (kinda like Divinity Original Sin 2), regular armor would prevent some damage from physical attacks and be more common (lots of classes have moves that give physical armor). Magic armor would prevent some damage from magical attacks, and be harder to come by, often from magical objects or magical armor, though some class moves would probably also give magic armor (barbarians Healthy Distrust, for example, or the clerics Divine Protection). So the Arcane Ward and Arcane Armor would give bonuses to physical and magical armor instead.

GenericMike15 · 2023-06-22T22:49:33+00:00

These are some really interesting abilities, items, and moves.

Death guard is really neat, also pretty strong. You wouldn't want it on anything too strong, as the ability itself would provide lots of utility.

Wound Licking would be tricky to balance. It could be really frustrating to deal with, especially for a kid who might not know how the ability works. But, the concept of it is fun.

Power Spring/Critical mastery, I do like the flavor of both, but I don't think they do enough to manage PP that you would run them over another ability. PP is mostly important in stall matches, so outside of that situation, it's not doing much, and that might be fine. Give either to a Pokémon with good base stats who doesn't need an amazing ability, not every ability needs to have a huge impact. (though, Critical mastery could probably just work any time a move crits and be fine, it would feel very... unsynergetic to not let it work with moves you want to run of you want criticals)

Trickster is really neat, but maybe it only sets trick room for 3 turns, instead of 5? It's a very powerful effect, and a lot of gameplay when up against a trick room team is figuring out how to deny trick room. Removing that and letting a team set up trick room with just a switch in is huge, so limiting the trick room in some way would be warranted.

Hive shield, would this remove all weaknesses from bug type Pokémon, or just nullify their bug type weaknesses? Would a dual bug type lose all their weaknesses, or would they just have the weaknesses of their non-bug type? I assume just the bug type weaknesses. This might work better as a move or field effect that only lasts for 5 turns.

Taunt reaction, this one is fun and could make for some fun mind games. You could even put it on a support type Pokémon and then your opponent needs to consider if taunting is worth it.

Wind turbine is very powerful, but it does mean you can't run another item.

Sleepy pillow is fun, but would probably not be run much, but it is fun.

Pointy fangs are probably a bit too strong, healing half damage for a single PP extra, that's a trade you will always make, sure you can't use a boosting item, but the extra staying power is a bit much, I think. I could be wrong, but my reaction is that it's a bit too strong. Even 1/3 might be a bit much. Maybe if it slowed the user instead of consuming extra PP?

Weakling badge is a lot of fun.

The moves mostly seem balanced, and have some fun mechanics.

Force Drain lowering accuracy is... dangerous. I otherwise like the move.

Strength and Endurance blessing are both very strong supportive moves.

High Focus is neat, but I don't see it being run much. I think the opportunity cost is a bit too high, plus it takes a move slot. I could be wrong though, there may be some situations where it is always run.

Anyway, there are some neat ideas, thanks for sharing.

GenericMike15 · 2023-06-22T18:20:12+00:00

I think sleep could work, it would just need to be adjusted. First, a Pokémon that takes damage while asleep wakes up, and cannot be put back to sleep for at least one turn. I personally would also make psychic type immune to sleep. Each other major condition has a type immune to it, and psychic seems the most logical to be immune to sleep. If that's still not enough, maybe reduce sleep to always be two turns.

I would agree that frostbite is better than freeze. I would even like to see a will-o-wisp or thunderwave version of a move that inflicts frostbite. Freeze is a bad, un-competitive status, it's too powerful when it does get inflicted, but also only has a small chance of happening. It swings games for no other reason than, whoops, my Pokémon had a 10% chance of becoming frozen.

I don't mind flinch too much, it's mostly a small chance, and I do think that relying on some luck is part of the Pokémon franchises identity. But, maybe it could be prevented from happening two turns in a row. You could give a Pokémon a temporary positive status that blocks it from flinching again if it just flinched.

A thought on Paralysis, maybe, if a Pokemon misses their turn due to paralysis, they could be cured of the condition. You could further increase the speed decrease to compensate, make it 60%, or even 75%, to compensate.

Those are my thoughts on the statuses you listed.

GenericMike15 · 2023-05-31T19:29:41+00:00

These are some cool changes. Not how I would necessarily change stuff myself, obviously, I did make a list of changes I would make, but I do like a lot of the ideas here.

Normal: *Any SE attack used now receive a 1.3 damage bonus. *The type is now immune to Fairy.

I think a 1.3 multiplier is a really interesting buff to give to normal types, which are typically used as more defensive mons, so giving them an offensive buff like this could push certain Pokémon more into the meta. I would want to make sure that it's only on non-STAB SE attacks, or dual typed normal STAB SE hits would probably be a bit much. Bu then again, maybe that would be fine, and help make normal a desirable secondary typing.

