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The Warden System; An outline of the Warden system
Topic Started: Apr 23 2012, 02:28 PM (80 Views)
Terrestra
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The Hound
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The WARDEN System.

Introduction:
The WARDEN system is a simplified stats system not dissimilar to those used in any pen-and-paper roleplaying game. The system is used to define and/or modify rolls, granting your character’s skills and specialisms a place in what would otherwise be entirely luck-based. Vastly simplified to allow easy integration into existing game mechanics within World of Warcraft, it still retains the flexibility to be used in almost any eventuality. It is based around five Prime Statistics and a number of Variable Statistics, along with a system of Skills – Each of which will influence (or be influenced by) rolls made using the Random Number Generator (RNG) based within the default ‘/roll’ command in World of Warcraft’s user interface. All rolls are made using a 1-100 scale.

Making a Roll:
The WARDEN system is built around rolls – challenges that have a chance of success or failure based upon the roll of the die. These rolls can range from the simple (>5 or >10 to pass, before modifiers) through to the almost impossible (>110 to pass, before modifiers; meaning that an unmodified roll can only succeed on a natural 100). All attempts are automatic successes on a roll of 100, and automatic failures on a roll of 1. Most rolls will be subject to modifiers, which are usually based on Prime statistics. For instance, an attempt to lift a portcullis enough to allow a colleague to slip under may be a difficult roll (>70 to succeed) but heavily modified by the STR statistic (+15 per point of STR); allowing a character with three points of STR to lift the portcullis on a roll of 25 or greater.

Prime Statistics:
There are five Prime statistics that characters can specialise in: Strength, Constitution, Agility, Intelligence and Perception. Characters are ‘created’ with 5 points that they can place into these statistics however they so choose, based upon their own character’s background and training. A player may choose to place up to three points in any statistic. Additionally, characters are granted an additional point that may be placed into one of two statistics, based upon their role in the Office. This additional ‘class point’ may be used to place a fourth point in a single statistic. This means that only Peacekeepers, for instance, may have four strength points.

Strength (STR):
Strength is a measure of the Character’s physical strength, bravery and is a large contributor to skill at arms. It contributes to melee combat damage; and can be used for a variety of strength-based checks.
In combat, each additional point of Strength increases the chance of a ‘critical’ hit (for one additional point of damage) by 5%. So, for example, if a critical hit requires a natural 80+, a character with 2 points of Strength would score a critical hit on any roll of 70+
Strength is also the direct factor contributing to resistance to Stunning effects.
Additionally, Strength will contribute to any number of skill checks including, but not limited to:
• Resisting a terrifying roar
• Lifting a portcullis
• Braving a strong current
• Breaking an object open
• Holding a door closed
Peacekeepers may choose to place their class point into Strength.

Constitution (CON): Constitution is a measure of the Character’s endurance, health and mental fortitude. It contributes to defences during combat, allowing characters to survive longer: and contributes to several skill-checks based around endurance or willpower.
Each point of Constitution gives the Character an additional hit-point that will, naturally, keep them alive for longer – both in combat and without.
Constitution is also the direct factor contributing to resistance to Corrupting effects.
Additionally, Constitution will contribute to any number of skill checks including, but not limited to:
• Resisting poison or disease
• Enduring extreme temperatures
• Staving off the influences of the Old Gods or Demonic Possession
• Moving quickly for long periods of time
• Enduring without sleep, food or water
Peacekeepers may choose to place their class point into Constitution.

Agility (AGI):
Agility is the measure of the character’s balance, co-ordination, reflexes, speed and gymnastic ability, including contributing to skill at arms. It contributes to their chance-to-hit in combat, with both ranged and melee attacks; and affects a variety of skill-checks.
In combat, each additional point of Agility increases the chance to hit by 5%. So, for example, if a regular hit requires a natural 60+, a character with 2 points of Agility would score a hit on any roll of 50+. Additionally, characters may use this stat (along with Perception) to increase their initiative roll by five points per point of Agility – the greater stat is used.
Agility is also the direct factor contributing to resistance to Snaring effects.
Additionally, Agility will contribute to any number of skill checks including, but not limited to:
• Balancing on a narrow beam
• Hiding in the shadows
• Picking a lock
• Catching a falling object
• Climbing a wall
Agents may choose to place their class point into Agility.

Perception (PEC):
Perception is the measure of a character’s observation skills, keenness of vision and hearing and the other senses, intuition and interpersonal skills. It contributes to a chance to avoid attacks in combat, but serves a much larger purpose during longer events.
In combat, for each point of Perception, the character gains a 5% chance to mitigate a single point of damage from any successful attack; as they are afforded that fraction of a second longer to prepare for the attack. This gives a ‘saving roll’ against any attack; in the form of a 1-100 /roll performed after the attacker’s successful roll. For instance; a character with 2 points of Perception is hit for a critical hit of two points of damage. They roll for Perception. On a score of 90+; the attack does only a single point of damage. Aditionally, characters may use this stat (along with Agility) to increase their initiative roll by five points per point of Perception – the greater stat is used.
Perception is also the direct factor contributing to resistance to Confusion effects.
Additionally, Perception will contribute to any number of skill checks including, but not limited to:
• Detecting hidden objects
• Noticing small clues
• Detecting lies told by NPCs
• Detecting traps
• Discerning allegiance or intent of NPCs
Agents and Scryers may choose to place their class point into Perception.

