Heroica RPG Rules & FAQ

[StickFig]

That's exactly the point of the ether cost - you can't use the skill endlessly without gulping down a tonic every once in a while. Power should come at a cost, and I'm trying to promote that more.

I also agree with JimBee that similar abilities should have the same cost throughout the board. Druids shouldn't be more potent at revival than the higher classes, Necromancer and Prophet, and this is a neat solution for that.

Like I said, I'm all for raising the ether cost, but I think it should scale based on how many characters are revived.

[Sandy]

Like I said, I'm all for raising the ether cost, but I think it should scale based on how many characters are revived.

But it does. It's 5 ether per revival. My first suggestion was 1 ether per revival, while originally it was just flat-out 1 ether for the whole shebang. Except in the beginning I don't think any of the Shield-skills cost ether at all.

[StickFig]

Wow, five ether per revival is pretty steep! Now I want to go on a quest in a big group and see how it changes my play.

[Palathadric]

But it does. It's 5 ether per revival. My first suggestion was 1 ether per revival, while originally it was just flat-out 1 ether for the whole shebang. Except in the beginning I don't think any of the Shield-skills cost ether at all.

That sounds a bit much to me, but I guess it is a very powerful shield skill.

[Asphalt]

I think it needs to be more than one, but maybe not as many as five. Revival is a pretty powerful ability and needs to have a substantial cost. If there are 4 characters out and player can only afford 2, then a decision needs to be made.

[Waterbrick Down]

That's exactly the point of the ether cost - you can't use the skill endlessly without gulping down a tonic every once in a while. Power should come at a cost, and I'm trying to promote that more.

I also agree with JimBee that similar abilities should have the same cost throughout the board. Druids shouldn't be more potent at revival than the higher classes, Necromancer and Prophet, and this is a neat solution for that.

Do note, Druid's can only revive on 1 roll out of 6, and while more powerful classes can pin point revive, Druid's revive en mass, which means your top Druid (Level 29) as the last one standing in a battle with a party of six will have their entire ether drained in one roll, no other advanced ether class does that. Are we saying revival is essentially that expensive, or are we just pulling the number 5 from out of a hat? On a somewhat different note, what if all spell/healing cost 1 ether per monster/PC it affected, just like arc spells & arc healing?

[Palathadric]

Do note, Druid's can only revive on 1 roll out of 6, and while more powerful classes can pin point revive, Druid's revive en mass, which means your top Druid (Level 29) as the last one standing in a battle with a party of six will have their entire ether drained in one roll, no other advanced ether class does that. Are we saying revival is essentially that expensive, or are we just pulling the number 5 from out of a hat? On a somewhat different note, what if all spell/healing cost 1 ether per monster/PC it affected, just like arc spells & arc healing?

It certainly sounds reasonable to me, although isn't that more or less how it is already?

[Waterbrick Down]

Yes and no, most ether based classes shield rolls only cost one to two ether, this would essentially make the Shield rolls of Battle Mage, Druid, Evoker, Mystic Knight (Debatable), Sage, Sorcerer, Witch, Minstrel, Weather Mage, Arch Mage, High Cleric, and Prophet in my opinion much better in terms of cost vs. effectiveness balance. In the current system Shield rolls have a lot of advantages vs. a normal roll. Generally speaking:

Pros:

Hits for more Damage

Hits more enemies

Costs the same or one more ether than a normal attack

Cons:

1/6 chance of using it.

This change would remove the advantage of less ether cost and make the roll seem as potent as say a Druid's mass revival.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Waterbrick Down

[Myrddyn]

Argh stop nerfing clerics! Alright, WBD's suggestion does make sense, but I thought clerics were one of the more underrepresented classes, and they already pay for tonics and don't get paid for healing, and WBD's suggestion and the 5 ether per revive, and also the ether cost for shaman's shield means they'll pay even more.

The 5 ether per revive is also something I'm in two minds about. It does make sense, but then a prophet has a much bigger ether pool to work with than a druid. It's also not like we have loads of druids running around. Or shamans.

Battle mages are also affected by this, which makes me biased, but Erik has low ether costs anyway, and if this does turn out to affect him that much he'll just change to raider.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Myrddyn

[JimBee]

Mainly because it was Guts reason for dropping it.

Perhaps I should've thrown an emoticon in there to show I was joking. Sorry if I offended our alchemists.

None taken. I just wanted to point out that Alchemist is a lot more than just being able to make gold.

On Chysopoeia, swils has a point, and I like his solution a lot. I can see treasures gravitating towards Alchemists and then them abusing that power, although it would be better than what we have now.

