I know, I know, I'm up to what? Four of these? But the topics are still distinct. In this case I'm lumping monsters and treasure together in order to keep the thread numbers down (and because they both relate to tiers somewhat).

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To start with, it would be useful to go over tiers again. I should also probably note that this game uses quest-based XP (1xp per quest, hopefully averaging 1xp every other session) and will have levelling slow down at higher levels (to level up, you need to spend 1xp per level you wish to attain). So assuming weekly play? Tier 1 should take about 30 weeks to finish. And then levelling gets a LOT slower after that.

Some demographic info might also be useful. Most of the world is level 0. A little less is level 1. A little less is level 2. And so on. Now, the party needs more and more challenges at higher levels, so it's a good thing I made a system where a lot of low level guys are scary enough to take on a high level guy. But there's kind of a maximum gap where that applies, and I wanted to make a world that doesn't wither and die without PCs or uber NPCs protecting it. So I've set the cap on material planes monsters around 10.

0-5: Adventurers
This tier is defined by its high lethality, low treasure, and low scope and scale. Murderhobos in fantasy Vietnam and all that. Characters will die frequently, often of things like drowning and hypothermia, and dead-raising will likely be unavailable (though the xp formula is designed to close level gaps over time). Fights are not designed just to use up resources. They are designed to kill people.

Most of the world is level 0-5, especially most of the human world.

6-10: Heroes
Lethality wanes a bit in this tier, and characters are actually starting to really profit by now. Domain management and/or guild-based advancement comes into play. Permanent magic items may become available (uncertain about the details of this). So does dead raising and the like. The combat system no longer targets just the party though. In this tier, dragons and giants begin to threaten your domain.

The biggest and baddest on the material plane live around this tier.

11-15: Demigods
1 hit kills aren't happening anymore. Your realm has probably expanded considerably at this point, and is probably enchanted (yes there will be rules for applying magical properties to whole domains). You can personally best even dragons and giants now, and may have attracted some attention from the gods themselves if you weren't already planning on usurping them at some point.

One balancing factor here is that you may start to rely on your domain and followers for some of your personal power. A big part of this tier might be (for example) the ability to grant powers to your followers in a manner similar to how D&D gods grant their clerics powers. The difference being that you could do this for anyone (albeit with limited power to grant) and they put it in a stance or prep slot.

16+: Gods
You can actually raise yourself without a body (albeit with the aid of your domain, an artifact, or both). You can personally best some of the bigger badder foes in the planes. You might have a pocket universe on its way to becoming a fully blown plane. Things kind of break down and become less predictable here beyond all that. But now you can kind of crack open the way the world works, you're effectively immortal, and the stakes are the fate of the world, rather than your own fate.

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On monster design, I'll restate that I want the world to function before the PCs show up. There isn't the constant threat of human extinction and the constant call for heroes bad enough to face the world's Cthulhu equivalents.

Math-wise, I built the system so that (assuming similar training and abilities) people have a chance to hit someone 20 levels higher than themselves. The active defense mechanic takes things a step further by making sure that after the third defense, all defense is the equivalent of rolling 1. However, abilities and training set the limits of the math gap for people in the same level around 10. So Setting the cap on monster levels (assuming they use math similar to the PCs and NPCs) at 10 seems more reasonable.

There will still be an autofail on 1 and an autosuccess on 20, at least in combat. So all that also applies such that some number of people will be able to hit a given monster.

Damage-wise, things might be a bit different. Wounding a high level monster will be a lot harder than just hitting (assuming a much lower level) for a number of reasons. Firstly, both the chance to hit and the chance to wound are lower, so that has a cumulative effect on per-round wounding odds. Secondly, damage rolls several dice, so a bell curve applies there (the odds of rolling a 30 on 3d10 are much lower than the odds of rolling a 20 on a 1d20). This is before accounting for differences in DR and hp. So while a king may be able to field enough level 5 knights to take down a level 8 or 10 dragon, the same dragon will still be pretty fucking terrifying to the (level 0) peasants and shopkeepers and such.

