16-Bit Adventures updates

+Erik McGrath

As promised I have made an updated PDF.

It includes the static damage changes as well as the tweaks to single target spells.

16-Bit Adventures Downloads

16-Bit Adventures Rules PDF

Trouble at Castle Funfstein.

+Erik McGrath

The trouble was that the Good King's evil brother staged a coup and threw our heroes in the dungeon since they were known do-gooders.

They promptly escaped, and sans weaponry they fought several battles to get their gear back and then several more. We stopped before they finally got to face off with the Usurper.

Many things were learned in this Lv5 test.

Calculating Damage

Frankly its much too slow to use the rolled value when there is also division to be done. The solution is to give each character a static value to add to their other bonuses and each hit just does that much damage. The static value added is calculated the same as for magic attacks: half the max rolled value of your ATK die. 

We had crits doing 1.5x normal damage but I think they will need to go back to 2x. The reason being that the Dragoon could roll 3 crits and not drop a standard, Lv5 soldier. With DMG 15 his crits did 22 and Grunts have 100hp. If he used Jump his DMG went to 19 which still doesn't cut it. Granted this was with a Lv4 Spear but even with a Lv6 Spear (which was randomly in a chest) his numbers are 17/23 (crit 25/34).

So it takes a Lv+1 weapon and 3 crits on 3 attacks (12 on a d12) to one-shot an on-level monster. That's much too low a chance in my opinion. I want to see it be more like a 50% chance using appropriate gear for your level with your normal attacks.

My thought is to improve the rate at which DMG increases both by weapon and base. Right now the top-tier damage dealers have a DMG of [Lv + 6] for their base and Weapon Lv x1 for sword/spear, x2 for Axe or 2hand Sword and x3 for 2hand Axe. 

The alternative is to change the monster hp math. Its a lot easier to just do that, but if I narrow the numbers too much then there isn't enough difference by level for them so I will be looking at both methods and coming to some middle ground for the next test.

DMG and M.DMG

Specifically the trade-off between them. Today we discovered that our Lv5 Paladin healed for 12 when using Cura AoE. When you are routinely getting hit for 30 that's not good. 

The culprit was that even fully armed and armored plate, shields and swords don't help your M.Dmg. The fix was to just add half their DMG to M.Dmg because that's how Rods and Staffs work in reverse. This helped by upping the AE heals from 12 to 16 and single target from 22 to 26. Hi-Potions heal 50hp. so the AE stuff was good but the single heals were not that valuable, especially not in battle. 

Dark Knights would suffer similarly in this regard. 

The issue is compounded by having both a low M.Atk die and a slowed progression. I'm confident that they could go to the normal progression while keeping the D8 and become better without worrying the White Mage. For comparison a WM with a Lv5 Rod and Robe would have a Cura of 48 AE and 63 single target. Which, come to see it in print like that, is not that great for single. I think Cura needs a boost there as well from +5hp/die to +10. 

I expect the revisions to be done by midweek and I will update the PDFs links then.

16-Bit Adventures musings

+Erik McGrath

Final Fantasy XIV is the Very Devil 

If you were wondering where I've been and what inspired has been doing there you have it. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about FFXIV is an MMO that just came out and like all such things it devours the souls of those who play. Naturally, most of the Inspired family is playing. 

16-Bit Adventures

Adventures!

+Christopher Andersen and I have been discussing doing some more adventures for 16-Bit Adventures like the ones we did for Firstown and Secondville. So as of now my goal is to make an adventure path designed to take PCs from level 1-10 and fight a horrible Endboss and if they win they will save the world. 

We will assume 4 PCs as a base and provide notes and suggestions for how to make it work for more players. Normally it means just making the random encounters have more or fewer monsters and adjusting Bosses to account for the different damage being given and received. As is the math for Bosses is pegged at assuming they are worth about 5-6 monsters so I'm hoping it will be easy to make it work for other numbers without needing too much effort.

More Bits!

At this point the basic engine of 16-Bit is done. It needs a lot of formatting, perhaps more than I am capable of providing, but the gist is solid. 

For here I want to work on two things: Switching Jobs and Tactics.

