Page 1 of 1

Inspire too good?

Posted: Fri 20 May 2016, 01:00
by gribble
In last nights session, a player rolled up a new Chronicler and we were all surprised by how powerful the Inspire ability is. In essence, it seemed to give the party an additional 1-3 successes on every roll that matters (Find the Path, Healing, combat rolls, etc.)

Worse, it seemed to actively dampen the contribution of other PCs. Once a PC stated they were going to attempt something, if the Chronicler got a success then it didn't actually matter what the initiating PC rolled anymore... the Chronicler had already succeeded on their behalf. In a couple of cases the initial PC even failed his roll, but "succeeded" due to the successes from the Chronicler.

Worse still, in combat against a single tough foe (a Deathworm), it made the fight a complete walkover. The Chronicler basically kept the Deathworm ineffective while the party slaughtered it. Combat against a single tough foe seems to have some issues in MYZ as it is, but this just turned what I thought would be an interesting and dangerous combat into a trifle.
(PS: Why does the Deathworm, described as covered in scales, not have some sort of Armor rating?)

I realise after re-reading the rules this morning that the Chronicler might have been doing it wrong by helping the Stalker (it seems you can't normally help on a specialist skill roll, though it isn't clear if this applies to Inspire rolls or not), but I still don't like the way the skill seemed to take away other PCs turns to shine.

So I'm thinking of making a house rule about the skill. Instead of generating automatic successes (when helping), or automatically cancelling successes (when hindering), successes on the Inspire roll provide additional modifications for the helped roll, or negative modifications for the hindered roll. This can exceed the normal limit of +3 modification from helping (and up to two others can also help as usual).

E.g. rolling to help an ally, the chronicler gets 2 successes. These add to the standard +1 modification for helping, giving the ally +3 modification on the action.

E.g. rolling to hinder an enemy, the chronicler rolls 1 success. This gives the enemy a -1 modification on the action.

Thoughts? Does this make it too weak? I think it's ok, as a +2 or more modification is already pretty good - equivalent to having good gear and stacks with actual gear as well.

Re: Inspire too good?

Posted: Fri 20 May 2016, 01:52
by Fenhorn
I can only agree with you on this.

If i would defend the chronicler role I could use:

* He contribute nothing unique to the group, he just helps someone else (and not on specialist skills either), so only basic skills.
* He, like everybody else needs to describe the his skill use, how he helps (or how he hinders). This can limit his skill use a bit.
* And of course he can't inspire someone if he is doing something else.

But, no, personally, I don't think this helps much. The role is OP and in my group we all saw that and we skipped the role (he became a NPC role, together with Boss and Slave).

In Genlab Alpha there is a role that can do a similar thing (I don't know what name the role have been given, I guess Shaman), the skill he has doesn't work exactly the same but the effect is the same. But for the Shaman, at least it take hours to predict the future. This character is even more a typical NPC role.

In Machinarium (not yet translated) there is a protocoldroid that can use his special skill Calculate (these are my translations, I don't know what names the devs. will use when they translate the book) to calculate probabilities. This skill doesn't work like Inspire either directly, but is in the same category, and the stunt of the skill (the skill only has one stunt) has the same effect, but instead of instant successes he gives bonus dices instead of direct successes (much much better).

I think that letting the successes become dice modifications (plus or minus depends on the target) instead of successes is good and something that will balance the skill (at least better than it is now). Edit: Perhaps letting the first success be +2 so using Inspire is potentially better than just helping (which is +1).

Re: Inspire too good?

Posted: Fri 20 May 2016, 03:09
by gribble
I think that letting the successes become dice modifications (plus or minus depends on the target) instead of successes is good and something that will balance the skill (at least better than it is now). Edit: Perhaps letting the first success be +2 so using Inspire is potentially better than just helping (which is +1).
Thanks - good to know this change is better in line with Mechanarium changes. I'm pretty happy with the Seer ability being stronger in effect - as you say it's much more limited in it's use.

Perhaps I wasn't being clear, but what I propose would have this effect. Successes (6s) on the Inspire roll would each provide an additional modification on the help roll (beyond the normal +1 for helping). So on a failed roll, the GM can either say the help is useless (negating the normal +1) or give the +1 with a bit of a penalty (like a point of trauma or other complication). On one success, the additional modification for that one success would make the help roll +2 (so always better than the default help action on a successful Inspire). Each stunt generated would add an additional +1 modification. So rolling 2 successes (1 to successfuly active the skill with one stunt) would give a total modification of +3 to the initial roll for the help action - i.e.: 3 additional dice to roll on the check.

Re: Inspire too good?

Posted: Fri 20 May 2016, 09:19
by soda
Oh, now I get why everyone has been saying inspire is over powered. We've been playing it as added dice modifications all along, and felt it was a little bit weak! :lol:

Re: Inspire too good?

Posted: Sat 21 May 2016, 09:43
by Tomas
Good discussin here. The reasoning behind the Inspire design is pretty much Fenhorn's points, as well as the idea (which you mention) that Inspire should be better than default help. But I do think your conclusion here is valid, and giving +2 for the first Inspire success and +1 for additional successes seems like a good houserule. :)

Re: Inspire too good?

Posted: Sat 21 May 2016, 14:32
by Jurij 1138
The way I use it is that the target of Inspire needs to succeed with at least one 6 or the whole attempt fails. That way the focus shifts from the Chronicler to the target.

Re: Inspire too good?

Posted: Mon 23 May 2016, 00:36
by gribble
Thanks all for the replies.

I did consider ruling that the person being inspired has to generate the success, and Inspire can only generate stunts. However, while this helps with the spotlight sharing, it doesn't really help with the OP nature (which is more to do with the number of stunts this skill generates).

I think we'll try out successes on Inspire translating to additional modifications on the initial roll (on top of the standard +1 for helping, i.e. +2 for the first success, +1 for each additional success) and see how that goes. Of course the PC chronicler has now pulled out of the game (after one session), so it'll be a while until we can actually do that!

Re: Inspire too good?

Posted: Wed 08 Jun 2016, 17:22
by SCalvin
The way we used Inspire, it gave bonus dice the same way regular aid did. Only Inspire is much broader.