Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Brainstorming Topic!

[Bardiche]

I'm wondering if the all ST->MT floor can be converted into a Sealstone as well? Prolly more positive for players than dungeon, though?

Multitarget - One person on the team's actions all become Multitargetted. However, the damage, healing, chances or stat effects of these effects is reduced by 50%. (For example, Deadly Fingertips has a max 50% chance of hitting all targets.) This applies even if there is only one character.

^^^

It's already a sealstone, bub. Well, in a sense.

I meant to take effect on the entire allied and opposing team, with no reductions or whatever applied. The current Multitarget Sealstone places a heavy penalty on whoever bears it, making it a very unattractive choice. At least for me, until I figure someone out with excessive overkill damage.

[Nephrite]

The problem with that idea is that it potentially makes certain dungeon fights completely impossible!

[SnowFire]

Bardiche: Agree with Nephrite on that.... for example, on Floor 4, there was FFX-2 Thief Rikku.  She's got high-speed and Stop, a rarely blocked status.  She's not actually that scary due to her support being meh and only knocking out one person, but unless almost your entire team is status-immune, she just wins the fight nearly immediately with a brutally fast MT Stop.

Jo'ou: I still think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.  You think that Tension is underpowered.  Fine.  There are a few sealstones currently that also are pretty tricky to use, but eh, so it goes.

As for interpretation issues, uh, I wouldn't even know why you'd think that'd be hard.  In fact, the Status Protection Law already uses stat fiddling (and the old Firefly kinda did?), so making an issue out of this is really a more general issue.   The sealstone is clear: it's a 10% flat boost.  If you normally would peg an ARPG character at 100% speed, they're now 110%.  If for some reason you'd peg that ARPG character as faster or slower, take whatever it normally is and add 10%.  As for SRPGs, again, it's obvious - add a 10% boost to whatever you'd normally use!

(To go into it in a bit more detail...  okay, I'm assuming that what you're getting at is that not all game stats are created equal?  Except that the assumption with all these stat-fiddling effects is that they happen AFTER the game system is done.  In other words, if somebody declared that their speed should be unaffected by Status Symbol because the speed stat in their game is nearly irrelevant, they'd get a trout slap.  Or for a more concrete example, a 10% boost in a FE character's defense, literally, is worth more than a 10% reduction in damage...  but not for any of these sealstones, which simplify things by taking the end result and pushing it up/down.  Which is not to say that stat penalties can't be cheesed - plenty of effects are along the lines of a straight-up "70% chance of paralysis" or Tidus's Initiative that really do ignore the caster's stats - but not things like speed, damage, defense, and so on.)

And giving examples of characters that don't work well with the Sealstone...  uh, yeah, they don't.  You probably shouldn't stick Resourceless on Lilka either.  My assumption is more that a team would take slightly below-average speed and above to use with this - a ton of duelers in the DL are "average" speed, and such a team would solidly out-speed them now.  Obviously there should be one or two fast characters as well, and they won't mind being even faster.

As for Death, the idea is very flavor based: it's trying to model damn permadeaths from Fire Emblem style games.  It isn't an idea that should be encouraged very much due to the path splits it can encourage, but it seems reasonable to have around.  I don't see it as too bad a function-flavor disconnect, either: you're getting "half a character," hence the discount.  (Actually, Tension was very flavor-based in its start as well, as plenty of RPGs have the obligatory "timed escape from exploding castle/house/space station/etc.," so I was thinking what that would imply as a Sealstone.)

[SnowFire]

Anyway, as for other ideas on the Death Sealstone, some options...

Self-Destruct: At the beginning of a battle, the holder of this Sealstone can sacrifice themselves to do damage equal to their current HP to one target.  The damage is capped at 1 PCHP max, and is non-elemental / non-evadable / doesn't trigger reactions.  They can't be revived until the next floor.

