Goodman Games

Proposed Fodder, standard and exceptional creature resilience change:

What if we got rid of resilience for non-full fledged creatures? Instead, make harm spells go directly to HP as other damage does. For other types of spells (Curse, influence, etc), give them opposed roll based on type.

Fodder: 1d6
Standard: 1d10
Exceptional: 2d10

And then add a bonus die if they are magic resistant in some way which also would be rolled against magical harm damage. Ex:

Kobold (From Wiki- http://www.eldritchrpg.com/wiki/index.php/Kobold )
Game Statistics:
· TY: Fodder / 8
· TR: 1D6 Unarmed Attacks (claws, bite, etc), 1D4 Melee (any object), 1D4 Ranged attacks (thrown objects) / Arcane 1D4 (various harm effects)
· HP: 6
· RS: 4 (x2 due to preternatural nature)
· BP: D4
Would have Resistance of 1d6 +1d4(Arbitrary bonus die due to its preternatural nature). The 1d4 would also be rolled and subtracted from Harm spell effects.

Goblin (From Wiki- http://www.eldritchrpg.com/wiki/index.php/Goblin )
Game Statistics:
· TY: Fodder / 7
· TR: 1D6 Melee (any object) / 1D4+1 Unarmed Attacks (bonus due to sharp claws or fangs), 1D4 Ranged attacks (thrown objects) / Arcane (n/a) (only among standard to exceptional goblins)
· HP: 6
· RS: 3
· BP: D10
While a goblin would have the base 1d6 resistance against curse, influence, etc but would not get any roll versus Harm effects because it is not resistant to magic in any special way.

This is worth thinking about. The creatures would have to have slightly more HP to compensate.

But I also think that there should be more than the 3 types (fodder, standard, exceptional). Right now, my mind is focused on converting creatures from other sources. And until ERP comes out with a Monster Manual (and even after they do), a lot of people will want to convert AD&D, C&C, even d20 creatures. So if there was a way to specify the die-rank based on Hit Dice of the creature, that would be helpful. I made one suggestion in another thread:

Level/Hit Dice -- Average steps -- Average die rank
1 -- 1.5 -- 1D6
2 -- 1.7 -- 1D6
3 -- 2 -- 1D8
4 -- 2.2 -- 1D8
5 -- 2.6 -- 1D10
6 -- 3 -- 1D10
7 -- 3.5 -- 1D12
8 -- 4 -- 1D12
9 -- 4.5 -- 1D12 +1D4
10 -- 5 -- 1D12 +1D4
11 -- 6 -- 1D12 +1D6
12 -- 6.5 -- 1D12 + 1D8
13 -- 7 -- 1D12 + 1D8
14 -- 8 -- 1D12 + 1D10
15 -- 9 -- 1D12 + 1D12

This may not be the best, but it was basd on average ability levels...

What if we got rid of Resilience for ALL creatures, NPCs, and PCs?

Non-spell damage (traps, environmental effects, poison) would be handled by opposed rolls vs. the appropriate Ability (Agility, Reflexes, Endurance, etc.)

Non-harm spells would be handled by an opposed roll vs. Resistance (or Willpower).

Harm spells would be handled by using one of the ADPs (or by going into HP for creatures).

Perhaps a new ADP could be created, called Magic ADP, which would be the MRV of the Arcane tree(s). This ADP would be able to be used only against Harm effects. (This would balance out the elimination of Resilience for "magic-users" who don't put a lot of CP into melee abilities.)

So Harm spells could be mitigated by Weaponry (for targetted Harm spells), Evade (for targetted Harm spells), Dodge (for area Harm spells), Deflect (for targetted Harm spells), or Magic (for all Harm spells).

I'm leaning in this direction. The Magic ADP is an interesting idea (similar to what Evilcat was suggesting recently). Such a defense pool would only work against power sources understood by the arcanist. So a mage hit by a necromantic spell who only understands primordial spells couldn't use his Magic ADP. Otherwise, as suggested in the prior post, non-harm spells could be handled by an opposed roll vs. Resistance or Willpower.

I can't imagine too many Harm Effect spells that could be mitigated by Weaponry...like parrying a lightning bolt just won't work. But, it's possible. For example, a wizard animates an coat tree to strike a fighter, who parries with his sword (breaking the coat tree). My point there is that I don't think it would be possible to list all of the different possibilities of spells, matching each to a specific ADP. Since I'm keeping note of potential "offical" changes, I'd want to think hard about how to present the myriad possibilities involved in using ADPs to mitigate spell harm. I can only imagine the number of circumstantial debates on that one (especially from players)!