Intelligence (INT):
Intelligence is the measure of a character’s education, reasoning ability, logic and magical ability. It contributes to magical damage in combat, as well as serving for a large number of skill-checks.
In combat, each additional point of Intelligence increases the chance of a ‘critical’ hit (for one additional point of damage) by 5%. So, for example, if a critical hit requires a natural 80+, a character with 2 points of Intelligence would score a critical hit on any roll of 70+. Note that this only applies to magical attacks.
Intelligence is also the direct factor contributing to resistance to Magic effects.
Additionally, Intelligence will contribute to any number of skill checks including, but not limited to:
• Puzzling out a secret code
• Recognising ancient languages
• Breaking an enchantment
• Repairing a device
• Maintaining non-combat spells

Variable Statistics:
Variable statistics represent the health, mana, stamina and additional features of a character that may change over time and by circumstance. These statistics will vary by character to character and from event to event – though they will typically include at least a ‘health’ statistic – hit points.

Health – Hit points:
Hit points are a general measure of the character’s health and well-being. A character at full health is uninjured and completely well – a character at a single hit point may be struggling against crippling wounds or on death’s door. A character that has reached zero hit points is dead, or at least severely injured and unable to continue. Characters begin quests with five hit-points, with an additional one for every point of CON they possess. Under certain circumstances (longer events, for instance), the DM may choose to grant players a larger standard pool of hit points (in which case each point of constitution should count to add 20% on top of the base level. Eg; if the base hit-point is 15 points, then a character with two points of constitution should have 21 (15+3+3)). Hit points are, naturally, lost through injuries or other harmful factors through the course of the adventure or combat.

Magic – Mana:
Although most spell-casting is considered to be natural and costless – it is done with the assumption that it is no more powerful than mundane methods. However, there are times when magical feats are capable of miraculous things – beyond the realms of other factors. These feats require Mana. All spellcasters are assumed to begin an adventure with ten points of Mana, and these points cannot be regenerated during the adventure. However, they may be spent in the casting of powerful spells, at the discretion of the DM. The most obvious and easily regulated example is healing – in which a one-point of mana for one-hit-point heal is a workable rate of exchange. However, the possibilities are endless.

Other Examples:
There are countless other examples of variable stats that can be introduced as the adventure requires – be that a measure of stamina for an adventure that requires a great deal of exertion through to a measure of sanity for plots involving the corrupting forces of the Old Gods. These can be at the discretion of the DM and can be affected by Prime Statistics, where appropriate.

Skills:

In addition to their Prime Statistics, characters may also choose a Skill that indicates their history, background and training. The choice of skills is limited only by the imagination of the player - though it remains the discretion of the DM to allow certain skills beyond those listed below into their event. Skills will modify a roll that is directly related to the said skill - often turning an almost impossible challenge into a rather easy one – although some challenges remain less affected by skills.
For example, our adventurers run into a piece of complicated technology that they need to disarm. Usually, this would be a difficult roll (>90 to pass, modified by +5 for each point of INT). However, one of our adventurers has a Skill in engineering, and is granted +50 to this roll that directly involve this skill - along with two points of INT. Therefore, from the difficult >90 roll, we find the rather simple >30 roll; and the party is glad they brought their engineer along.

List of Suggested Skills:
Note that this list is not exhaustive, but all other skills are at the discretion of the DM.
• Engineering
• Ancient Languages
• Modern Languages
• Security (locks, mechanical and magical alarms)
• Magical Theory
• Presdigitation (picking pockets, hiding objects on one’s person)
• Unarmed Combat
• Survival Skills
• Climbing
• Swimming
• Alchemy
• First Aid
• Military Strategy
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Rhaelene
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Loyal
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I'd suggest one small alteration to this excellent outline - resisting the will of demon, ancient-one or mindbending spell perhaps shouldn't be included in the Constitution stat. This kind of contest suggests a mental battle as opposed to a physical one, though I'm not sure as to whether Perception or Intelligence would work best; it's a symantic argument of if you are using your mental prowess to counter the attack or your ability to see through it... is it a case of your mind is stronger, or you can see through the demon's attempt to cloud your thoughts?
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Terrestra
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The Hound
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A fair point, and something I considered - however, I wanted to make Constitution more appealing as a statistic, and so giving it the general resistance against the most common forms of attack seemed best, as a matter of balance. In terms of explanation, it comes down to a great deal of the CON stat being sheer bloody-mindedness. When Medivh is corrupted by demons and Dragon aspects by the Old Gods, it becomes clear that neither intelligence nor perception is enough to protect you - it's merely a matter of time. That delaying tactic seems more like Constitution to me.