Martyr: At the beginning of a battle, the holder of this Sealstone can sacrifice themselves to make the team halve all damage and immune all negative status for one round.  They can't be revived until the next floor.

Problem: Both these stones are all upside.  You're only taking the permadeath voluntarily in both cases, so you won't use 'em unless you're willing to pay the cost.  They seem pretty obvious as to how to use, too - just stick it on Rand / Onix / DW1 Hero and blow them up in the really tough battle.  If someone can figure out a flavorful downside, then these might work as less swingy variants of Death.  (Alternatively: Just charge a point cost for 'em, but it seems that isn't in vogue.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Jo'ou: I still think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.  You think that Tension is underpowered.  Fine.  There are a few sealstones currently that also are pretty tricky to use, but eh, so it goes.

It's not that. It's that I find the concept impossible to balance properly. Your current idea is severely underpowered (and I honestly would argue that you're severely underselling how big a deal having a hard time limit regardless of what happens would be. With a team against that sealstone, every enemy would set its gears into forcing them to waste time. I can't see how that's arguable. The enemies are dead set on getting you killed in any one fight. One of them succeeds on making you waste enough turns, now you're done and over with). Fiddle with it, though, and it becomes overpowered and dumb. That's not a good thing.

As for interpretation issues, uh, I wouldn't even know why you'd think that'd be hard.  In fact, the Status Protection Law already uses stat fiddling (and the old Firefly kinda did?), so making an issue out of this is really a more general issue.   The sealstone is clear: it's a 10% flat boost.  If you normally would peg an ARPG character at 100% speed, they're now 110%.  If for some reason you'd peg that ARPG character as faster or slower, take whatever it normally is and add 10%.  As for SRPGs, again, it's obvious - add a 10% boost to whatever you'd normally use!

And I disagree, because they're working with wonky bases to begin with - this is not a fault inherent to the sealstone, but it's a strike against it from a pre-existing problem source. For an example, some people see all ARPG characters as average speed. Some don't, and the thresholds are fluid. Some people see SRPG movement as initiative speed in the cases where it's applicable. Some people see Purim as inherently fast. Some don't. Some people see Dhaos doubleturning Belial because he moves faster than Hasted Cless' walking speed, even though Cless' walking speed is slower than his running speed and Haste doesn't affect that. That probably wouldn't make any issues bigger than they are, but that's because they're big to begin with. Not to mention that I find the idea of fiddling with SRPG initiative in a way as artificial as this very difficult - and I honestly don't want to see a sealstone murking something that's already trainwrecky even further, even if it's more conceptual than practical.

(To go into it in a bit more detail...  okay, I'm assuming that what you're getting at is that not all game stats are created equal?  Except that the assumption with all these stat-fiddling effects is that they happen AFTER the game system is done.  In other words, if somebody declared that their speed should be unaffected by Status Symbol because the speed stat in their game is nearly irrelevant, they'd get a trout slap.

Oh, but that's exactly what I'm getting at as well. Not all stats are created equal, and that inequality -will- carry over to other games. Because the way those stats work in their game affects their in-game performance. But that's not really the issue there to me, no. It's not that it's trainwrecky to assume a straight 10%, it's that it's dropping into some already murky bases. But this is very minor compared to what makes this sealstone suck.

And giving examples of characters that don't work well with the Sealstone...  uh, yeah, they don't.  You probably shouldn't stick Resourceless on Lilka either.  My assumption is more that a team would take slightly below-average speed and above to use with this - a ton of duelers in the DL are "average" speed, and such a team would solidly out-speed them now.  Obviously there should be one or two fast characters as well, and they won't mind being even faster.