Range, speed, and movement modes also have to be somewhat limited. Because for most of the world, the longest range is "arrow" and the fastest speed is "horse." I'm also thinking of limiting PC range and speed similarly in the first two tiers.

So a monster couldn't have range farther than an arrow, plus flight (because he could be out of range and invincible in most cases) nor speed faster than a horse plus range farther than an arrow.

So those are the caps (mostly) on monster capabilities. I'll get more into roles and such later, as I've got somewhere I need to be now.

So in addition to having a clear idea of the caps on monster capabilities, I'm probably going to have monster roles (in the 4e sense) as well. But they're not going to be for set piece battles so much as for "numbers appearing" on the encounter tables. On that note, I'll be using constructed encounter tables on the hex map.

Basically, there will be tables starting at -5 or so (the first five encounters are all 0-1, but they're typically harmless things like deer and merchants) and ending around 10 (baddest monsters there are) for each environment and/or civilized entity. All these are labeled by number. Each hex has a level and two traits (or two traits with levels maybe). And you roll which trait the encounter is based on on a 1d6, then the deviation from average level on 3d8.

The 1d6 goes:

1: Nothing.
2-3: Wilderness.
4-5: Civilized.
6: Roll encounters twice.

While the 3d8 goes:

3-4: -5
5-6: -4
7-8: -3
9-10: -2
11-12: -1
13-14: Avg level
15-16: +1
17-18: +2
19-20: +3
21-22: +4
23-24: +5

Monster roles and the stat modifications for them later, I guess.

The main monster roles are more or less picked up from 4e, because they're a good baseline for designing monsters based on their level and "numbers appearing."

Minions don't die on one hp. That would be even sillier here than it was in 4. They die on a wound, so there's only 25% odds of insta-kill assuming equal levels. At higher levels, the odds accumulate because you are both more likely to hit them and more likely to wound them. But they do have the big advantage of numbers. And numbers are a bigger advantage here than in 4e. In fact, minion fights might actually be pretty difficult in this game, but I'll have to test it. In any case, more for speed and ease of use, and for being plugged into the mass combat rules from the other thread.

Standard foes use more or less PC math, or at least similar number ranges. They're geared towards equal numbers of foes.

For elites and solos I'm going to have to mess with the math. One idea I had was to trade some WT for DR. Odds of wounding remain unchanged but damage per hit is reduced. This would be mixed with more hp.

Solos in particular are going to have to have either immunities, resistances, high saves, or ways to shake status effects because players can just pile status effects on them otherwise. Additionally, if the party is more than three a solo won't be able to defend against all attacks. So I'm really tempted to just put a passive AC on the bigger monsters. Thoughts?

Quote from: beejazz;562252...
While the 3d8 goes:

1: No encounter
2-3: -5
4-5: -4
6-7: -3
8-9: -2
10-11: -1
12-13: Avg level
14-15: +1
16-17: +2
18-19: +3
20-21: +4
22-23: +5
24: Roll twice

...

Please explain to me how you propose to roll a 1 or a 2 on 3d8?

Quote from: Omnifray;563297Please explain to me how you propose to roll a 1 or a 2 on 3d8?

Thank you for catching that. I was wondering why I had two more entries than I expected to have.

EDIT: Fixed that up.

For wealth, I need to figure out how many xth level foes will challenge you at a given level y.

Then I need to figure out what sort of value players can cart away from that fight.

Then I need to make sure that foes at that level y produce more value than fighting those many level x foes.

There's a point past which I've got to decide some things arbitrarily, but at the very least I want starting characters to spend most of their time broke or close to it. At minimum I want things to work that way the first three levels. Ideally I'll be able to keep it going through five.

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There are a few mitigating factors here based on the relation between weight, value, and utility as well as subjective value (from things like a haggling or item creation system) and henchmen/mules.

Weight/Value ratio: Items with a high weight and relatively low value might not be as likely to be looted. Further, if you fight an army of mooks, you're unlikely to pick up all such gear.

Weight/Utility ratio: Items with high utility or necessity will be carried by the players. If the players don't already own them, they'll pick them up. This includes weapons and armor, yes, but also includes expendables like potions and food.

