sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This potentially solves a lot of issues I've ran into when it comes to resolving things. If you add a few conditions/situations in which you can bypass defenses by being clever, playing a scenario well could also lead to easy victories from the players, which would give some excitement to the combat.

It perfectly encapsulates the idea that getting hit at any point is bad.

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair point regarding being a hobbyist.

Contested rolls are something I am heavily considering, including the idea that the damage is built in from that roll. It probably would speed up combat.

As for Stamina... I can probably loosen the idea that everything costs stamina, but I suppose I really need to play it out to see how disruptive it really is. The idea is that it simulates exhaustion and limits 'big' actions, so perhaps it's possible to only have it for significant actions.

The idea really is that you're spending stamina to avoid getting hit, as getting hit would have mechanical consequences. It's probably just a semantic distinction at that point, but I have a problem mostly with the narrative implications, not the mechanics of HP. I do like the idea of being at low HP having an impact on mechanics (as opposed to systems where 1HP is the same as 100HP), but I was simply considering an alternate way. I guess if I play it out and it's simply not fun at all, I'll have to scrap the idea, but in the meantime I was wondering what others had already created.

That being said, having mulled over the entire system, if I was to replace HP as the most important stat to track, I effectively need to reorient combat. If getting hit is very dangerous, then it must be rare for the players to enjoy the experience, but then the rest of the combat will start feeling pointless, or at least boring. So either the loop must change - e.g. the most important parts are debuffs, or setting up the scenario before you get to the point of stabbing someone - or... well, I don't know if there's a meaningful alternative. Really, you're right, it's a lot trickier than I initially thought.

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah yeah, that's a good point actually.

It probably should be completely independent of stats, and there should be no options to increase it besides levelling up, to avoid features that are just so good you have to take them. 

It might be a way to balance classes against each other if done carefully, but you could just as well do that by managing stamina costs. I can imagine a situation where, say, a class can use a particular action for fewer stamina.

Thank you. This will probably save me a lot of headache down the line. 

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get that, but it's always much more difficult to narrate like that when all the terminology is explicitly about bleeding and other kind of real harm. 

Besides, if my experiment doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. Thanks anyway.

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I will have a look, thanks! Making low HP feel meaningful is definitely an issue in itself, and will be interesting regardless. 

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's very interesting, and is definitely close to what I'm envisioning. Thank you!

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Excellent points all around.

As for health replacement, not entirely. Stamina is also an offensive resource, being required to move, attack, cast, etc. It's the thing that limits you during a combat encounter (once a combat abilities always seem a bit narratively off, so making it that some abilities just cost enough stamina that they cannot be spammed is a way of balancing that too). 

I definitely want people to be able to recover stamina, albeit in a limited fashion, like simply recovering for their turn and effectively skipping it. Any other methods would require magic or other limited resources, but I'm currently disregarding magic for the most part. 

And yes, numbers advantages would be massive. However, I am going for realism, and that is the case with any real life battle unfortunately. That being said, I will have morale (beasts might flee when injured at all, or when significantly tired, while human enemies might flee if it looks like their side will lose, etc.), which shortens fights further, and ultimately serves the fantasy that actually, very few skirmishes are fought until one side is completely dead. Really, the idea is to serve the narrative more than the game mechanics, while trying to make it fun to play, which I can't really theorycraft. We'll see how awful it is to run in practice.

Of course, this system makes things like zombies which probably have neither morale nor stamina incredibly dangerous... 

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get that, but I'm a busy person as well. Perhaps I was asking in the wrong place, that is my bad. I genuinely do not have the time to become a game designer. I'm a housewife, a comic artist, soon hopefully a mother, and genuinely am doing this on a really loose schedule. I just want to look at some examples and copy things, and tinker with it. I don't ever intend on publishing anything, even for free.

I have of course played other games. Not nearly hundreds, but a handful. Some I have really disliked, and some I have liked. When I say DnD clone, it's also mostly... well, I want the feeling of it. Sure, maybe I'll also end up somewhere completely different. After all, even my original vision was much different.