I gave those exact examples because they're shining ideas of what kind of PC you wanted to help with it, but actually doesn't do anything for them because of the sealstone's fatal flaw - and the ones that -do- get helped by it don't get helped enough to make up for the insane pressure this sealstone brings as it stand, because a 10% boost will often mean that floors may get redesigned to make those thresholds harder to reach and to account for that little countdown meter eventually - it's essentially painting a bullseye sign on a team's forehead in the long term no matter what. No character would mind being faster in a vaccuum. However, all characters would mind being a bit faster in exchange for getting a disadvantage that will ensure they eventually lose -no matter what they do- sooner than they'd like, and nobody benefits enough for that downside to be worth the boost. It's the essential reason why I find the Sealstone entirely useless. And the real trainwreck interp-wise, to me, is how do you see phases, and it's on those subtleties. Would you assume a battle that ends before all characters have a go to be one where a turn passes by? I certainly would (and I find the contrary assumption to make the sealstone abusable as fuck). That already devalues the sealstone because they will spend five phases -minimum- to clear a floor, and that's almost half of your base threshold already (one third of the higher threshold), and it also means that each battle will have its own phase clockdown because the amount of characters in a phase affects very obviously how long one of them takes, and you have to keep your eyes handy on all these new factors on a setting that's already way too research and minutia-heavy. It's a bad sealstone for the voters as well, and one that will get often neglected on its entirety or just push people away from voting entirety because it's so convoluted (and I find many of these sealstones have that effect as well. You can see that, as they panned out, I'm not terribly enamored of sealstones, so don't take it personally. They're a cool concept on paper, but feels like they didn't pan out well).

I'm sure you can see the amount of fatal traps the concept has fell into as it stands. It's not quite the minutiae of this sealstone that get me (although they only hurt its case). It's the core idea. I can't in good conscience find why this sealstone could work well. The intentions were good, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions

As for Death, the idea is very flavor based: it's trying to model damn permadeaths from Fire Emblem style games. It isn't an idea that should be encouraged very much due to the path splits it can encourage, but it seems reasonable to have around.  I don't see it as too bad a function-flavor disconnect, either: you're getting "half a character," hence the discount.  (Actually, Tension was very flavor-based in its start as well, as plenty of RPGs have the obligatory "timed escape from exploding castle/house/space station/etc.," so I was thinking what that would imply as a Sealstone.)

I'd just get rid of the one-shot ID resistance entirely and make it a straight point buffer to mess with the concept of permadeath if you really wanted the flavor to work out. I think just the point-buffing in exchange for floor permadeath is more elegant, but, as said before, no idea on whether this Sealstone is worth the cost or not. You generally want to keep it simple with Sealstones.

[Nephrite]

I have no problem with, say, returning half the cost (rounded up) for someone with that sealstone.

[SnowFire]

Re interpretation issues: Uhh...  Exacerbating interpretation issues is bad, yes, but then you say that "That probably wouldn't make any issues bigger than they are, but that's because they're big to begin with."  So.  Uh.  Yes, it's a general problem in the Dungeon.  No, it doesn't really get worse with this Sealstone?  As you admit?

And again, the issue of stat modification is already used for one Sealstone.  We haven't seen any Status teams go yet, but I can't imagine that the problems will be that difficult.  For a hypothetical Staus Law team with the 10% blanket penalty...  one voter sees Nel as dead average speed?  Now she's 90% speed.  Another person sees her as fast and 115% speed?  Now she's 105% speed.  And if Breath of Fire 1 Bleu/Deis is on the team, and the person tries to claim that because her spell damage is constant it shouldn't be affected by the Sealstone, we drop 'em into the Corel Prison.  Easy.

As for voting issues, you're preaching to the converted.  I complained about Sealstones being too complex as well before, multiple times, and would probably prefer the Dungeon to not have 'em.  BUT.  If we're doing Sealstones, I don't see why Tension is any more complicated than the others.  If any battle stalls the team too well to make 'em use up their alloted rounds, then vote against them.  Certainly something that can be gutchecked rather than calculated out in long form.  (It's certainly much easier to figure out than, say, the Multitarget Sealstone when used by status attackers, who start making the battle state very confusing because "the 4 enemy team members got hit by 50% MT instant death, what happens when these two survive, what happens when THIS set of two survive, what if we got unlucky and three survived," etc.)