Still, corruption is fairly specific - most 'mind-control' attacks will take the form of either magic or confusion, thus falling under INT or PEC. Only the lingering assaults of demons and old-gods fall under corruption, right alongside poisons and disease.
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Alarond

After last nights test, I've been thinking about a couple of suggestions that might be worth considering.

The combat phase against four armed guards took almost an entire hour by my reckoning. If the entire event lasted two hours, we spent around half of it in the first combat, yards away from the entrance. While the fact that it was a test, and thus full of questions, definitely influenced this, there'll be times in the future where despite any amount of practice with the system, a combat phase will drag on beyond what is appropriate for it storywise.
One idea to prevent this might be to force a conclusion after so many turns. Lets say that, in a four vs five battle like last nights, we reach the fourth combat phase with only one dead enemy and a couple of wounds spread about. With each turn taking up to 10 minutes, it may be worth the Dungeon Master declaring something like:
"The remaining guards, tired and injured, attempt to flee rather than fight. Roll an AGI check to see if you can catch one to interrogate/execute."
This way, the combat is ended before it can drag on for too long, it gives the group a chance to get one (or more) final kills, and also poses the unique challenge in that further guards may be alerted, traps intended for the party were sprung by the fleeing men instead, or simply that they escaped and the party is left without information about further challenges.

Another thing is that it needs to be stressed that, while the Dungeon Master has all the knowledge, it won't be spoon fed to the party. Characters need to take the initiative to do things such as open doors, look inside boxes or punch people in the face, rather than wait for a prompt. Again, as we all get more used to DM style events, peoples initiative will shine through more and more, but it might even be worth considering time related penalties, such as if a party spends far too long standing in the open doing nothing.

Certain characters (like myself :P) will likely want to negate the wounding effect of an attack and instead opt to stun the target instead, causing it to miss its next attack phase. If we announce our attacks as "Magical, Cross", magic being the type and cross being the target, perhaps we could extend that to "Magical, Cross, Stun/Wound". Whether effective or not is dependant on the same hit rolls, and also whether the enemy is susceptible to it. Rhae's fear might work on a smelly guardsman, but an arcane construct doesn't have much by way of a mind.

A lot of what happens will change from event to event, and with more people getting used to the system, there'll be a lot less time spent on questions and clarifications. In that case, some of these suggestions might end up being pointless. My hope for the future is that, once the basics are grasped, we can delve somewhat into a 'Special Rules' kind of thing, which each character in control of a specific ability they can use once per day that relates to their chosen Skill. When, where and if they use it would be up to them, and subject to DM permission. But again, for now, I'm sure everyone is more focused on grasping the basics.

All that said, I'm very happy with the system so far, and I can't wait for the tweaking to be finished so I can look at the DM guide myself :D.

Thanks for the hard work Chris.
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Terrestra
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The Hound
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"My hope for the future is that, once the basics are grasped, we can delve somewhat into a 'Special Rules' kind of thing, which each character in control of a specific ability they can use once per day that relates to their chosen Skill." - I definitely want to look more into 'other abilities' that can be used than just combat oriented ones. But, as you say, we need to get the basics up to speed, first.

You're definitely right about the time aspects, too. The event dragged - and not entirely because people were learning as they went. I'll consider some adaptations, including the 'round count' option you suggested above.

:)
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Jessiel

I was not there so can't comment on anything specific. I've been to other GMed events though, and something I'd like to see is more streamlined combat scenes.

Usually they have been played blow-by-blow and can drag on quite a long time OOC, even if IC it's only few seconds. I'd like to see emotes that span longer time "Vandar fights the guard, parrying and dodging its attacks and getting a few slashes of his own through the guard's defense, until finally his hit lands guard's neck, severing his head cleanly from his body."

How to do that with a few rolls needed though, I'm not sure.
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Terrestra
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The Hound
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Yeah, that's definately the problem we found, Jessiel.

The system was designed so that combat in a 'dungeon' was no different than combat between players in a sparring scenario - but that can certainly drag on.

It's something I've been giving careful consideration to. We have options for quicker 'mob' fighting, but it means moving away from the same format.

Still, something to consider.
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Alarond

Personally, my own events with this system would likely fix the problem by not being very combat heavy in the first place. I'm not sure of your plans for the test event, but such a target as that minor magister on the run wouldn't have taken much more than a small personal guard. It wouldn't have been far fetched to say that was the only combat the team would have faced that night, apart from the man himself.

I imagine that some people are concerned that combat is the only chance their character will have to shine, but as said in the Stats section, there can also be regular DM'd challenges for our less thinky characters. Perhaps combat can be avoided by certain people opting to assassinate a watchmen before he can alert someone. Intimidation, alternate paths, disguises, trickery and such are all very 'OoA' ways of avoiding direct combat. There will always be combat, but we're not an army, and combat oriented characters needn't worry that they'll be useless outside of it.
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