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Melee vs. Area spells

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Sun, 11/11/2012 - 18:52
questccg
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Hi all,

Okay so I have another area (other than the random dice rolling) that I have *concern* about: melee vs. area spells!

Let me explain (short explanation):

-When you encounter a monster, you draw the topmost card on the Encounter Deck.
-The card itself will indicate how many monster you must fight to win the battle.
-The number of monsters (Square wooden cubes) are put into the same room as the player.
-The player keeps the monster card and places 1 square wooden cube on it (so that you know the *White cubes* are skeletons - as an example).

Fighters only have melee attacks, so do rangers (ranged also but only target 1 monster at a time) and thieves. Where the trickiness happens is when you introduce Magical classes such as clerics, paladins and mages (especially).

The magical classes can cast *spells*. Clerical ones for the cleric and paladin. The mages use their own spells.

Now if you consider *area of effect*, you would want spells that could target a certain amount of units as opposed to melee... That is where things get tricky.

If you allow *melee* - monsters are hard fought one at a time.

If you also introduce *area* spells, how do you control the health stat for a group of monsters as opposed to a single unit??? It also needs to work with *melee* combat when your non-spell bound players attack the same monster or monster(s)... Hmm...

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Mon, 11/12/2012 - 22:21
#1
questccg
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Anybody have any ideas?

questccg wrote:
Okay so I have another area (other than the random dice rolling) that I have *concern* about: melee vs. area spells!...

Anybody have any ideas?

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Mon, 11/12/2012 - 22:44
#2
voodoodog
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One for the Gurus...

This one's a bit of a stumper, but I'm sure some of the real Gaming Gurus here have a few solutions or suggestions. Where's Gary Gygax (RIP) when you need him?

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Mon, 11/12/2012 - 23:06
#3
questccg
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Genuine difficulty

voodoodog wrote:
This one's a bit of a stumper, but I'm sure some of the real Gaming Gurus here have a few solutions or suggestions. Where's Gary Gygax (RIP) when you need him?

I think this is even a problem in your traditional RPG! I mean if you can use an area spell which targets 5 units, are you going to track on paper the health of those 5 units... That's why computers are great since they can track so many things and make them transparent when they are really a difficulty in other genres of games (tabletop, RPG, etc.)

But one thing is for sure, area spells are handled by D&D rules: things like Stinking Cloud or Chain Lightning, etc.

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Tue, 11/13/2012 - 10:49
#4
Orangebeard
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Tracking

Assuming I understand the question correctly, I can think of a couple of different approaches.

1) Treat the health of the entire enemy group as a single total. As the player damages the enemy health total, enemy cubes are removed from the board at the player's discretion. Instead of worrying about the health of each individual monster, when the player does enough damage to the group to kill an individual monster, the player can remove one monster cube. Alternatively, a rule could exist that says the player must remove the closest cube when they have inflicted enough damage.

2) Treat *area* spells as "all or nothing" spells. For example, a mage casts an *area* spell that targets up to 3 monster cubes. Roll a die for each monster cube; if the roll is successful, the cube is removed; if the roll fails, then the monster remains on the board. A weak *area* spell may affect fewer targets or may only kill the monster on a 1 in 6 chance. By way of comparison, a powerful *area* spell may affect many targets and kills each monster on a 2 in 3 chance.

It may be possible to combine these 2 suggestions on *area* spells by rolling a damage die for each monster targeted by the spell. The total damage is added and enough monsters are removed to equal the damage dealt. Partial damage on a monster is ignored.

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Tue, 11/13/2012 - 11:48
#5
Qwibbian
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Hit point markers

I like both of Orangebeard's suggestions. The "stack" approach (#1) is used in Heroes of Might and Magic (the computer game) and other games as well, I'm sure.

QuestCCG, now that I think about it, don't you have the same problem even with melee-only combat? For example, if you have 2 fighters and each is fighting a different monster, don't you need to keep track of the damage dealt separately? With the "stack" approach, of course that problem goes away - everyone is always fighting the "first" monster on the stack.

Another approach is to track damage individually, but as you noted, this is typically done using pencil and paper in RPG's, and you'd want a very clean/easy method for your game. If you replaced the wooden cubes representing monsters with small 6 sided dice, you could then track between 1 to 6 hit points for each. The pips on the dice could be skulls or blood drops or something like that to help keep the theme, but it is still a bit of a pain.

Good luck with your game!

