- Posts:
- 1,083
- Group:
- Members
- Member
- #1,074
- Joined:
- Apr 25, 2012
- PTA Class of Choice
- Breeder
- PTU Class of Choice
- Aura Guardian
|
- FanaticRat
- Apr 16 2014, 08:18 AM
I don't rightly recall, I think it was a formula in the book was speed/5 and the one in the sourcebook was speed/10, if I recall correctly. I'm unsure. The ruling changed in PTU after this was released. Speed Evade is now Speed/5.
- Quote:
-
1. What exactly is Education Items to be used for? We couldn't puzzle it out last session when I was giving the players loot and one asked if he needed to roll an Items check. Someone suggested it was because pokemon wouldn't know how to use human items, but that seems kinda weird, and doesn't really feel that thematically appropriate, so I dunno what to do with it. It was meant to be used to discern the purpose, effect, quality, etc. of items. This being said, it and a few other education skills (cooking, botany, science) will be getting the axe because other skills (Tech, Intuition, Survival and Tech/Medicine respectively) can be used for those skills.
- Quote:
-
2. One of my players is playing a Slowpoke, and I didn't realize his movement speed was so low. Last session he couldn't even get to the boss fight because everyone moved ahead of him and it made me feel bad. Is there any good way I can increase his speed, or do I just gotta handwave it? In this case, I would hand wave it until combat occurs. That's the only time his speed should be a significant disadvantage in gameplay.
|
- Posts:
- 479
- Group:
- Members
- Member
- #3,564
- Joined:
- Apr 14, 2014
- Currently GMing Games
- 1
|
Lately I’ve been trying to do some updating of PMD. I’ve been running it for some months now, and my players have enjoyed it, but we’ve grown a bit frustrated at having next to nowhere to turn for feedback and rules questions.
I realized, though, that there’s pretty much no chance that the homebrew will advance without people playing it, and thus more people willing to playtest things and work on content. I’m not sure what The Black Glove’s workload is like, and I’m certainly no game designer, but I figured the best thing to do is just go ahead and try to both apply tweaks to the system as well as give feedback and possible suggestions for rule changes. Even if the suggestions aren’t accepted, I hope it at the very least gives players and designers something to think about and gets more people trying to work on and play this homebrew. Or lessens The Black Glove’s workload.
Now, while I have a list of houserules I’ve implemented and questions from players, I wanted to do something a bit more concrete as well to justify bumping this thread. Because of that, I’ve gone through and updated the character sheet to make it usable with Gen 6 games as well as be more user friendly (and by I did it, I mean I got a lot of help from friends ‘cause I suck at Google Sheets). I have not, however, tried to do much in editing skills, classes, or other mechanics of the game, as I feel like there’s too many moving parts and too little experience for me to justify such sweeping changes without really knowing how the game works. Still, I hope this helps, and a player of mine is working on a revamp of PMD classes. Without further ado...
Character Sheet The updated character sheet can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApcJn9NtQc9odHZ4SGdiX1dHanh6RTFWRzR5ZjROTFE&usp=drive_web#gid=2The changes are as follows: -Updated the Pokemon and Move data to Gen 6. The sheet now autofills for Gen 6 pokemon and moves, so you don’t have to manually input everything if you’re playing one. -Fixed Speed Evasion not calculating correctly. -Corrected Sp. Atk accuracy’s text being the same color as the box -Fixed STAB not calculating correctly: all STAB moves automatically have +2 added to their damage base. -Removed the STAB box; I couldn’t find any rules anywhere in the sourcebook nor in the CRB for this increasing STAB, so I defaulted to w hat was in the CRB. If you still want to use it, the box has just been blacked out but the formula is there, though it doesn’t seem to effect anything at all. -Changed the PP Cost box to list both the PP cost of the move and the frequency of the move; updated the frequency names to their PTU 1.04 equivalents. -Added color coding to the cells to make their functions more apparent. White cells are manual input with no formula, tan cells are manual input required for a formula, and dark grey cells are autofill cells. This is to make it more apparent what cells need input and which don’t, though I’ll probably change the color at some point. -Changed the HP formula to reflect trainer hp instead of pokemon HP. I’ll get to this more in the next section. Things I plan to add in later, when I get the chance: -Making the features section autofill -Updating the edges database to include the stat-change edges -Updating the item section to calculate and track weight -Including a calculation for carrying capacity While I know there are some skills that The Black Glove mentioned would be cut, I’ve refrained from doing so because, like I said, the inevitable mechanics and class reworks required after doing that are beyond my scope at the moment. However, I imagine that those cells can be easily ignored or removed in later updates.
Houserules and possible Errata
As for other feedback, this is just a list of houserules and interpretations of rules I’ve done, and possible effects. Like I said before, I’ve refrained from going through and overtly changing any rules or mechanics because the ripple effect that would cause is currently beyond me. However, I hope that it might help with any future changes in rules or what not, or at the very least reveal ambiguities in the system.