Switching Jobs

Right now you pick your job class and then you just follow it as you level. Since the inspiration for 16BA is mainly FF5 I think its important to capture the real essence of that game by having a core level for your character as well as job levels which add abilities and traits. I've not yet decided if it will be comparable with the current system but I would like it to be. 

Tactics

This is the most requested thing about 16BA, when will it be able to do FFT. For my view it has to come after job switching is in the bag and it will require modification of a fair part of the system. Not only will it need movement and facing rules, but weapons and spells need ranges, you need terrain, etc. The biggest change would be to the monsters though. Fights will take a lot more time in a Tactics environment than the bare bones system currently in place. Not to mention monsters will need to be adjusted just like PCs.

In all its a lot of work I've got ahead of me, and a lot of FFXIV standing in the way. I will try to get it done week by week.

16-Bit Adventures: More Monsters

+Erik McGrath


 This week sees very little in the way of rules changes or updates. There were a few typos but that's it. The main draw this time is that I have been working on adding more monsters to fight.

Now you can enjoy goblins, bees, soldiers, bats, ghosts, skeletons, ghouls and slimes.

Alternative Monsters

 With the addition of more monsters comes thinking about how to use them and how you can mix them up so they aren't always the same. The first rule I've come up with for that is pretty simple, you just swap out the special ability of the monster in question. So to get the first of the alternative monsters, the Bumble Bee, you take a bee of any level and swap Poison Sting for Pollen. The only restriction is bumbles always appear in the back row so there will always be some normal bees or other monsters with them.

New Sprites

Some of the monsters have also gotten a facelift. I've been digging through the game files and trying to pick the more visually interesting options for each monster. So here's the new ghost sprite.

PDFs

16-Bit Adventures V2

Inspired Updates 8/19/2013

+Erik McGrath

I've been focused on 16-Bit Adventures a lot lately, and I'm still working on it but this week I want to take some time to give some updates on the current state of everything else as well.

Battle Tank

As I have mentioned before a board game that needs as many pieces as Battle Tank is an expensive undertaking and Inspired can't afford it right now. We are considering our options on physical production but they look a ways off. 

So instead we are working on making a PNP version so that those who have expressed interest can at the very least try it out. Once we get some feedback on that front we want to work on how to improve that experience. 

Sudden Death

The game is ready, the artist is lined up, what we are missing is the time to really promote it. This is probably my favorite thing that Inspired has designed for its simplicity. We will get this made, its just a matter of getting CJ and I in the same room to do the details. 

The most important of those details I think would be videos to showcase the game and talk about why we made the decisions we have with the art and gameplay.

Drachenheim

Magnus by
+Laura Fallon Andersen 

I'll admit this one has been pushed to the back burner pretty hard. I return to it every now and again to poke it and see if any new ideas fall out. It feels almost done to me but the gameplay is just a little too clunky and there is too much reliance on dice rolls for my tastes. 

Its a boardgame where the board is defined by the cards in play rather than a pure cardgame so I'm ok with some dice rolling but I prefer the decisions of the players to be the most important piece and leave the dice to decide limited things. If I can get to a point where the dice are only thrown to decide the outcomes of battles I will be very happy.

Celestial Warriors

Our first RPG is in the midst of a fourth version and it is a long time coming. With this iteration I think its time to add some art and sharpen the formatting skills I've been working on with 16-Bit Adventures to make it look more interesting and so that it reads more easily. 

16-Bit Adventures

We didn't get a chance to play with the whole gang this week but we did come up with a solution I like to the fact that DEF could still go over 10. That answer is that separate devices give separate DEF ratings so if you have a Shield and Armor you don;t add the values together, instead you check all incoming attacks vs both values. 

We call this effect Double DEF. If an attack is under both then you only take quarter damage from that hit. If its under one but not both you take half. If its over both you take normal damage. 

Wrap up and Downloads

So that's were we stand right now. We'd love to hear your comments and feedback about any or all of our games. 

PDFs

16- Bit Adventures V2

Sudden Death

Celestial Warriors v3

16-Bit Adventures V2 Arrives

+Erik McGrath

A day early or a week late

Whichever it is is in the eye of the beholder. If you get one of the three instant death eyes, my bad. 