And another note: any ability can be turned into a temporary DP, if it suits the GM. This can be an interesting way to simulate chase scenes or contests of will, or when timing is involved. Removing Resilience doesn't remove the usefulness of Defense Pools in many situations. But in the present context, it think it makes sense (and I'm also seeing a consensus here).

I think this is the best we've got right now, and here you're using 10 abilities, and the assumption that points are being pumped into all of those (any ability that has mechanical consequence). You could get different charts based on different assumed character or monster "builds", but that would take some time to compile (a worthy effort for any who'd have the time).

Well, if you limit the Magic ADP to spells whose power sources are understood by the arcanist, and if you limit the types of other ADPs that can defend against magic, then spell-casters become MUCH more powerful (in the absence of Resilience).

My thinking was to have Magic ADP count against any spell, and to have the other ADPs also count against any targetted or any area spell. That would balance things out more (although I agree that parrying a lightning bolt would be a stretch that would have to be justified somehow...)


Another plus of the elimination of Resilience is that it brings saving throws into the game in a major way. I realize that this is a "different game", so it shouldn't necessarily have the same concepts as other games, but the saving throw is a pretty cool mechanism, and it is well suited to the ability-based system of ERP. (Plus, it makes conversions of modules easier!)

Ya know what...you are on target! It's basically about changing Resilience from a PDP to an ADP (although with a name change and it's calculated a bit differently.)! So simple a solution...that really works! It also keeps the system intact

hmm, I don't quite understand... what's active to magic resistance? what character _does_ to resist magic, compared to when he runs, dodges or parries with weapon?

It would make magic resistance a willful act, requiring concentration, as well as specialization in the power source being resisted. Lacking Arcana ability with access to the same power source would disallow the mitigation of harm by this method, in which case another ADP may apply.
At least that's the answer that springs to mind for this un-playtested solution to the resilience "problem".

Well, I wouldn't do it for my games, as I heavily use ideas from D&D and d20 sourcebooks, in which many creatures have magic resistance lacking magic mastery... (hmm, but I recall that supernatural abilities in Eldritch, such as dragon breath, roll the Arcanum ability too... but they still don't have every power source).

Anyway, I'm little biased, as I like RPG systems nice and universal %)

It may be that the mechanic of "magic resistance", whether as a passive or active DP, is more of a milieu appropriate idea than a "core" concept. The Resilience DP as it stands works fine for PCs and Full-Fledged NPCs, though I can see the need for some streamlining, changes, and/or optional rules. I'd like to playtest more using magic resistance as an active DP, but I understand your view as well.

Ultimately, what we need to find is what's essential to the core system, and what is truly peripheral, or campaign specific. These discussions help me to determine that. I've made nothing official, but I' enjoying the ideas coming out of these topics and actual play.

The problems I see in eliminating it entirely are:

Heroes and Full fledged NPC/creatures lose a powerful difference between themselves and lesser creatures/NPCs.

Increasing the number of rolls. I like to roll dice but after my group's last game, I realized we were opposed rolling very often which slowed the game down(Granted they were trying to use scrutiny against a slightly superior stealth). Adding more opposed rolling doesn't seem like a good way to mitigate that.

Because I like magic to be magical, I personally wouldn't like how you could block it with a hunk of metal or wood(Weapon).

I forgot to link it but I proposed to combine Dodge and Evade into one pool and take any non-magic effects away from resilience and create a PDP called resistance to handle those types of damage (Poison, environmental,etc).

This will def work if you are using more than the base 3 types of creatures!

[quote="StormPatriarch] I forgot to link it but I proposed to combine Dodge and Evade into one pool and take any non-magic effects away from resilience and create a PDP called resistance to handle those types of damage (Poison, environmental,etc).[/quote]

So we have three ideas here:

1) Split Resilience into two passive DPs, one to handle magic and the other non-magic harm. Okay, but we could do this without introducing a third DP...just by allowing Toughness to handle part of that.

