Tabletop RPG adaptation

So Josh Sawyer posted this poll Twitter recently, but Twitter poll durations are limited to 7 days max. I thought I might put the same question to the Obsidian community.

 

My own opinion is that it would make a lot of sense to leverage Obsidian's existing relationship with Paizo to release a Pathfinder-compatible PoE setting sourcebook. That said,

, and a significant amount of that thought went toward addressing perceived balance issues in games like DnD 3.5e and Pathfinder. It'd be a shame not to preserve that spirit in a tabletop adaptation - PoE is more than just its setting, after all. Edited October 10, 2016 by hamskii

First of all system used in Pillars of Eternity should have a name. Back in 90's all RPG systems had names. The same was in case of cRPG, like Fallout and its funny history of name ("ACELIPS") becoming S. P. E. C. I. A. L.

 

RPG mechanics used in Pillars are well designed so I would vote to use them, only slightly changed. The biggest problems are percentages damage bonuses and percentages benefits from attributes. It's hard to count this type of numbers during RPG session. Percentages should be replace to constant values. But it will require balanced values and it'll be extremly hard.

 

I'm working on something similar, so hear me out.

 

I was adapting Star Wars Saga Edition (d20) for Mass Effect setting since 2010. A while ago I changed RPG mechanics for system used in Pillars of Eternity and it's even better for this purpose. Miss, graze, hit and critical hit all have compartments and they are brilliant for Mass Effect when comparing them to lore of the setting. For example, upgrades like "biotic damage" from ME2 are describe as software increasing accuracy of biotic powers. So increasing accuracy increase damage and this is exactly how attacks work in Pillars of Eternity. The better accuracy you have, the more chance to actualy succesfully hit, diminishing chance for graze and increasing chance for critical hits - in all cases you will do more damage. So why d100 instead of d20? It's more precise. I could divide all numbers by 5, then it would looks like 1 - miss; 2-10 graze, 11-20 hit, 21+ critical hit but it woudn't be as precise as d100 and its 1-15 miss, 16-50 graze, 51-100 hit, 100+ critical hit.

 

Attributes work well with impact on four types of defense stats (deflection, physical force, dodge, will). Equivalent of Dextirity get cooldown bonus instead of reduced time of recovery action (which woudn't work in turn based combat). I redefine other attributes - like Strength  reducing weapon's recoil, Constitution bring limits for using biotic powers before character moves down on exhausted scale (it's concept from Star Wars Saga, 5 grade of penalties from debuffs or bad condition) or until character rests. Other benefits from attributes are the same as they are in Pillars, but adding constant value instead of percentage.

 

I see that character development can be a challenge because I like the idea from Star Wars Saga - 3 or 4 groups of talents for each class. It's Mass Effect so there will be combat, tech and biotic powers and I want to use feats. So it's hard to plan how or rather when a character will learn all three types of special abilities while leveling. It was simple in Star Wars Saga - bonus feat on each uneven level, bonus talent on each even level. But in my design there are 3 types of abilities to pick - class talents, powers, feats.

 

Another matter is skills system. Pillars of Eternity has specific system which require certain skill to pass difficulty check, while there is no random number generator. Skill level has to be equal or higher than DC. It's logic but I'm not sure if this will produce a fun factor in real RPG session - knowing that you can pass the check without risk. And skills from Star Wars Saga gave my great ideas how manage hacking, explosives, stealth, piloting etc. but I'm not sure if it will works good enough based on d100 mechanic. Good design require consistent system for all tests.

 

My system adapts damage reduction (because of shields and the way I designed health) from armor, shields as equivalent of endurence from Pillars of Eternity but health will have a very low value to allow kill in one or two attacks. Armor will be destructable and repairable and when your shield go off your armor will be the only thing between you and death. So some powers and ammo type will have option to destroy armor (striping character from damage reduction) and there will be weapons with better armor piercing stat. And ofcourse - there will be cross class combos. CCC are now so popular that we will have fun with them even in Tyranny ^^

 

So yeah, Mass Effect. It's not offtopic. I mean, if I can convert system from Pillars of Eternity for need of sci-fi tabletop RPG, I think it's doable to adapt game mechanics to pen & paper version of this one specific, beautiful designed game which Pillars of Eternity is.

Edited October 12, 2016 by Silvaren

What's the problem with the basic ruleset in the computer game? I mean the graze/hit/crit system and all. It's not too complicated and can easily be played with two D10. 

For me, the reason to play a POE tabletop is the attribute system. As long as the attitude system holds true to the video game (no DnD min/maxing), I'm sold.

Who says you can't min-max in PoE?

Who says you can't min-max in PoE?

You can it just doesn't have much impact.  I have played min max characters and all arounders, neither was noticeably harder or easier to beat the game with.

You mean party or solo? I would disagree for solo. But yeah - compared to other rulesets the attributes don't have a huge impact. That's cool with me because you can't improve them while leveling up. I would have liked it if there was an option to raise stats in some way. Maybe class talents or abilities for certain classes. I mean besides temporary boosts like Frenzy and stuff and story related talents like Gift from the Machine.

Edited October 15, 2016 by Boeroer

PF would be an absolutely godawful choice, considering that PoE makes many design decisions wholly to avert things found in D&D. Healing spells, teleportation, resurrection, divination - all are things PoE goes out of its way to avoid. Eora needs either a rules-lite game or something crunchy and original to it.