As for the general power level, we're going in circles, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.  You don't think any team would want it as it stands; fine, but I don't believe that.

Re Death: Yes, that's how it started (no special ID protection), and that is more elegant.  It's also swingy as hell because one fast ID spammer ruins the day of this character, and it's hugely important if this speedy ID spammer is on battle 2.  It's even more of a headache if it's a percent chance of ID, where maaaybe that character is around in later battles.  The result, of course, is that the team would have to avoid floors with speedy IDers in the first few battles.  The ID-protection is less elegant, perhaps, but it saves headaches.  If you want something simpler, you can always say "blanket immune to ID."

[dude789]

To give an idea of how dungeon breaking the overwhelming power sealstone would be, Lemina who is currently a 1.0 pick, if equipped with the overwhelming power sealstone whould have MT damage that ranges from high 2HKO to OHKO off of significantly above average speed. She isn't the only one either. Lucca gets a similar boost, and Mitsuru would probably have a OHKO on all of the floors. These characters are cheap enough that you still have enough points to easily create a team that can power through the rest of the fights if they die after carrying the team through the first few.  

[Nephrite]

I understand. It was simply a suggestion of something along those lines. Obviously the numbers could be tweaked somewhat! Maybe a 50% bonus? I dunno, it strikes me as something that's extremely backfire-y on the higher floors since you're losing someone from your team for most of the time.

EDIT: I could also increase the point value for people under a certain threshold? Hmm.

[Talaysen]

Overwhelming Power - One character on your team has their damage and all stats increased by 100%. However, after this character takes 5 actions (skipping their turn does not count) they die and cannot be resurrected for the duration of the floor.

Just want to point out that if you increase the damage AND stats, people are going to be doing around 4x normal damage.  Just increase all stats and leave it at that.  Their damage should increase from that, unless it doesn't actually depend on stats (in which case that would be a bad character to use this on!).

I do approve of the sealstone itself and the nerf to 50%, though.  There might be another way to balance it but I can't think of one at the moment.  Maybe some kind of stat decay (including mHP?) as turns pass or something.  Hm, that does kind of go away from the spirit of the stone though.  Oh well, I'll just toss the idea up there anyway and maybe someone can think of a way to make it work (or just make it a different stone).

Regarding the Tension debate.  I honestly don't see anything wrong with the straight speed boost.  As Snowfire mentioned, it's applied after all stat calculations and incredibly intuitive because of it.  If it had been a 10% boost to a speed STAT or something, then that would actually be harder to deal with, but it explicitly does not work like that.

On the other hand, I do agree with Jo'ou on the "rounds" part.  Rounds are generally not easy to interp in a CTB system, which I believe most people use in the dungeon.  Personally, I'd just say a round is when an average 100% speed person would act since that makes more intuitive sense than anything else.  But it's kind of something that people haven't really defined for themselves, which is going to cause extra interp headaches for not much gain.

[Magic Fanatic]

I do approve of the sealstone itself and the nerf to 50%, though.  There might be another way to balance it but I can't think of one at the moment.  Maybe some kind of stat decay (including mHP?) as turns pass or something.  Hm, that does kind of go away from the spirit of the stone though.  Oh well, I'll just toss the idea up there anyway and maybe someone can think of a way to make it work (or just make it a different stone).

Why not add that whenever they take damage, they take damage to their MHP instead of their CHP (with healing only affecting CHP).  With the extra defense stats, they'll have a harder time taking damage at all (what with all the evasion and hard-to-break-new-defenses thing), but when they do take damage, they'll feel it.  There'll also never really be a crisis zone for FFVIII characters and anyone else that uses that system.

Either that, or one could make it like TimeLord's Overdrive, and just make the character dead/unrevivable after the end of the battle instead.

