Author Topic: New Arcadia/Wild Talents errata  (Read 6751 times)

MrTact

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New Arcadia/Wild Talents errata
« on: December 16, 2011, 10:36:51 AM »
Forgive me, I'm about to put on my Pedantic Rules Asshole hat. If you don't want to hear it, by all means ignore this post. I tried to resist posting this, but ultimately, I decided that since a lot of people will likely listen to the AP podcast to learn the rules, it was worthwhile to put it up.

On Willpower: First off, you guys are getting screwed.  Any time you roll a set of natural 10s, you are supposed to get a point of Willpower immediately. You guys roll 10s a lot, so you should take advantage of this.

Spending Willpower: You are allowed to spend up to 2 will to add dice to your roll. It's equivalent to aiming that takes zero time.

In the spirit of that, any time you have to make a Stability check and you have more than 4 current will, you should probably burn 2 will to add to the roll, since you will lose more than that anyway if you fail.

Shifting hit location: This is an optional rule, but the recommended implementation is that you spend the attack's width in will to shift it one location, not 1 will. (You can, of course, houserule it as you wish. I'm just saying it's not vanilla WT.)

Multiple actions: At one point, someone whose char has 2hd in multiple actions was adding the 2hd to everything they did. Actually, spending an action to set up MA gives you a pool of bonus dice equal to the width of the roll. So the 2hd means spend one action & get 2 REGULAR dice that you can add to future rolls. When you use them, though, they get depleted and you have to use your MA power again to replenish that pool. Ironically, 2hd in MA isn't really suitable for a multiple action, because the rules don't favor combining an action that has a small number of hard dice.

To do what you want, take Augment and Variable. 2hd that you can add to any action is something like 108 points. (9/die, 18/hd, 2hd = 36, x3 qualities = 108.) This is basically the Aces power without the will cost.

Ross, during the fight at the prison, said something like "They're powers, they only compare width" when comparing a 4x7 defense against a 3x8 attack. Powers don't enjoy any special exemption from the rules of timing unless they have Interference. What that guy could have done, though, is use his width 4 set as an attack, which would have reduced the attacker's pool down to 2x8, so reducing the damage he took.

In the same fight, there was some question about Median's force blast, and it was concluded because it was only 3 dice, it just did shock. Actually, miracles do Shock & Killing unless you take a flaw to reduce them to only shock. It's only Body-based attacks (aka Brawling) that determine damage type by the number of dice.

Tadanori Oyama

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Re: New Arcadia/Wild Talents errata
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2011, 11:21:47 AM »
A rougher way to do Multiple Actions is to make it Permanent.

Useful (Multiple actions), 2 per
Permanent, 4 per
Always On, -1 per

5 per die, 10 per hard die, so for 20 points (still not a small amount) and your Multiple Action die pool will automatically refresh itself at the start of each round.

clockworkjoe

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Re: New Arcadia/Wild Talents errata
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2011, 01:34:00 AM »
Quote
Ross, during the fight at the prison, said something like "They're powers, they only compare width"

eh, the standard attack rules don't always make sense when they're exotic attacks or defenses and sometimes you don't compare height and width when doing opposed checks. A hyperdodge should have an advantage against a normal melee attack 

honestly I don't think I've run any campaign for any system exactly rules as written - D&D, WT, even MAOCT and CoC. I tend to streamline it (at least from my perspective) so I can at least be consistent about it. It doesn't help that no one in the RPPR group cares about the rules anymore since Dan and Bill are gone ;_;

I know I skipped over the get willpower for rolling 10s thing because I mentioned it at least once during the campaign but everyone forgot about it so I stopped caring. I mean, if the players actually brought it up, I wouldn't stop them from getting
the WP but no one ever did.

The spend two willpower to gain +2d isn't mentioned the WT reference sheet nor is the writing of the rule very clear on that point.

That's the main thing I think. I try to run the game as straight as possible but some rules just get forgotten or are interpreted in a different way or are houseruled by the GM because of a personal disagreement with the rules.

crawlkill

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Re: New Arcadia/Wild Talents errata
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2011, 09:03:28 AM »
I only ever get disappointed when a misread rule detracts from player tension in a scene. because the only true bliss I know is hearing panic creep into a player's voice. 's why I like the three strikes death save system from 4E, holds back instant punishment but gets the dread mounting real well. having tried to read Wild Talents after deciding I loved New Arcadia, I have to say that I'm stunned that you guys use the rules as well as you do. how many hours of the game have you put out now? 20+? and between that and my skimming the core I still don't feel like I have a full grasp of the system? I've learned languages in fewer manhours than that.

clockworkjoe

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Re: New Arcadia/Wild Talents errata
« Reply #4 on: December 20, 2011, 03:43:39 PM »
The first 6 episodes alone are almost 30 hours long (12 sessions of play) and there's a LOT left to go.

MrTact

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Re: New Arcadia/Wild Talents errata
« Reply #5 on: February 13, 2012, 12:47:32 AM »
The spend two willpower to gain +2d isn't mentioned the WT reference sheet nor is the writing of the rule very clear on that point.
After you posted this, I went back and reread it & realized it is, in fact, a little ambiguous. As it happens, just now I was flipping through some old Cult of ORE postings looking for something else and came across this post by Shane Ivey, which seems pretty authoritative:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/cult-of-ore/YY7WlkLiSoE/JHvHQLOELHkJ