[Palathadric]

On Chysopoeia, swils has a point, and I like his solution a lot. I can see treasures gravitating towards Alchemists and then them abusing that power, although it would be better than what we have now.

Agreed. It sounds good to me too.

Argh stop nerfing clerics! Alright, WBD's suggestion does make sense, but I thought clerics were one of the more underrepresented classes, and they already pay for tonics and don't get paid for healing, and WBD's suggestion and the 5 ether per revive, and also the ether cost for shaman's shield means they'll pay even more.

The 5 ether per revive is also something I'm in two minds about. It does make sense, but then a prophet has a much bigger ether pool to work with than a druid. It's also not like we have loads of druids running around. Or shamans.

Battle mages are also affected by this, which makes me biased, but Erik has low ether costs anyway, and if this does turn out to affect him that much he'll just change to raider.

I have to wonder about this too. With tonic already so much more expensive than potions, might we see a rather complete swing away from the cleric-based classes if we implement this?

Edited April 11, 2015 by Palathadric

[Sandy]

Yes and no, most ether based classes shield rolls only cost one to two ether, this would essentially make the Shield rolls of Battle Mage, Druid, Evoker, Mystic Knight (Debatable), Sage, Sorcerer, Witch, Minstrel, Weather Mage, Arch Mage, High Cleric, and Prophet in my opinion much better in terms of cost vs. effectiveness balance. In the current system Shield rolls have a lot of advantages vs. a normal roll.

That's on purpose. Shield-rolls are supposed to be battle-savers - they can change the tide of the battle.

I don't know if changing the ether cost for all Shield-skills punishes ether-users too much... And Myrddyn is right: while mages can always resort to melee combat if their ether runs out (except for Sage), healing with ether is pretty much the only forte clerics have.

If Shield-skills would start consuming more ether, I would probably have to implement alternative Shield-skills for situations where the party is already at full health - it wouldn't be fair if a cleric was punished for rolling Shield several times at the start of a battle by being drained out of ether before anyone needed healing to begin with. At least the 5 ether per revival would only be consumed if someone needed reviving...

[Waterbrick Down]

Maybe they should be payed for healing, or perhaps meditating should restore more Ether. With the system as it stands now, Ether based classes at higher levels always have too much ether which at lower levels is the balancing factor (elemental damage, but limited number of shots). The only way I can think of balancing that out is making their more potent attacks (shield rolls) cost more, they already have the bonus of doing more damage than a usual hit and they get to hit all of the targets at once as opposed to deal with them one round at a time.

That's on purpose. Shield-rolls are supposed to be battle-savers - they can change the tide of the battle.

I don't know if changing the ether cost for all Shield-skills punishes ether-users too much... And Myrddyn is right: while mages can always resort to melee combat if their ether runs out (except for Sage), healing with ether is pretty much the only forte clerics have.

If Shield-skills would start consuming more ether, I would probably have to implement alternative Shield-skills for situations where the party is already at full health - it wouldn't be fair if a cleric was punished for rolling Shield several times at the start of a battle by being drained out of ether before anyone needed healing to begin with. At least the 5 ether per revival would only be consumed if someone needed reviving...

Shield rolls still do turn the tides of battle, but considering they're only a 1/6 chance of happening, they get more bang for their buck than I think is necessary. Right now if you're a basic mage 1/3 of the time you're going to spend 1 ether to do say 10 or 20 damage, but dependent on the enemy party you have a 1/6 chance to do 3-4 times that amount for the same ether cost.

[Pyrovisionary]

Black knight's shield needs to go back to the days of 6 x Wp + level ... The good old days of quest #74 .

On a more serious note, for offensive ether users we could always make ether cost proportional to damage, or how many enemies are damaged. For healers I think the 5 ether per revival is appropriate

[Waterbrick Down]

Again know that 5 ether per revival for Druids will drain them very quickly, if we agree that that's what is needed and it is that big of a game changer, then I'd suggest we look at the shield rolls of other ether users.

[Kintobor]

I agree with WBD. 5 ether per revival is steep. What if a druid doesn't have enough maximum ether to revive everyone in the party? I know it's not a common situation, but it is still a viable situation.

[Sandy]

What if a druid doesn't have enough maximum ether to revive everyone in the party? I know it's not a common situation, but it is still a viable situation.

That's pretty much the whole point of having ether cost in the first place.

But I will consider applying ether cost per target into the game mechanics. It's going to be a big change that will affect just about every job class with ether out there...

