Changes you have made to the SEIGE engine

[vivsavage]

The seige engine is so flexible that you can easily modify it to suit your tastes. What modifications have you made? I'm thinking of this: instead of tying the +6 bonus to specific attributes, I tie it to things that would seem reasonable for the character to do. Thus, all class abilities receive the +6 bonus. After that, it depends on the history and personality of the character. If, as CK, I think the character's background doesn't warrant a +6 to the attempt, I will ask for a straight attribute check, such as if a city-bred wizard tried to calm down an angry ox. But if the wizard was born & bred on a farm, I'd give him the +6 bonus. In order to make up for the fact that humans now don't receive an extra prime attribute, I give them a +5% bonus on experience points. Thoughts?

[Rigon]

It should work out fine. I know Tree has all class abilities made as prime, whether the character has a prime in that attribute or not. It works for his games rather well.

R-

[Dracyian]

Maybe its just me, but the 5% increase in XP seems a little broken, I would try to find someway to make them more of a swiss army knife.

Just a thought but what about going with the background as the driving force, with most worlds and settings (as far as I'm aware, if I'm wrong please fix my misconceptions) having Humans as a younger race they are more apt to mixing and dealing with other races and cultures, suggesting that your players character isn't racist why not have the human gets an extra bonus to charisma when dealing with NPCs and people of the outer world and the older races, unless the grew up in a diverse setting recieve a slight penalty to charisma checks with other races due to stigmas and and overall lack of experience, maybe +2 for humans, -2 for demi-humans and if the demi-human grew up in a diversified cultural area the recieve no bonus or penalty?

Just a thought

[vivsavage]

Maybe its just me, but the 5% increase in XP seems a little broken

What problems do you think it would create?

[serleran]

I do not make changes to the SIEGE Engine. I change when it is applied. I change what can be done, but I do not change the mechanism of the system. If I want to do that, I'll play something else.

[Dracyian]

Maybe its just me, but the 5% increase in XP seems a little broken

What problems do you think it would create?

I'd just be worried it would speed up class growth a bit much, but that is just my personal opinion.

[vivsavage]

Maybe its just me, but the 5% increase in XP seems a little broken

What problems do you think it would create?

I'd just be worried it would speed up class growth a bit much, but that is just my personal opinion.

I'm not sure. If a elf is, for example, awarded 1000 xp, this would mean a human would take home 1050 xp. At a glance that doesn't seem so bad. It might not even equal the effect of having 3 primes.

[Dracyian]

True, i Was just thinking about Race abilities, all their stat changes is a sacrifice for one point here to add a point there and then some extra abilities.

What you could do instead of a third primes, you could allow your humans to have studied extra skills, techniques or whatever to make a effort to replace the third prime moer towards what the primes did.

I was just thinking if you take a class that hits level 12 at 100,000 exp the character now technical only needs to get 952,380 exp. Its not an early game advantage but a slight speed increase on late game levels, I guess its not that huge, I'm just leary about fussing with the exp system at all

[Fizz]

Personally, i've never liked the notion of treating all class abilities as prime. I think that largely defeats the purpose of having Primes. Namely, to create different characters: a ranger with Wisdom prime is different from a ranger with Dexterity prime, for instance. I like that different characters can be built so readily in this fashion. Whereas if all class abilities are prime, then the only way the characters differ is by what they're not good at and by what they're not going to be doing much.

What i've done with primes is allow each class to choose from two primes. So fighters must have either Strength or Dexterity prime, rogues must have Dexterity or Intelligence, etc etc.


-Fizz

[Dracyian]

Personally, i've never liked the notion of treating all class abilities as prime. I think that largely defeats the purpose of having Primes. Namely, to create different characters: a ranger with Wisdom prime is different from a ranger with Dexterity prime, for instance. I like that different characters can be built so readily in this fashion. Whereas if all class abilities are prime, then the only way the characters differ is by what they're not good at and by what they're not going to be doing much.

What i've done with primes is allow each class to choose from two primes. So fighters must have either Strength or Dexterity prime, rogues must have Dexterity or Intelligence, etc etc.


-Fizz

Just curious but lets say a rogue takes Int and Wis for primes (just being out there) does that change how you handle or have the player handle the character at all?

[vivsavage]

Personally, i've never liked the notion of treating all class abilities as prime. I think that largely defeats the purpose of having Primes. Namely, to create different characters: a ranger with Wisdom prime is different from a ranger with Dexterity prime, for instance. I like that different characters can be built so readily in this fashion. Whereas if all class abilities are prime, then the only way the characters differ is by what they're not good at and by what they're not going to be doing much.

I know what you mean, but my revision places emphasis on background to create greater differentiation between characters. So, yeah, their class skills will all be pretty consistent, but they will be very different in other ways.

[Fizz]

Just curious but lets say a rogue takes Int and Wis for primes (just being out there) does that change how you handle or have the player handle the character at all?

No, i don't think so. I always try to create multiple outs for my groups (always more than one way to slay the dragon, so to speak). So while the Int-Wis rogue may not be as good at sneaking he'll make up for it by finding / disarming traps and reading people / having good senses, etc. The character will find ways around challenges tailored to his strengths.

-Fizz

[Fizz]

I know what you mean, but my revision places emphasis on background to create greater differentiation between characters. So, yeah, their class skills will all be pretty consistent, but they will be very different in other ways.

Yeah, my assessment presumes the the baseline rules. It just removes a level of flexibility and customization that i think is a really clever / useful part of the system.

I wonder if the Trolls deliberately designed some classes with choice of prime in mind, as a method of class balance. For some classes (rangers for instance), the choice of prime can make a big difference. If all abilities are treated as prime, then rangers are effectively gaining an extra bonus while classes like, say, fighters gain no benefit at all. So you're changing the relative balance of the classes with each other.


-Fizz

[Treebore]

My house rules are in the online game forum, in the "Slavelords in the Wilderlands" game thread, 1st page, about the 6th post down. You can read my changes in detail, most of which I have been using for a good 5 years or more of very regular play.

[Dracyian]

Just curious but lets say a rogue takes Int and Wis for primes (just being out there) does that change how you handle or have the player handle the character at all?

No, i don't think so. I always try to create multiple outs for my groups (always more than one way to slay the dragon, so to speak). So while the Int-Wis rogue may not be as good at sneaking he'll make up for it by finding / disarming traps and reading people / having good senses, etc. The character will find ways around challenges tailored to his strengths.

-Fizz

That's awesome, I was just curious how you would handle some of the more out there choices, seems like this has a lot of thought and works out nice