[Nephrite]

Let's see. Here are a few new ideas:

Jeff, Earthbound 1.5

Pros: Great damage, some other interesting options in his gadgets.
Cons: Slow, easily killed. There's a reason he's a 1.5 in the dungeon.


Kurando, Shadow Hearts 2 (w/Tsukiyomi) 2.0

Pros: Pretty fast damage dealer with some healing. Gets amazingly faster later on.
Cons: All single target and doesn't get that fast until Floor 6 or so.


Ivan, Golden Sun / The Lost Age (w/ Djinn choices) 3.5 or 3.0

Pros: Very fast, very versatile character. Has a huge array of options depending on Djinn setup. Gets TLA stuff at Floor 8.
Cons: Djinn will be pretty much set in stone per-floor and when you use them you tend to downgrade your class. Ivan's durability is not notoriously good.


Yosuke Hanamura, Persona 4 2.0

Pros: Very, very helpful character. Sukukaja is a great spell and even has healing early on.
Cons: No revival, lightning weakness really hurts until later.

Chie Satonaka, Persona 4 2.0

Pros: Great physical damage with some passable magic damage. MT damage later is great.
Cons: A little slow. The magic damage is useless later. Hurts herself to deal good damage.

Yukiko Amagi, Persona 4 2.0

Pros: Huge SP pool and good damage early. Gets healing and revival.
Cons: Totally single element that's easily blocked. Ice weakness.

Teddie, Persona 4 2.0

Pros: Amazing team member. All the Makajas you could want. Some damage, too.
Cons: Always will have that lightning weakness. Doesn't start getting new skills for quite some time.

Naoto Shirogane, Persona 4 1.5

Pros: Has no weaknesses. Pretty versatile skillset that's helpful against dungeon foes.
Cons: ...Well, except bosses. Takes a long time before she'll get anything new.

[074]

Hm.

Commentary on P4 characters:

re:Teddie, Naoto; It's notable that those two will have AMAZINGLY bad resource issues early on as well.  Ma-Kajas cost 24 SP, I'm pretty sure Mediarama costs something like 12 or so.  Hamaon/Mudoon is also 12 per shot, to my memory (too lazy to look it up).

Chie: Hates fire early on; this is pretty big in my opinion.  Skull Crack's apparently decent early on for what it matters.

Yosuke: Suku is great, but it IS ST (and 12 SP; pretty expensive for early).  Him and Chie wouldn't get Endure until...Floor 5 or so, I'd like to say.

...hilariously, though, the game is amazingly easy for deciding who gets what when thanks to how areas are split up--seven dungeons, seven (or six, if you consider that Floor 7 is THE final fight) initial floors (or eight, if you're counting FRUE END).
(Yukiko's Castle, Bathhouse, Strip Club, Video Game, Laboratory, Heaven, Magatsu)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I think both Naoto and Yosuke need to be taken down a peg. Yosuke's utility doesn't translate as well, and his healing capping off at Diarama is baaaaaad. Being weak to Lightning until floor 4 also blows. Naoto doesn't get the MT ID until floor 6, and while the ST ID works fine for accuracy, I'm not sure a pure ID whore is even worth a 2.0 slot, let alone a 2.5, even if she's fast. She basically fills BoF2 Jean's role (who is a 1.5), trading concrete durability and ID accuracy for equipment hax and speed.

EDIT: Nama also overrates Teddie/Naoto resource problems early. Sure, he may have only, say, five/six shots of MT healing or damage early, but on floor 1 and 2, do you need more than that if your team design is good enough? Don't think so. They will be fine. Yukiko and Teddie -might- need to be pegged down due to weakness and overall durability woes anyhow, though, they be frail. On the other hand, healers with actual MT damage.

[dude789]

I'd be more worried about Yukiko's healing being hideous on floors 3 and 4 along with struggling on floors 2 and 5. This is somewhat balanced by her gamebest damage up until the end.

