OGM BECKONS

j d mcgettrick <j.d.mcgettrick.RemoveThis@durham.ac.uk> wrote:

> Equally, can someone _please_ update the webpage. The berserk rules are still there and they were
> dropped nearly a term ago.

I'm trying to; I need to lay my hands on a set of minutes...

Tim
=-=
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Tag wrote:
> j d mcgettrick <j.d.mcgettrick.TakeThisOut@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>Equally, can someone _please_ update the webpage. The berserk rules are still there and they were
>>dropped nearly a term ago.
>
>
> I'm trying to; I need to lay my hands on a set of minutes...
>
> Tim
> =-=

Tim you are both a gentleman and a scholar. *bows*

--
Jimbob!
*hyperfluffiness is a state of mind*
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Dear Tim and Jimbob,

>>>Equally, can someone _please_ update the webpage. The berserk rules are still there and they were
>>>dropped nearly a term ago.
>>
>>
>> I'm trying to; I need to lay my hands on a set of minutes...

I'm afraid I dumped the only copy of the minutes onto you, but
I'm willing to help update the webpage, since I said I'd help some
time in Easter.
Marios
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Dear Dan,

>2. Some form of resolution upon armour, even if it remains the same but
>needs both explanation and legislation (I'm not sure if the triangular
>was ever set in stone). At the least, the removal of the free armour.

(1) Same system (triangular) but armour skills amended:
Armour (12) - Requires equal level of Warrior. +5 Armour
points
Scout Armour ( - Requires equal level of Wilderfuge, +2
Armour points.

(2) Triangular armour, but 'armour points' ditched, everyone
starts off with armour use of 0. Levels of 'armour' skill allow you to
wear that type of armour - a 6th lvl warrior can wear 6 pt armour.
Armour (16) - Requires equal level of Warrior, Armour level
+1.
Scout Armour ( - Requires double level of Wilderfuge, Armour
level +1.
Simpler, less flexible, less munchable.

(3) We collapse the armour levels - we don't actually have 6
kinds of physrep - more like 3.
You could collapse the system to 5 different levels of armour,
keep triangular and amend Armour to (10XP) gives +4 AP, Scout Armour
(5XP) gives +2 AP.
You could collapse down to 3 different levels of armour, go
for fully regenerative, Armour (20 XP) gives +3, Scout Armour (8 XP)
gives +1.


Note - I don't see why Scout Armour and Armour don't stack.
It's assumed, in most of those, that's there's no free armour.

>3. I think people should seriously consider Jimbob's proposals
>concerning the adjustments to the warrior skill tree- particularly
>literacy, and cranking up the points on the essentials.

I don't remember the ones to the warrior skill tree (not in
detail at least).
Is the literacy numeracy one this - Literacy (8XP), Numeracy
(8XP), Elemental Theory and Spiritual Awakening (4XP each).

>4. The horrors of fingerscouting. Enough said.

But where to make the cut?

>In addition, I'm likely to be in favour of Marios' proposed changes to
>incomprehensible, long-forgotten sections of the rules which will surely
>revolutionise the game, but no one else can be arsed to sit down and
>work out.

You better believe it.

>So, if everyone can bang these rules changes out, both in argument and
>then proposals, then we can perhaps claim to have created some good out
>of the pit of evil that these forums have become.

Reactionary!
Marios
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Dear Dan,
Hit Doubling Removal - I haven't heard anyone actually arguing
against this and it's probably more immediately important than a lot
of the other stuff, since changing it at the first term OGM will be
more likely to confuse first-years.
It's easy enough - chest/head hits are no longer doubled. No
this won't meaningfully change the nature of combat, if anything it
will make it more realistic (head/chest become 'vital' locations, not
ablative armour).
Corollaries - have to change 'BT' effects, like direct spell
damage/poison effects need to be updated.
The only tricky bit is having simple spell damage -
Simplest solution is to ditch the through on spells.

Marios
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Tag wrote:

> j d mcgettrick <j.d.mcgettrick.DeleteThis@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>Equally, can someone _please_ update the webpage. The berserk rules are still there and they were
>>dropped nearly a term ago.
>
>
> I'm trying to; I need to lay my hands on a set of minutes...

While you're at it, can you have a look at the miracle list? One of the
third (maybe fourth) miracles is in the list twice. I think it's 'Cure
Disease'.