Subjective value: The item creation rules are written such that people can (for example) make more potions with the same ingredients. If there is a haggling system, it'll have a similar effect: the same treasure is probably more valuable in higher level hands.

Subjective utility: This would be similar to the subjective value phenomenon, except for utility. This would apply more to item creation than haggling. There may be other places where it applies.

Henchmen and Mules: These allow carrying the heavy gear and maybe eking out more profit than would be standard. At first level, I'm thinking henchmen wages might take all or nearly all of the value they can add. Mules only cost money once. I might write them so that they pay for themselves in two hauls, but random encounters can make them a risky investment (unless you also have enough henchmen, have a base camp, etc.)

There's other stuff to cover, but for now that's what I'll be taking into account when determining appropriate treasure.

Once I figure out treasure by encounter, I need to figure out treasure by expedition. Effectively, an expedition is a trek through the wilderness, a run through the dungeon, the trek back, and doing things in town. There are a few things I need to know to determine how profitable this is.

1) At what rate will people spend resources? How much value will they drink in potions? How much weight will they free to carry more loot?
2) How much value can they carry after necessary resources? After spending necessary resources?
3) How likely are they to come home before they fill up on treasure? There are wounds that can only be healed in town, and parties may wish to go back when the run low on potions in order to buy/make more. Food and torches running out are also relevant, though hunting can alleviate food issues and torches might be easier to make on the treks.

I want to write this system so low levels involve breaking even, but it might be very possible to lose resources if things go badly early on.

It will take a lot of testing, but this is really important. I need to price domain stuff out of range of the early levels. After domain management starts, I need that to take up time that would otherwise be spent on expeditions. There's no direct association between these expeditions and XP in this system, so after players could profit from expeditions I feel the need to prevent ignoring quests to grind for loot. I'll leave more of that for later.

I don't know how or if I'll tie level directly to eking out more value from treasure, but I do know I want potion brewing to be pretty central here. I'm pretty much borrowing an idea from Skyrim with ingredients and applying skill as a way to determine the number of doses produced.

So randomly rolled treasure will include some ingredients, and some will automatically come with certain monsters (think unicorn horns and dragon heartstrings and such). The latter category is something I can use to weight the magic available in certain locations. Anyway, you need a minimum of two ingredients associated with an effect if you want to make a potion. Additional ingredients affect the potency of the potion (probably duration, but I'll get to that in a minute).

Potions mimic spell/aura/ritual effects. If you don't know the spell, that's a -5 on your check. And it's another -5 for each tier above the first (since your skill goes up by 5 every tier, the penalty gets cancelled by the time you're high enough level to cast the spell). After penalties, high rolls will get you three doses, average rolls will get you two, and low rolls will get you only one.

I may tie duration to potency for lasting spells, or I may just have potion effects go in stance slots. The latter I'm not happy with, but I don't know how potency might apply to instantaneous effects. Not sure where I'm going with this bit yet.

Having potions, as well as other magical effects, match the spell system, is one great way to make the magic system feel more real and contiguous.

Having the duration match to a level of the spell duration is how I do it.

Quote from: LordVreeg;565375Having potions, as well as other magical effects, match the spell system, is one great way to make the magic system feel more real and contiguous.

Having the duration match to a level of the spell duration is how I do it.

And that's sort of the problem I'm running into. Spells don't have durations in my system, they go in stance slots if they're continuous, to represent the effort spent concentrating on them.

Flavor-wise, it would be weird for a potion that makes you invisible to prevent you from using a fighting stance. There's no continuous concentration with a potion the way there is with a spell.

I'm thinking on potions that I'll probably just go with the durations based on potency idea. Offensive potions will also have DC tied to potency. And I may include a rule where subsequent potions end prior ones, maybe even a potion miscibility table. In any case, I want to prevent piling potions for the same reason I wanted to prevent piling stances or auras.

Healing has neither DC nor duration. I'm probably just going to go with one potency on healing potions. The big benefit here is that you don't have to be close to a cleric and that you can drink a potion as a move action.

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Permanent items present different challenges. I'll start with weapon/armor mods, which have a few problems if unrestricted.