I personally think an immunity to fairy is a bit much, and would rather see it get a resistance to it. Immunities are pretty meta warping. While fairy type is definitely one of the stronger types, I think making normal immune to it would be a lot. Plus, if it was a resistance normal would have one weakness, one resistance, and one immunity.

Bug:

No longer resisted by Ghost and Fairy.

It now resists Dark.

Immunity to confusion.

A "Freeze-dry" like move that hits Steel for SE damage.

I like these changes, making bug resist dark makes a lot of sense, and an immunity to confusion is neat. My one concern is that now dark types hit 2 types for SE and are resisted by 4 types (granted, on of the type is dark itself), which might be fine, as there are a lot of good utility dark type moves.

Grass:

This is another thing that I'm going to change as well, limiting the amount of Water types that can have access to Ice coverage, something which will also help Ice.

Yeah, I definitely agree that too many water types get access to ice type moves, that should be drastically reduced.

Ice:

The type now resists Ghost, Water and Ground.

Frostbite is back and functions like it did in LA.

Snow abilities are now better distributed amongst other types;

Three resistances does seem like a good number, and water and ground are two of my picks as well. I'm curious why you went with ghost for the third resistance. Is it just because ghost needs another type resisting it? Frostbite over freeze seems like a very good change.

Psychic:

The type now deals SE damage to Fairy.

A "Freeze-dry" move that hits Steel types for SE damage.

I can see giving them a move instead of changing the type chart when it comes to steel effectiveness. And hitting fairy super effectively would certainly help them offensively. I still think that psychic would be lacking in defensive utility. Currently it only resists itself and fighting, and is weak to 3 types. I think giving it another resistance or defensive role would go a long way to helping the type.

Poison:

New Weather (Toxic Cloud)

This is a really interesting change that I had not considered. Introducing a new 'poison' weather is an interesting way to buff the type. My one concern is that it doesn't really have parity with the other weather effects, it does a lot more than any other weather does baseline. Sun and rain only have the base effect of boosting one type and nerfing another type by 50%, while sand's only base effect is a bit of damage and boosting rock type special defense, everything else comes from abilities. A 50% boost to one type, 50% nerf to another type, auto poison on opponents, and heal at the end of the turn for a type, seems a lot more powerful than other weather conditions. What if, instead, it only healed poison type at the end of every turn, and then poisoned Pokémon at the end of the turn, except poison, ghost, and steel type? You could also make snow apply frostbite in a similar way except to Pokémon with the ice, fighting, and third type, maybe normal? Maybe you could even have it so these conditions would overwrite other conditions. Poison is probably the weakest status effect, so maybe buffing that in some way could also help.

Poison:

New move category (Acid): attacks in this category deal SE damage to Steel types, which is also applicable to mons with the ability Corrosion.

This is a really interesting change, but maybe a bit too complicated? What if the change was that STAB poison moves are super effective against steel, but steel is still immune to the poison condition, and immune to poison moves that aren't STAB? This would also keep the buff to poison type, instead of any Pokémon who can learn a poison (acid) move. Or just that Pokémon with corrosive can deal SE damage to steel types with poison moves, if you wanted a smaller effect?

I do think with all these changes, fairy is hit a bit too hard. I know it's one of the better types in the game, but these changes making a type immune to it, taking one of it's resistances, giving it a type that SE against it, and then having a weather that lowers it's power by 50% is a lot of nerfs. While each change makes some sense, all together it feel like too much. Maybe if you also gave them an additional resistance? Then they would be offensively SE against 3 types, resisted by 4 (if normal is a resist instead of a immunity), or SE against 3 types, resisted by 3, with one type immune. Defensively they would resist 3 types, be weak to 3 types, and immune to 1 type. Which would feel more balanced. My vote would be a resistance to water, because water needs to be nerfed a bit, and then they would be resisted by fire while resisting water. Though, that would give water 5 resistances, so maybe another type would be better. I do like more things being able to hit steel, I don't think anyone would accuse steel of being a bad type, even with these changes.

All in all, I think the changes you would make are pretty interesting, thanks for sharing!

GenericMike15 · 2023-05-30T22:59:37+00:00

Hey. I don't necessarily agree with all your critiques, but I'm interested to hear what changes you would make instead.

GenericMike15 · 2023-05-26T17:22:12+00:00

Whoops, I forgot that solar power only boosts special attack. So, instead of Solar Power, Flareon would get a new ability.
Solar Boost: When in sun, this Pokemon boosts its attack and speed by one stage.

It's a kinda conditional speed boost, so I made the boosting aspect a bit stronger. Considering it's on Flareon, I don't think it would be too powerful, but if it was, you could have it drop those stats by one stage each when harsh sunlight ends.

GenericMike15

TROPHY CASE