I think Toughness can handle poison, environmental, etc, since it already encompasses Endurance & Resistance ability. So that just leaves, again, the issue of magic resistance. The Resilience DP was Resistance + Willpower+ Arcanum tree. So, to do as proposed, we could just rename Resilience to "Magic Resistance", take away the Arcanum tree (because that's overpowered), and make it perfectly clear what it's for (anti-magic)....otherwise leave the mechanic alone (except for monsters lesser than full-fledged, which I do think ought to dump RS scores into general HP, as was done with ADPs anyway). It still leaves it open to the criticism that all creatures possessing some measure of anti-magic capability is a campaign setting sort of idea, and less generic. Of course "Eldritch RPG" does subsume a setting, although this is the only mechanic that truly reflects an assumption about that setting (other than it being heroic and fantasy based), and that is all creatures having various degrees of natural resistance to magic.

2) Allow magic resistance to be an Active DP (based off of arcane specializations), in addition to regular "saving throws" (the latter which occur as opposed rolls). Or this could be made into a specific arcane Advantage as an alternative (Anti-Magic DP Advantage for 2 CPS for 4 points, then 2 CPS for every 2 hitpoints above that), costing the character more. The in-game use would have to be descriptively rationalized. Or as EvilCat suggested in another threat, do something similar to this, but use it more like a Protect Effect (a random die), rolling the specialization as damage reduction (rather than as a hitpoint pool).

3) Allow ADPs versus spell harm, eliminate RS altogether, and Non-harm spells would be handled by an opposed roll vs. Resistance (or Willpower). This would be a serious change to the system. I think it affects little if applied to monsters less than full-fledged (which is a good idea to speed up the excitment of combat and the effectivenss of PC mages). Harm spells being mitigated by ADPs would be okay if arbitrated on a case-by-case basis by the GM, but there would need to be some written guidelines to avoid absurd effects (like the parry of a fireball with Weaponry).

You don't need to handle non-spell damage (traps, environmental effects, poison) by "opposed rolls vs. the appropriate Ability (Agility, Reflexes, Endurance, etc.)" because Toughness should be able to handle it (and that reduces the number of dice rolls).

Looking at it put that way I guess you don't need a PDP for resistance, I just didn't want to make non-magic harm go directly to Toughness (HP) because I believe it would make poisoned weapons very powerful? A d6 poison on a short sword (+2 harm bonus) wielded by a Melee d8> Swords d6 would then potentially be doing between 4 - 16 in PoHarm against an ADP + then another d6 directly to toughness. Though it would make sense to have the poison effect only if the PoHarm penetrated the ADP and armor..late in combat that could mean you are doing all that to toughness...Ouch...Could be a good thing though...

I don't think you should take the arcanum tree out or it should be optional based on campaign worlds. It makes sense to me that a arcanum user would be less susceptible to magic then a fighter. Of course leaving the rule of area effects can be soaked by dodge pool when applicable.

Once the RS is subsumed into the HP its doesn't matter if its described as magic resistance or not thus negating the assumption possibility for harm spells. Not sure what campaign world would allow for all beings to NOT have some kind of save against magic at all. Most of the systems that I have played(That have magic in them) allow all creatures a save in some way. It may be minimal but its there.

Wow! Lots to think about! I'm going to have to cogitate on this awhile...

For the curious, I cooked up this example. This is "by the book"

A wizard casting Blind in the current system: Assume it’s 1D6 Arcanum + 1D6 Mystic specialization, with no school mastery. It is a single (ranged) target, so the difficulty is vs. 2D4. He rolls his ADC and gets a 7 (say 4 (basic) and 3 (specialization die). The GM rolls the difficulty and gets a 6. Caster beats the difficult, so the spell goes off. His result of 7 also serves as the Blind Effectiveness result, as well as the basis for the spell point cost (drop the lowest die, in this case the 3, making the cost 4 Spell points). The target has a Resilience score of 8, so the Blinding does not take effect. Next round, the wizard “maintains” the spell, paying half the spell point cost (based on original roll) at 2 SP, with the SAME effectiveness (7 points). This time the spell exceeds he target’s Resilience, and the target becomes blinded with his rolls at -7. Next round…the target rolls Willpower versus the caster’s original roll (yet again, keeping that original roll). The target rolls his 1D6 Willpower, gets a 6, and fails to break the blindness. Onto the next round…

Thanks for the example. I was glad to see that I had been thinking about this correctly.

Why Willpower for the save? What about Resistance?