 

I'd be interested in seeing how such a system would resolve PoE's rather complex attack resolution and round mechanics. A direct translation could easily dip into Exalted levels of obnoxious complexity.

I'd be interested in seeing how such a system would resolve PoE's rather complex attack resolution and round mechanics. A direct translation could easily dip into Exalted 2E levels of obnoxious complexity.

 

Fix'd.

I don't think the hit rolls are too complex. Roll a d100 against certain defenses, that's it. What is a bit complex are calculating ACC (esp. the stacking rules) and calculating (weapon) damage and healing power (and healing received). And the most complicated of all: attack speed (you mentioned round mechanics). Maybe there's a smart way to reduce the complexity with those. 

 

I would maybe allow every character a certain base number of attacks during a given timespan. Then this can be influenced by DEX and attack speed mods. Not percentage based, but flat numbers. COmes close and would be easy enough.

 

Maybe something similar with healing and damage: not doing it with percentage based values, but with flat numbers. I know it's not ideal because fast weapons do profit more from such an approach, but maybe one could scale the bonuses. Instead of getting +20% small weapons get +1, normal weapons +2 and two handers +3 from a talent like Savage Attack (just an example with some random numbers) or something like that. Would also solve the problem that weapons with higher base damage get a lot more out of dmg bonuses (like sabres did).

Edited October 15, 2016 by Boeroer

@Arch-Mage

Hit rolls aren't too complex, even when calculating all bonuses and suppressed values. You have to do it in D&D anyway so it's nothing new. Main difference is that in PoE all calculation are using higher numbers than in d20 systems. Like I wrote in my first post - it can be converted from d100 to d20 but original d100 ranges for miss/graze/hit/crit are more precise than ranges divided by 5 for d20 core.

 

Some ruleset like Star Wars Saga allow you to make three actions in one round (swift, move, standard) but only one of them (standard) grant you time for attack and you can do only one attack per round and character's class doesn't matter. So if Pillars of Eternity uses one mechanism for all classess I think that all of them should have the same number of attacks. Benefits from Dextirity shouldn't grant different number of attacks. How would it look when with 10 Dex player would have 1 attack per round while with 11 Dex 2 attacks? Attributes don't have empty value in PoE so each point above and below 10 should make a difference and how many attacks could be done by character with 18 Dex? 9 attacks? And how many attacks could be done by character with Dex 8? No attacks? I think better options will be add some kind of cooldowns and make Dextirity to speed up cooldowns like I did it for my Mass Effect conversion.

 

Flat value are only option. You can't count percentages during RPG session. And if combat is turn based it doesn't matter how fast is your weapon, so fast weapons woudn't benefit from this anyway.

"Arch-Mage" is my rank by the way, not my name. Took some time to figure out whom you were replying to.

"Arch-Mage" is my rank by the way, not my name. Took some time to figure out whom you were replying to.

Hahaha I'm sorry I wrote this few minutes after I woke up :D 

And if combat is turn based it doesn't matter how fast is your weapon, so fast weapons woudn't benefit from this anyway.

Why is that? you could make it so that you can attack more than once each turn. A dagger for example could be used to do 3 attack rolls, a normal 1h weapon could do 2 rolls and a two hander could do 1. Enchantments like speed or dual wielding could add more attacks per turn. It's easy.

Why is that? you could make it so that you can attack more than once each turn. A dagger for example could be used to do 3 attack rolls, a normal 1h weapon could do 2 rolls and a two hander could do 1. Enchantments like speed or dual wielding could add more attacks per turn. It's easy.

Yes it could work like that and one additional attack with offhand if dual wielding. System in Pillars developed as stricte cRPG ruleset - high numbers and different ranges of damage which can't be easily implemented as dice rolls, for example Fan of Flames 30-42. Many features can't be converted to p&p. D&D has its attacks of oportunity while in Pillars are interrputs, but they work on any action in combat and actions didn't provoke attacks of oportunity. How interrupts could work in turn based combat? Pillars of Eternity is turn based from specific point of view. The game is only quasi real-time because each character acts in turns but these turns are resolve simultanously. In Infinity Engine games each round took 6 seconds, in Pillars system is more fluid because it depends on recovery action between rounds. And there is still a speed factor (like weapon's speed factor in Baldur's Gate or casting time of spells).

Maybe it would work better if instead of x attacks per turn there were action points, DEX gave more action points per turn and interrupts subtracted action points from the target's next turn action point pool.

By the way - I think attacks of opportunity are disengagement attacks in PoE, not interrupts. Interrupts I would omit completely for pen & paper - way too much fuzz.

Im trying to see a d20 system in the weaon damage values... but my math fu is too low i guess.

 

I see a 10+1d6 in 11-16 dmg from battle axe

I see a 12+2d4 in 14-20 dmg from estoc

 

 

But 8-12 dmg... how you divide that up?

 

A lot of the dmg numbers dont seem to be able to be rolled by dice.

Edited February 12, 2017 by Leeuwenhart

Given Obsidian's budding relationship with Pathfinder and the fact that the game is heavily based on Baldur's Gate, a D&D title itself, I think having Paizo release a 3.75ish build would be right on the money.

 

But 8-12 dmg... how you divide that up?

 

The underappreciated coinflip. 4d2+4