Zoë
--
http://www.nobmouse.net ICQ: 30006397
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx
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Dear Zoe,

>>>Equally, can someone _please_ update the webpage. The berserk rules are still there and they were
>>>dropped nearly a term ago.
>>
>>
>> I'm trying to; I need to lay my hands on a set of minutes...
>
>While you're at it, can you have a look at the miracle list? One of the
>third (maybe fourth) miracles is in the list twice. I think it's 'Cure
>Disease'.

Urk.
Marios
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> Hit Doubling Removal - I haven't heard anyone actually arguing
> against this and it's probably more immediately important than a lot
> of the other stuff, since changing it at the first term OGM will be
> more likely to confuse first-years.

Indeed. Although I've heard arguments against this, they tend to be the
"but it'll make mages too hard and they'll get weakened" ones, which I
don't think will hold.

The only issue is the increased ability to drop even the hardest fighter,
but tbh a 7th level fighter would still take a disrupt and still something
else to drop, so it works out ok, again it comes down to who gets the
drop.

So, am totally in favour of this.

> It's easy enough - chest/head hits are no longer doubled. No
> this won't meaningfully change the nature of combat, if anything it
> will make it more realistic (head/chest become 'vital' locations, not
> ablative armour).

Indeedm although the issue of casting damage becomes a MAJOR one, since
the cutoff for mages is casting _below_ their level.

Perhaps alter casting damage so that it starts at spells above your
elemental skill (1 hit per level above skill, or 1, 2, 4, 8 etc, the
latter makes more sense)

> Corollaries - have to change 'BT' effects, like direct spell
> damage/poison effects need to be updated.
> The only tricky bit is having simple spell damage -
> Simplest solution is to ditch the through on spells.

Hmmm, I like this, particularly because spellcasting is just hurling a
blast atsomeone, there's no real reason it should knife through their
armour.

I have to say I'm in favour overall of these proposals (as long as we deal
with the casting damage issue), and it will link in well with a more
expensive armour skill, since with no through spell damage armour becomes
mint and essential equipment for warriors.


Marcus

---
"Pride is all very well, but a sausage is a sausage."

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email address will be forwarded to people in my address book.
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j d mcgettrick <j.d.mcgettrick RemoveThis @durham.ac.uk> wrote:

> Tim you are both a gentleman and a scholar. *bows*

Well, you say that, but it IS my fault they didn't get updated in the
first place...

Tim
=-=
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j d mcgettrick <j.d.mcgettrick DeleteThis @durham.ac.uk> wrote:

> Equally, can someone _please_ update the webpage. The berserk rules are still there and they were
> dropped nearly a term ago.

Done. Sorry for the delay.

Only thing not in is spell grammars; that's going to be a pretty big
thing to do.

Tim
=-=
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Dear Marcus,

>> Hit Doubling Removal - I haven't heard anyone actually arguing
>>against this and it's probably more immediately important than a lot
>>of the other stuff, since changing it at the first term OGM will be
>>more likely to confuse first-years.
>
>
> Indeed. Although I've heard arguments against this, they tend to be the
> "but it'll make mages too hard and they'll get weakened" ones, which I
> don't think will hold.

Direct damage spells would get more punch against an unarmoured
opponent, however mages would also get 'weaker' in that they would no
longer start with 4 hits head and chest (rising to , instead 2 rising
to 4.
Overall change - more offensive, less defensive.

> The only issue is the increased ability to drop even the hardest fighter,
> but tbh a 7th level fighter would still take a disrupt and still something
> else to drop, so it works out ok, again it comes down to who gets the
> drop.

All kinds of armour would now work against spells - DAC and physical
armour - so 8th lvl fighter with 6 pts of plate on their chest and 2 pts
of Combat Awareness DAC can soak up a Disrupt (7pts) and have 1
effective pt of armour left

> So, am totally in favour of this.
>
>
>> It's easy enough - chest/head hits are no longer doubled. No
>>this won't meaningfully change the nature of combat, if anything it
>>will make it more realistic (head/chest become 'vital' locations, not
>>ablative armour).
>
>
> Indeedm although the issue of casting damage becomes a MAJOR one, since
> the cutoff for mages is casting _below_ their level.

I think these are something you'd just halve so that the effects are
equivalent (same as poison and a couple of other miscellaneous BT effects).
Same level as spell Half to Torso
1 level below spell 2 hits to Torso
2 levels below spell 2 hits to Head and Torso
3 levels below spell 4 hits to each location

Direct conversion, rounding down. A bit wussier, since the 6 hits to
all locations doesn't actually round down to 4 hits everywhere with the
hit system changed.

