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Alternate Paragon - Fool; Oh...whoops? I totally didn't mean that.
Topic Started: Oct 6 2015, 12:54 AM (2,600 Views)
GuardianTempest
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+8:00 GMT || Unlucky & Miserable
Attempted to balance Klutzy Hero, the ability to intentionally fail seemed too powerful with the right setup.
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Voidhawk
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Firstly, this is amazing. One of the best ideas for an Alternate Exalt I've seen.

One thing has stood out particularly:

Comeback Asset: Fools succeed when they look like they failed. Your dice explode on a roll of 1 as well as 10.

This ability is hilarious and unassuming, but far more powerful than it looks at first glance.

Firstly, it effectively gives you a specialty in EVERYTHING. And it stacks with getting an actual specialty. Roll a one? Explode it. Explosion didn't roll high enough to be useful? Reroll the original one with your specialty!

Secondly, it means if you ever gain nines-explode from anywhere (Volatile Weapon springs to mind) things rapidly go insane. A 30% chance of a die exploding and (more importantly) a 10% chance of a die exploding twice is really, really powerful. Because of the way limitations on Kept Dice work, D;tD frequently comes down to crit-fishing: rolling 10 dice and praying for 10s because a pile of 7s just won't cut it. This (ironically) would make the Fool one of the most reliable Exalts in the game.

This isn't to say I think the ability is BAD, or even Overpowered. I think it needs further testing, and might be powerful and Iconic enough to warrent being made one of the Fool's main abilities rather than an optional asset.
Edited by Voidhawk, Dec 10 2015, 05:35 AM.
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GuardianTempest
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+8:00 GMT || Unlucky & Miserable
Thank you for the compliment.

Yeah, I had a hinging feeling that Comeback could work as a main ability, but I wanted to follow the pattern from the original Paragon. I could swap Comeback and Epic Fail (again), but then again Epic Fail might seems very powerful by itself (and fits the Paragon's slot for a 9/10 explosion-related ability).
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GuardianTempest
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+8:00 GMT || Unlucky & Miserable
I need a second (maybe a third) opinion on this: Swap Epic Fail and Comeback?
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weredrago2
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He Who Posts Too Much
Not sure. Something I noticed on the original Paragon is that none of their powers actually use Action Points. Perhaps you want to change some of those powers to requiring the expenditure of Hero Points?
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GuardianTempest
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+8:00 GMT || Unlucky & Miserable
I see, how about these revisions?

WoD,C!: Paragon 5-star power, but backwards and applies to opponents

Klutzy Hero: Whenever you fail a test, you gain additional rolled dice on your next one equal to the number of checks on the current one.

Clutch: For tests involving a characteristic you have two or less dots in, you gain a static bonus equal to your Excellence times the amount of Pressure Points you spent last turn. (May go off the rails late-game)

Hmm, any further suggestions?
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LOS
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Clutch is broken mechanically.

It is too bad if no pressure points are used (5x0=0) or too good if all of then are used (5x15=75).

But that doesn't matter because it will never trigger.

For you to have two or less points in a characteristic, you need to choose a stat to be deliberated crippled at character generation and never improve it.

If the stat is important you have to rely on luck to get you through the game, if its not you wont use it at all.
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As someone who tested the homebrew of Fool, I think it works reasonably well as it is now. It plays similar to the Paragon but at the same time is very different due to actually using resource points to fuel many of its abilities while the Paragon does not, a difference that I think is a good thing rather than a negative. Due to the limited pool of action points and the pain of restoring them in session (you need to actually fail a roll) it requires a more careful balancing of your Action Point abilities.

Clutch was one of my favorite abilities of the Exaltation, and may be a bit overpowered but I think it works. Getting a large, flat bonus to a test is great but the downside is you can't go very high in it. This does have a hidden upside though: It allows you to conserve experience and spend them on areas you always want to be strong in. Clutch gets better as you get stronger, allowing you to make use of areas you would normally be weak throughout the game. On the other hand, as you level up your power stat you get get other abilities that use action Points as well such as Epic Fail and Winds of Destiny, Change! so you need to more carefully balance when you use Clutch if you want to use those other abilities.

As for Comeback and Epic Fail, that's a difficult question. Epic Fail is indeed pretty strong, although Comeback might be stronger. Comeback is notably a pain to use on automatic dice rollers since it is hard for it to reroll 10s and 1s but not the things in between, but that's the machine's fault. Comeback does very much mirror the Paragon's own 4 power stat ability to have 9's and 10's explode and that may be the strongest reason to move it to the 4th power Stat. Epic Fail being an ability that runs on Action Points could balance it if it is an Asset: At level 1 you only get 2 Action Points so you won't get much chance to use it, but it is there if you need it.
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weredrago2
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He Who Posts Too Much
Since you actually playtested the thing, I'll trust your judgement on the Fool.

In terms of naming, the power to make 1s explode (which should go to Excellence 4) should be called Epic Fail, while the ability to gain bonuses to to rolls you already screwed up once (which should be an asset) should be Comeback.
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GuardianTempest
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+8:00 GMT || Unlucky & Miserable
Thank you for your inputs, Epic Fail has swapped places with Comeback—which is now "Clutch" as asset names were shuffled around.

Comeback > Clutch
Klutzy Hero > Comeback
Clutch > Klutzy Hero
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