[UsernameMDM]

I don't like the idea of ether cost & damage being related. It's a penalty on the ether users to do actual damage.

[CMP]

I don't like the idea of ether cost & damage being related. It's a penalty on the ether users to do actual damage.

Yeah, but with elemental attacks they typically do upwards of twice as much damage as say, rangers, anyway.

[UsernameMDM]

Yeah, but with elemental attacks they typically do upwards of twice as much damage as say, rangers, anyway.

So what would the benefit of the classes be if they are heavily penalized? Their attacks are all ether based, so, basically, they have to pay for attacks.

[Cutcobra]

Do note, Druid's can only revive on 1 roll out of 6, and while more powerful classes can pin point revive, Druid's revive en mass, which means your top Druid (Level 29) as the last one standing in a battle with a party of six will have their entire ether drained in one roll, no other advanced ether class does that. Are we saying revival is essentially that expensive, or are we just pulling the number 5 from out of a hat? On a somewhat different note, what if all spell/healing cost 1 ether per monster/PC it affected, just like arc spells & arc healing?

Isn't that like just an Archmage thing? Yes, I am opposed to this because it would mean 2 ether per enemy for me.

[CMP]

So what would the benefit of the classes be if they are heavily penalized? Their attacks are all ether based, so, basically, they have to pay for attacks.

Very powerful attacks.

[StickFig]

So what would the benefit of the classes be if they are heavily penalized? Their attacks are all ether based, so, basically, they have to pay for attacks.

Very powerful attacks.

With tonic already so much more expensive than potions...

Seems like this fits pretty well with a lot of the classic ideas about mages and magic - high cost, high reward.

Another idea I'll throw out here for ether costs is this: 1 ether per outcome. So a Druid rolls Shield, one party member is revived (with 1 health), then 5 party members are healed for at least 1 health (including the one just revived), then 3 party members have negative effect(s) removed. Total 9 outcomes. Cost is 9*X ether (where X is the Druid's cost per outcome, maybe 1, maybe 2, maybe 5, etc). I think it would be a good idea to either implement ether costs by outcome, or at least think about costs per outcome as part of balancing efforts.

Again know that 5 ether per revival for Druids will drain them very quickly, if we agree that that's what is needed and it is that big of a game changer, then I'd suggest we look at the shield rolls of other ether users.

Yes, because you know there are soooooo many overpowered Druids out there ruining the game right now.

[Sandy]

Another idea I'll throw out here for ether costs is this: 1 ether per outcome. So a Druid rolls Shield, one party member is revived (with 1 health), then 5 party members are healed for at least 1 health (including the one just revived), then 3 party members have negative effect(s) removed. Total 9 outcomes. Cost is 9*X ether (where X is the Druid's cost per outcome, maybe 1, maybe 2, maybe 5, etc). I think it would be a good idea to either implement ether costs by outcome, or at least think about costs per outcome as part of balancing efforts.

That's what I'm currently contemplating now. Ether would only be spent if the healing or spell is effective, so clerics would not be penalized for healing people who are already at full health, nor mages for casting spells on enemies that are immune to the element.

It would require a new kind of thinking from the QMs, but it might be the best solution to balance ether-based classes.

[Enceladus]

Argh stop nerfing clerics! Alright, WBD's suggestion does make sense, but I thought clerics were one of the more underrepresented classes, and they already pay for tonics and don't get paid for healing, and WBD's suggestion and the 5 ether per revive, and also the ether cost for shaman's shield means they'll pay even more.

The 5 ether per revive is also something I'm in two minds about. It does make sense, but then a prophet has a much bigger ether pool to work with than a druid. It's also not like we have loads of druids running around. Or shamans.

Battle mages are also affected by this, which makes me biased, but Erik has low ether costs anyway, and if this does turn out to affect him that much he'll just change to raider.

Couldn't agree more #leave clerics alone! ;)

On a more serious note I'm not sure I agree with What you say about how you suggest increasing shield skill ether costs will 'scare away players' from rolling clerics. Most new players are probably not going to know how ether operated before and will take the 'new' system for granted, while many veteran players will roll ether based classes for a different play style

I quite like Sandy's idea of situation based ether costs as it seems to combine people's worries about ether based shield skills being too powerful and leaving them with enough ether to function, but I do defiantly feel that meditate will need a boost (perhaps a scale of 1-3 ether or maybe that will be too complicated?), and perhaps replacing it for miss rolls on ordinary clerics

I just can't believe that after my first battle as a cleric major nerds are already being considered :(