Of Scholars And Snagators

Well, I'd hoped to be able to release the first true Beta of Earth Delta this weekend, but that ain't happening, and probably not next weekend, either, since there's a local SF con that will be digging in to my "sitting around writing up mutants" time. A lot of stuff is coming together nicely. I've rounded out mutations and human gifts, begun filling out the tech item treasures, and added in more monsters and the like. I have some nifty ideas for the Survivialist (Ranger) I need to finish up on. The Scholar, however, continues to be a real pain. Read on for more whining, and maybe a cool preview monster or two!

Scholars

Here's the thing. I utterly love the Assessment mechanic. It's clean enough that it fits within the Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition paradigm, but distinctive enough that it's flavorful. I also love the idea of the scholar as a non-ranged, but also non-mêlée, healer. He has to get up next to you to do most of his best stuff. The problem is that, mechanically, the more powers I write the more assessments make him work like a striker or a controller. The need to switch focus between ally and enemy and pick appropriate powers is limiting, but if I broaden assessments, they become too over-powering, unless I make the benefit of a single assessment too weak, which makes the scholar less useful in all but solo encounters.. and round and round it goes. One solution is to drop the idea of assessment points and just make it a boolean "If you're assessing this target, do X", which could work, but it doesn't solve problem 2.

Problem 2 is that the nature of the scholar's powers don't fit with the idea of an implement-using class. I can drop the implement easily enough, I suppose, but I really want the scholar to fit into the "tech" power source, tool-using characters. He really was just becoming a warlord with either too little or too much damage and not enough ranged healing. (Whiny voice) Class design is haaaard!

So I ended up working on other stuff, despite having 5 levels of Scholar powers I wasn't happy with. One such was a thing I'd been planning for a long time, since it dates back to my earliest gaming days... I mean, really early, 1980, High School. Making cool potions and powders and so on from scavenged mutant body parts. Mechanically, these are "consumables", but there's a "Skin & Gut" Technique you can use to get components, and I plan to add notes to most creatures saying they can be scavenged to use thus-and-such parts for thus-and-such consumable... and this got my mind working, basically, on comparing mutant consumables to tech consumables, and thinking that it may be easier and more honest to combine the mechanics for effectively identical items into one block with different flavor text called out. That is, fire retardant spray (a tech item), and blazebane oil (a mutant item made from the drippy glands of mutants with cold powers) are mechanically identical, or very close. That got me thinking about "old tech" vs "new tech", about choices characters, players, and DMs might make about how to accomplish goals, and since my subconscious was already working on the Scholar, it occurred to me that the Scholar could be, in some ways, the opposite of the Scavenger -- the Scavenger works with the tools of the past, the Scholar with the tools of the present. Playing on the Shaman/Wise One archetype, the Scholar has a pouch full of herbs, powders, oils, and other such things that allow him to perform a wide range of effects. He fights primarily with a staff. The "up close and personal" nature of his healing still works. His most interesting [W] attacks may require a staff, just as most of the Rogue's powers require a light blade or equivalent. I haven't actually started this redesign yet, but I think it has potential. I also think Assessment, as a mechanic, has potential, and I might save it for a striker or controller class.

One thing which occurs to me as I work on ED is that my core design goal of "no power based classes" means that there's a good niche for some ideas I've been having for "more martial" versions of archetypes like barbarians and monks, both of which fit into the post-apocalyptic world. The whole "I shoot primal fire out of my eyes and summong raging spirits" model for the barbarian, in particular, bugs me, as it's damn far from Conan, the platonic ideal upon which the class should be based. So that's on the far-future "to do" list.

Oh, yeah, I promised some preview treats, didn't I?

The Snagator is a snake/alligator hybrid, which flies. It's also Exhibit A in why Designing For A Post Apocalyptic Game is fun. In classic Dungeons & Dragons, filled to the brim with the goofiest-ass monsters to ever crawl out of a demented human mind (and I am so sad that my beloved charcharodoom never seems to make anyone's "Best of" or "Worst of" lists), you still need some fluff about "mad wizards" or "dark gods of chaos" or "strange magical energies". For Earth Delta, all I have to do is say "Radiation!", and it's done. Yay, bad science! The original Gamma World was big on fish that turned you to stone, creatures that changed shape for no good reason, and killer fungus. How can I do otherwise?