[Nephrite]

Yosuke's one of those "Probably too good for 2.0" things, but yeah, I can see it. I'll try him at 2.0, Naoto probably works better as a 2.0 too. Chie and Yukiko miiiight work as 1.5s? I'm not sure.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'm mostly thinking Naoto needs to go to 1.5. Too strict a niche, and takes too long to get the MT ID while still sucking at durability. Her damage sucks always. Yosuke feels dandy as a 2.0, while Chie I'd see as possibly a bit good for 1.5, due to uh still having Taru from the get-go, and that will let her pull weight on other fights.

[074]

Notably: Chie gets Mabufu around the end of Floor 1 or the start of Floor 2.  Yosuke gets a big SP boost for free around the same time, and Tentarafoo late Floor 2, for what it matters, as well as Magaru.  Basically, P4 characters get the benefits of surprisingly early MT.

...and yeah.  Yosuke's got the benefits of Wind damage (less than common element!) and decent all-round stats...but the problem of not having too much good outside of damage until Masukukaja (Uh...I'd like to think Saner Lite without the speed boost, really.  Dekaja's nice, but it's arguably limited in what it can affect)  Also, yeah, his healing -blows- past Floor 3 or so.

[EDIT] ...yeah, 1.5 fits Naoto more.  She has an amazingly limited niche, and it's ST until Floor 6.

[Nephrite]

I can do that.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Kurando added, but not Shania? Bring back Shania and Noa~!

[Nephrite]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about her. Shania would be a 3.5.

Noa... I dunno.

[dude789]

Since a lot of people have started playing VPDS, I thought a few characters could work in the dungeon.

Wylfred 3.5 (Choose one plume skill on floors 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10. Starts with Vali's Awakening)
Pros: Good stats, damage, and he counters. He works well with other VP characters as well. Plume Skills are extremely powerful, and the right one can end a fight before it begins. Becomes very powerful on the aftergame floors.
Cons: Average speed. Each plume skills can only be used once a floor and he isn't much without them. AP limitations can prevent plume skill spamming.

Plume Skill Guidlines:

Floor 1: Vali's Awakening
Floor 2: Gleipnir's Bond's or Vidar's Hush
Floor 4: Avalanche of the Jotun, Bladr's Pact, Biflindi's Shield, Eir's Mercy, Hervor's Blessing, Hoard of the Dvengar, Hod's Smiting, Inspiration of the Alfar, Kvasir's Mead, Ratatoskr's Scandal, Veifr's Warcry or one of the previous skills.
Floor 6: Angrboda's Allure, Fafnir's Heart, Fury of the Aesir, Hoenir's Arc, Andvari's Bequest, or one of the previous skills.

Liesolette 2.0
Pros: Very versatile mage with great buffs and status effects. Healing and revival are nice as are counters. Works well with other VP characters.
Cons: Durability is lacking. Average speed. Her MT options are extremely limited and rather expensive.

Spell Guidelines:

Floor 1: Spell Reinforce, Might Reinforce, Reflect Sorcery, Fire Storm, Lightning Bolt
Floor 2: Frigid Damsel, Guard Reinforce, Heal
Floor 3: Invoke Feather, Great Magic Capable Staff
Floor 4: Normalize, Poison Blow, Sap Guard, Sap Power, Suspend Motion
Floor 6: Dark Savior, Prevent Sorcery

[Talaysen]

Plume skills are once per battle, though.

Also I don't think splitpath PCs are a good idea in general.

[dude789]

I meant that plume skills should probably be limited to once a floor like overdrive because they are extremely overpowered if they can be used over and over. Sorry about being unclear.  

As for Liesolette, I'm pretty sure all of the mages are almost identical except for starting spells. I just picked Liesolette because she was my favorite. If its a problem just change it to Lockswell instead.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Non-Vali's Plume skills are DL-illegal to me and I would feel very iffy about voting on them even in the dungeon. Maybe if you permanently sacrificed a PC for one.