Code talk: Stats

[parasaurolophus]

I know lots of you have been waiting for it.

Comments

[yarrik7]

I like this Composure concept. The ability to keep one's head is usually a plot point in these kinds of animes. Awesome. :D

[sidecarcavalry]

Bravo on the unique (tentative) stat system (and balancing)! And yes, I'm also here for a ton of discussion on the Composure stat!

How fixed will the stat be? Will there be scenes where depending on the situation, characters will get temporary additions or subtractions to their Composure? What things are able to change Composure permanently (perhaps i.e. coobie-brand sanity loss)?

To relate this to where I'm coming from, I've played in a Slayers d20 tabletop campaign before where the very feels of specific scenes had their very own "composure" scales, ranging from Silly and Comedic to Serious and Dark. Will BF have a mechanic in character creation (or FC statting) where certain scenes will affect their Composure more often than others, depending on what characters essentially like/dislike? How strictly would such a mechanic be -enforced-?

It's a very interesting stat to me, for sure, since it walks the line between RP during combat situations and statistics affecting RP. Whee!

[parasaurolophus]

Composure is a fixed stat. It's generally for how someone reacts to the way things are going in combat, so it isn't something that will change based on the scene.

Composure is just that, though. It doesn't necessarily need to dictate RP. Someone who is normally cool and calm but is unable to keep that up during combat would have a lower Composure, whereas someone who's a complete spaz but is able to keep things together in combat will have a higher Composure.

[sidecarcavalry]

Good to know. Am I to infer that since characters will not have an innate Accuracy stat, all attacks will have a specific Accuracy, and thus be dependent on Morale that way? My (probably unfound) fear is that a low Morale situation can be metagamed despite having low Composure with attacks that target areas and/or other things that can't dodge/block. I know this is probably cutting into a later combat post you'll be putting up, but am I imagining things, or is that a viable tactic?

[parasaurolophus]

Not... really. You're making some incorrect assumptions there. You'll see when I get to talking about attacks.

[mors_rattus]

Looking at this, I find one major potential problem: the death spiral. Your Morale goes down when you're faring poorly, and low Morale makes you fight worse, so as you lose it gets easier to lose and as you win it gets easier to win.

This seems like it was not intended.

[mors_rattus]

(Especially since come-from-behind victories are perfectly in-genre but seem especially hard to pull off if a death spiral is in place.)

[parasaurolophus]

It's a valid concern, but don't worry. The fail spiral of uselessness is something we accounted for when we designed Morale gain/loss. The situation you described is going to be highly unlikely unless you're both extremely unlucky and are fighting someone specifically built to tank Morale.

[occamsnailfile]

This is an interesting stat setup, I'll be watching to see how things develop. I am eager to find out about attack setups.

[mikuni_oriko]

This is an interesting solution to the problem of damage type minmaxing. Increasing your secondary attack is generally not worth it just to occasionally exploit weak defenses (for several reasons), but giving a second effect may be the best type of solution. Whether this particular fix will work still remains to be seen, of course.

I do not agree that a stat beginning at non-zero makes it obvious that I has trade-offs. But this is easily explained. Including an explanation as part of the character creation form is not a big deal.

A list with numbered examples (for composure only) would, I'd think, be helpful.