The document is still pretty ugly but it contains all the rules and is as proofread as I can make it on my own. No doubt someone will catch a typo (or pile of such) in the next few hours. If that person is you, then leave a comment and I will fix it.

Likewise I have tried to be clear and stick to the same keywords throughout. If something doesn't make sense, or if you simply feel it should be different, let me know and I will explain what I meant and why. 

Classes

The current PDF has 12 Job Classes: 

Fighter

Thief

Monk

Red Mage

Black Mage

White Mage

Paladin

Dark Knight

Dragoon

Ninja

Samurai

Bard

I have these ones on deck:
Blue Mage
Ranger
Beastmaster
Summoner

Each of those last four have proven challenging to say the least. Ranger is the closest to being done. Blue Mage is done, class-wise, but since its spells are all monster skills I need to finish the bestiary or at least make a better dent in it.

Beastmaster will need some more JAs and for me to work out how its animal control will actually work. I am leaning toward a JA that takes an action to command an animal. If it works the PC then decides what that animal does on its next turn. Other JAs will enhance that effect as well as adding more types of controllable enemy.

Summoner is the toughest. I haven't worked out the summons yet but I know that I don't want them to play like other mages' spells. Summons really need their own feel. I'll keep working on them.

Monsters

The enemy section of the PDF is pretty scant. 

On the one hand I have started a new format for monsters and actually included their skills so you can know what to roll for them. Specifically their Agility is listed so you know their initiative but since spells and JAs often call for a skill check the others will come up pretty often. 

On the other hand, well, there are only 4 monster families shown: Goblin, Skeleton, Ghoul, Bee. The two undead share a page and that's the format I am currently going for. The others are more open but I think in this case page count will matter more than white space. I'm not sold on my choice so if you have a preference now is the time to convince me.

16-Bit Adventures PDFs

16-Bit Adventures V2

16-Bit Adventures v2.0

+Erik McGrath

Yesterday saw a moment of truth in 16-Bit Adventures. I had a vague suspicion that the math of DMG vs DEF was a time consuming and that it would break down in a few places. I was not prepared for the fact that it lead to LV5 monsters being largely ineffective vs low armor PCs and, in the case of Redcaps, incapable of doing any damage at all to the Fighter with their Goblin Punch.

Even a crit did 0 which was very bad for the monster since LV5 Fighters have Retaliate which gives them a free attack when they are critted by a physical attack.

The Trouble

The root of the problem is that offense needs to keep ahead of defense but more specifically the worst physical attacks need to keep pace with the best defenses otherwise you get these issues with monsters dealing 0. Its one thing if the physical attack of a caster monster is ineffective against a fighter with maxed defense, but these were standard monsters who only had physical attacks. Attacks that were meant to be dangerous.

Now I will admit that changing the math could have fixed that, but it would do so by inflating the numbers even more to the point where we would see great axes dealing +50 or more damage than staves by level 10. With defense factored in that would mean a staff has no net bonus and a great ax is more like +50 total. That would work but it requires doing more arithmetic than I am comfortable forcing people to do. I'd prefer most of the math to just be addition with subtractions being something special.

The Fix

The simple solution was to simply remove DEF and M.Def from the equation. It makes it so the DMG and M.Dmg numbers can stay smaller and let's HP take up the sole role of saying how tough a character is. Like I said, simple, but not entirely satisfying. 

To make it satisfying my idea was to move DEF/M.Def into the attack roll in a similar manner to how EVA works. If you roll equal or under EVA you miss, so its an easy matter to add a small step there: if you roll equal or under DEF you deal half damage. 

Now the ATK or M.ATK roll determines if the hit deals 0, half, full or critical damage just by comparing the result showing on the die. 

As a bonus this is more like how the video games parse attack vs defense. They work as a ratio with a randomizer that is altogether too much work for me to do at the game table but this method gives a decent approximation of the results with a minimum of effort. 

The last thing that's needed as some way to make relative level matter more and for that I will again use the solution I have for EVA. If the attacker and defender are more than 1 level apart the higher level one gets +1 to EVA, DEF & M.Def and the lower level one gets -1 to those. 

16-Bit Adventures Version 2

Look for the PDF mid-week. There's a lot of reformatting to be done.