The first problem is that magical item modifications have no weight. So when we talk about either weight/value or weight/utility ratios, that's pretty damn good. It's part of why people always pick up the item with more/better enhancements, and will ditch items without (something that a lot of people complain about because it isn't really in-genre).

The second problem is that weapons and armor have diminishing returns. You can only use one (or two) of these at a time. This is why no one in their right mind crafts many items with low-level bonuses instead of crafting one thing and upgrading it at every opportunity.

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I'm thinking there only need to be a few minor "fixes" of the weapons and armor thing.

First of all, I'm probably only going to allow one magical modification of any item. Not all modifications are created equal, but no multiple levels of a single thing. I'm also going to be going a similar approach to how I deal with powers; any given thing should have circumstantial utility.

Second, nothing that makes a weapon a better weapon or armor better armor. So no bonuses to damage, no bonuses to accuracy, no defensive stuff, none of that. I'm thinking that weapons you can teleport to yourself using a talisman or armor that looks like clothing. That sort of thing.

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This is more of a flavor thing and less of a balancing thing, but the method for creating permanent items will be different from the 3.x approach. It will involve binding the souls of demons/fey/angels/djinn/aliens or pouring your own power into it. I'll be working the rules for intelligent items into item creation too.

I'll get into the processes that different mages use for binding outsiders later. But the end result is that they can trap the souls in gems. These gems can be used to make magic items. Magic items and/or mods have spell prerequisites, which either the caster or the outsider must meet.

Pouring personal power into an item on the other hand isn't mage specific. I'm not necessarily going Bleach here; the inspiration is partly Sauron. The items have the personality and priorities of the maker, and at high levels can be used to restore a dead character to life (see again: Sauron).

Pouring personal power into an item may have different "rules" than standard magic weapons and armor. You spend perks on this, and it's more of a class feature than an item. I don't necessarily have to plug the logic into economies of weight and value. I have less an idea of when this happens and what it can make happen than I do for standard items though.

This is just to remind myself, but I'm thinking of giving items encumbrance ratings instead of weight. For a few reasons.

The first is that large items are difficult to carry regardless of weight. The second is to have a clear idea of what you have to drop in a tight space (the comments about dropping a 10 foot pole in a spiral staircase got me thinking on that). Tight spaces can have max encumbrance on individual items, forcing people to drop things at the entrance to such spaces if they wish to continue.

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Another thing I'm likely to use is a limited number of items equipped (as opposed to packed). You can use equipped items quickly, while packed items are difficult to get to. You can draw the sword at your side for free. The butter at the bottom of your bag, not so much.

Quote from: beejazz;567297This is just to remind myself, but I'm thinking of giving items encumbrance ratings instead of weight. For a few reasons.

The first is that large items are difficult to carry regardless of weight. The second is to have a clear idea of what you have to drop in a tight space (the comments about dropping a 10 foot pole in a spiral staircase got me thinking on that). Tight spaces can have max encumbrance on individual items, forcing people to drop things at the entrance to such spaces if they wish to continue.

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Another thing I'm likely to use is a limited number of items equipped (as opposed to packed). You can use equipped items quickly, while packed items are difficult to get to. You can draw the sword at your side for free. The butter at the bottom of your bag, not so much.

i did this, an encumbrance number instead of a real weight number.  ssems to work ok for me...though some of my groups do have a high number of donkey deaths.

Quote from: LordVreeg;567591i did this, an encumbrance number instead of a real weight number.  ssems to work ok for me...though some of my groups do have a high number of donkey deaths.

Is donkey death where the donkey gets killed? Or is it where the characters are killed by donkeys somehow?

As I said above, using random encounters to kill mules is probably the best way to balance their (continuing) benefit against their (one time only) cost. At least if you want low levels to be about poverty vs breaking even, which I do.

Quote from: beejazz;567604Is donkey death where the donkey gets killed? Or is it where the characters are killed by donkeys somehow?

As I said above, using random encounters to kill mules is probably the best way to balance their (continuing) benefit against their (one time only) cost. At least if you want low levels to be about poverty vs breaking even, which I do.

http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956323/Steel%20Isle%20online

go there, and look down until you get to the section, "Donkeys".  you can see that many have been lost.