> Perhaps alter casting damage so that it starts at spells above your
> elemental skill (1 hit per level above skill, or 1, 2, 4, 8 etc, the
> latter makes more sense)

No progression makes more sense than any other progression without a
context. Effectively, it is of the form 1/2, 2, 4, 24. If you wanted it
to go 1,2,4,8 - all to the Torso, that would be harsher lower level and
kinder higher level. I can't say which is best without a context to
measure it in, so I'm inclined to go for a direct conversion - at least
that has the virtue of improved consistency.

>> Corollaries - have to change 'BT' effects, like direct spell
>>damage/poison effects need to be updated.
>> The only tricky bit is having simple spell damage -
>> Simplest solution is to ditch the through on spells.
>
>
> Hmmm, I like this, particularly because spellcasting is just hurling a
> blast atsomeone, there's no real reason it should knife through their
> armour.

It would be nice to have a mixture of spells, some through, some not.
For now, however, I'm inclined to change all the range spells to
non-Through and all the touch range direct damage spells as Through
(Halve BT on those) - means that all through damage, other than arrows
has to be done up close and personal.
Marios
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> No progression makes more sense than any other progression without a
> context. Effectively, it is of the form 1/2, 2, 4, 24. If you wanted it
> to go 1,2,4,8 - all to the Torso, that would be harsher lower level and
> kinder higher level. I can't say which is best without a context to
> measure it in, so I'm inclined to go for a direct conversion - at least
> that has the virtue of improved consistency.

It's far from wussier at lower level, it means 1st level mages can
actually cast a useful spell without killing themselves. It makes things
better at lower levels, and not noticeably better at high (ok so a 7th
level mage would cast a disrupt for 1 hit, but they're 7th level, there's
no reason they shouldn't be able to do massive blasty stuff without
killing themselves

Better than halves to for battleboards, since halves are generally rounded
down (this is what i understand the refs to have implemented this year) on
battleboards anyway, so a mage would be constantly casting 2 spells rather
than 1 to make their single to the chest at the end of the encounter more
efficient.

> It would be nice to have a mixture of spells, some through, some not.
> For now, however, I'm inclined to change all the range spells to
> non-Through and all the touch range direct damage spells as Through
> (Halve BT on those) - means that all through damage, other than arrows
> has to be done up close and personal.
> Marios

As long as it's a clear distinction (range = non-through, touch = through)
it's ok, it's when we have a mix of spells that are through or not (the
only real example is ice-storm, which is a nice example of why ranged
spells don't need to be through...

Marcus

---
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This email address will be invalid as of 30/06/2004. Details of a new
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Dear Marcus,

>> No progression makes more sense than any other progression without a
>>context. Effectively, it is of the form 1/2, 2, 4, 24. If you wanted it
>>to go 1,2,4,8 - all to the Torso, that would be harsher lower level and
>>kinder higher level. I can't say which is best without a context to
>>measure it in, so I'm inclined to go for a direct conversion - at least
>>that has the virtue of improved consistency.
>
>
> It's far from wussier at lower level, it means 1st level mages can
> actually cast a useful spell without killing themselves. It makes things
> better at lower levels, and not noticeably better at high (ok so a 7th
> level mage would cast a disrupt for 1 hit, but they're 7th level, there's
> no reason they shouldn't be able to do massive blasty stuff without
> killing themselves

Eh? Under 1,2,4,8 they take 1 hit casting at their level, under 1/2,
2,4,24, they take 1/2 casting at their level.
If you ratchet it up so that they no longer take damage casting at
their own level, then you are no longer just adjusting damage to
simplify the hits system. It's probably best to only try to achieve one
thing per change. Particulary since there's no consensus on what the
damage from casting should be.

> Better than halves to for battleboards, since halves are generally rounded
> down (this is what i understand the refs to have implemented this year) on
> battleboards anyway, so a mage would be constantly casting 2 spells rather
> than 1 to make their single to the chest at the end of the encounter more
> efficient.

I don't really see a problem. It only becomes relevant if you cast
another spell at your level or if you take a half to the chest from
something else - otherwise it would just be rounded down.

>> It would be nice to have a mixture of spells, some through, some not.
>>For now, however, I'm inclined to change all the range spells to
>>non-Through and all the touch range direct damage spells as Through
>>(Halve BT on those) - means that all through damage, other than arrows
>>has to be done up close and personal.
>> Marios
>
>
> As long as it's a clear distinction (range = non-through, touch = through)
> it's ok, it's when we have a mix of spells that are through or not (the
> only real example is ice-storm, which is a nice example of why ranged
> spells don't need to be through...

Part of the spell grammar - blah blah blah Magic 7 or Through Magic 1.
Marios
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