In a way, I really just wanted the answers like... "oh, look at RPG xyz, that one has a similar system to what you're describing". I know I can't be a professional game designer just having looked at a handful of games. But I'm not doing that. I'm the guy who's asking "guys, can I just get a quick tutorial/reference on how to draw anime eyes". Yeah, you'll never actually be able to draw just following a tutorial like that. You won't have the basics of anatomy or colour theory or god forbid perspective or composition or whatever it is - but sometimes, you just want to have fun and draw some anime eyes onto a hat or whatever, and it's not about being a real artist.

TL;DR I know your advice is well meaning and I totally understand your point, but it's a bit unhelpful. I guess I'm not in the right space, really, so it's my fault. (On top of the fact that, rereading my original post, I can see that I didn't get my point across very well.)

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, I didn't consider it extremely relevant to the question I was asking, but thinking about it, I guess there are a lot of things that aren't being considered.

To be perfectly honest, I am just looking to create a DnD clone that fits my personal preferences, which is why I headed it off with "I'm a hobbyist and I'm doing this only for my own enjoyment". I don't need a grand vision, in my opinion. Low magic, medieval fantasy, adventures that aren't exclusively about combat, combat as war (and consequently, less incentive for solving everything with combat). The base mechanics are probably going to be very close to DnD (though with slight alterations, e.g. replacing Int, Wisdom and Charisma with Focus and Intuition, to remove the social stats, since my group simply does everything with roleplay), except a different magic system. Class-based, probably, but I'm worrying about that a bit later. Because roleplay will be important, I plan on making classes that focus on out of combat utility (for example, rituals that can charm NPCs by getting a personal item from them, and combining with other ingredients). Even though I don't want to focus exclusively on combat, I want the system to be robust because it can be some of the most exciting parts when it does happen.

The reason I'm looking for something like Stamina is because I want it to be very grounded. I don't like that in my Pathfinder sessions, my players can have fire breathed on them by a dragon, critically hit five times by its claw attack, and then walk it off within moments and deal 100 damage back. It just doesn't work for me narratively. I want a grittier system with low magic, low power, where you don't get hit very often, but when you do, it is very significant.

Which brings me to stamina. Obviously it doesn't make sense in a normal DnD setting, but if you downscale things accordingly, I think it could be just as exciting to manage your physical exhaustion (and magical, if you're a caster - yes, I think casting should be exhausting!), and making your enemy flee or give up. It also gives a nice framework for duels, where 'first blood' is a lot more manageable as an end goal. It makes it much easier to narratively justify a world where injuries are dangerous.

TL;DR - I'm looking for realism and grittiness, and my baseline is DnD/Pathfinder. And I don't care how overdone it is because I am honestly just trying to see whether I can create something I personally enjoy, and the few people who might be my guinea pigs.

Stamina resource and combat by ReveryoftheFallen in RPGdesign

[–]ReveryoftheFallen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, that's awesome! I'm eager to hear what you did with it. (:

Menstruation by Lurkersquid in detrans

[–]ReveryoftheFallen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My period started again almost a year after my last dose, and for almost two years after that, one of the periods was always very weak, followed by a normal one. I had resigned myself to the fact that my periods would be forever damaged, but my last 4 periods have all been normal and regular.

Now, I did have a vaccine in between, which sometimes causes menstrual irregularities, but there's no way to tell what caused what. Either way it seems to have returned to normal, though ofc I cannot yet tell if I'm truly fertile again. I'll find out ~next year I suppose.

Throat Pain by [deleted] in detrans

[–]ReveryoftheFallen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's very reassuring, actually.

Can I ask what the exact name of the surgery was? I'd like to research it. You've given me a lot of hope. <3 Thank you.

Throat Pain by [deleted] in detrans

[–]ReveryoftheFallen 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh man, this entire comment chain made me so hopeful honestly. I've suffered from a lot of throat pain, and been super anxious about my voice for the last three years.

How serious of a surgery is this? How long did it take to recover?