1. Changed the player HP formula to Max HP=Level x 2 + (HPx3) + 10 instead of Max HP= Level + (HP x 3) + 10
Rationale: This is perhaps one of the more drastic changes, but I feel it is appropriate for both gameplay and thematic reasons. As you can see, I switched the basic pokemon HP formula for the trainer hp formula.
On a mechanical level, this is to better improve the survivability of the PCs: the base game assumes that you would cycle through different pokemon and bring one back if one got hurt, so having less HP on pokemon wouldn’t be a problem. However, here the players ARE the pokemon and don’t have the luxury of switching out or having npcs take attacks for them or change up a bad type match up. They’re going to be right at the front lines, so I feel it’s best that they have more HP to give a better safety net. From gameplay, I’ve gotten some of the PCs down pretty low or even one shotted them, though they usually scrape by, so I don’t think increasing the HP makes them too tanky.
On the thematic level, I’ve always seen PCs as special; they’re on a different level than the other characters they face, which is why they’re the protagonists of the story. I think having more HP helps reflect that. I have been using regular HP formulas for regular enemies, though for the special ones I use the boosted formula, or even increase their hp more depending on how tough they are.
2. Moves may be used at no cost at their regular frequency, but bypassing that frequency requires the requisite amount of PP (for example, using flamethrower EoT costs nothing, but using it each turn costs 1 PP after the first use until you give it a rest).
Rationale: This really was born of being rather unclear on the PP use system; I believe I’d spoken with The Black Glove about this before and he said that he preferred this system, but I’m not sure. In any case, I felt like requiring PP use for every move no matter what, as the sourcebook implies, would encourage too many 15-minute work days since the PCs can’t switch out. However, I’ve still not quite hit the sweet spot for causing PCs to really go through PP but not have to rest after every battle.
3. Tutor Points require an appropriate NPC to spend.
Rationale: We couldn’t really find anything that said you needed a tutor or anything to spend them, so this seemed like just a clear concise thing to say.
4. Players gain their class at guild level 1 and gain their base features for free as bonus features.
Rationale: This one is also mechanical, but mostly a personal issue. Basically, since the PMD classes seem to be a mixture of both class and background, I found it much easier to just start them at level 1. This means that they don’t have to recalculate atributes and skills immediately come level 2 and get to what makes their class unique right away. Making their base features free bonus features also keeps them from having to wait levels and levels just trying to get at the stuff their class is actually supposed to do.
Thematically, it just didn’t make any sense for me for class to kick in at level 2. Not only would it be a pain in the ass to bookkeep having to immediately change stats and skills right after character creation, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the pcs just suddenly gaining class features, unless level 1 is intended to be some sort of training level. Still, it didn’t seem thematically appropriate for a PMD game so I just set it at level 1 and was done with it. So far I’ve not noticed any balance issues, but I’d say take this houserule with a grain of salt. One of my players, however, in his class revisions is also working on a sort of level 0 training level, so I’m looking forward to his posting that.
Additional Concerns
The rest of these are just concerns my players have expressed over the system. Right now, I have no idea how to fix any of them or to begin addressing them, but I hope listing them here will help with revisions on the next version of the sourcebook. Some of these have been addressed in other portions of this update, but I wanted to list them anyway. They’re all verbatim from what my players have said:
-Combining origins and classes makes no sense when classes are attained at Guild Level 2, maybe classes should work more like PTU?
-Scouting Trek is both an edge and a class feature, it's also nearly impossible to use when starting out (DC 20 Survival check when you start out at Novice Survival skill), needs a rewrite
-Most of the math is obscured from the reader, telling them to just use the character sheet. Not a good thing if it hasn't been updated in a while, plus it doesn't even tell you at what Guild levels you gain new Class Features.
-There are far, far too many edges and features that are only useful in pokemon contests, which is very odd considering there has never been a pokemon contest in a PMD series game. Recommend removing these entirely or changing their functionality.
-The Coordinator class is almost solely reliant on Command for its features. Despite being focused on Charm and Intuition in the PTU core book. I wasn't aware that Buneary and Piplup were considered tactical prodigies, but that is what the class image appears to imply.
-There are about three edges that are useful for social combat. Three. Not features. Edges. That anyone can take. Three of them. For comparison, there are 7 edges and 5 features geared toward pokemon contests. In game terms, this means that winning the Miss Pokemon pageant is considered four times more important than talking.
-How do Tutor Points even work?
-There is no mention of Evasion via Speed being changed in the document, but the character sheet has it only affect Status Attack Evasion, and only every *10* points of it counts as a single +1. This is inconsistent with other stat-based bonuses, including the PMD document-introduced Atk and SpA bonuses on attack rolls, and seems both baffling and unnecessary given said attack roll bonuses.
Again, I hope some of this helps out, or at the very least gets some discussion going.
|