- Qwib

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Tue, 11/13/2012 - 17:19
#6
questccg
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Kinda what I got for melee

Orangebeard wrote:
1) Treat the health of the entire enemy group as a single total. As the player damages the enemy health total, enemy cubes are removed from the board at the player's discretion. Instead of worrying about the health of each individual monster, when the player does enough damage to the group to kill an individual monster, the player can remove one monster cube. Alternatively, a rule could exist that says the player must remove the closest cube when they have inflicted enough damage.

That is what I am doing in melee: attack is done by targeting the FIRST monster until it dies. But I do track Health points (HP) for the monster (but only for 1 monster).

However doesn't that just mean for an *area effect*, it still targets 1 monster just for MORE HP???

Orangebeard wrote:
2) Treat *area* spells as "all or nothing" spells. For example, a mage casts an *area* spell that targets up to 3 monster cubes. Roll a die for each monster cube; if the roll is successful, the cube is removed; if the roll fails, then the monster remains on the board. A weak *area* spell may affect fewer targets or may only kill the monster on a 1 in 6 chance. By way of comparison, a powerful *area* spell may affect many targets and kills each monster on a 2 in 3 chance.

Okay, I understand this.

Orangebeard wrote:
It may be possible to combine these 2 suggestions on *area* spells by rolling a damage die for each monster targeted by the spell. The total damage is added and enough monsters are removed to equal the damage dealt. Partial damage on a monster is ignored.

Hmm... So it basically means that the amount of damage is what we must determine. From there we can remove monsters (Wooden cubes) according to how much damage the spell dealt to each individual monster. I hope my understanding is correct...

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Tue, 12/11/2012 - 18:38
#7
questccg
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Too little HP

Qwibbian wrote:
If you replaced the wooden cubes representing monsters with small 6 sided dice, you could then track between 1 to 6 hit points for each. The pips on the dice could be skulls or blood drops or something like that to help keep the theme, but it is still a bit of a pain.

My monster Health points (HP) range from 10 HP to 40 HP. Each monster has 1 attack stat (ATK) and 1 defense stat (DFS). On every second level of the dungeon, BOTH ATK and DFS go up 1. So a level 1 Skeleton with 4 ATK and 4 DFS encountered on level 10 of the dungeon (last level) is 9 ATK and 9 DFS (10/2 = +5). So creatures become harder to kill as you progress in the game.

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Tue, 11/13/2012 - 17:39
#8
questccg
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Magical Resistance

questccg wrote:
Hmm... So it basically means that the amount of damage is what we must determine. From there we can remove monsters (Wooden cubes) according to how much damage the spell dealt to each individual monster. I hope my understanding is correct...

I am now wondering if I should have a Magical Resistance stat. For example some monsters would defend well against magical spells, while other would have poor resistance and are therefore more easily *killed* by area and regular spells.

What do you think about this stat (Magical Resistance)???

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Wed, 11/14/2012 - 10:42
#9
Orangebeard
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Magic *area*

questccg wrote:
That is what I am doing in melee: attack is done by targeting the FIRST monster until it dies. But I do track Health points (HP) for the monster (but only for 1 monster).

However doesn't that just mean for an *area effect*, it still targets 1 monster just for MORE HP???

In this example, an *area effect* does the same amount of damage to each monster that is affected. However, the total damage done to the monsters is distributed to kill as many as possible. For example, 3 Goblins (2 Health each; 6 Health total) are targeted by my Blizzard spell. Blizzard can inflict up to 3 damage per monster so I roll for damage and get the following results (Goblin #1 = 3 damage, Goblin #2 = 1 damage, Goblin #3 = 1 damage). The total damage to the group is 5 so I remove 2 Goblins from the board (4 damage will kill 2 Goblins, but 1 damage is not enough to kill the 3rd Goblin).

Can a powerful melee attack kill more than 1 monster?

questccg wrote:
Hmm... So it basically means that the amount of damage is what we must determine. From there we can remove monsters (Wooden cubes) according to how much damage the spell dealt to each individual monster. I hope my understanding is correct...

Correct

I like your idea of Magical Resistance. I think this gives you the ability to have more variation in monsters and encourages players to think more about how best to kill the monsters. If Magic is a major element in your game, you might also consider resistance to certain types of Magic (Fire, Ice, Poison, Shadow, etc.)

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Wed, 11/14/2012 - 13:06
#10
questccg
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Melee vs. Area spell

Orangebeard wrote:
Can a powerful melee attack kill more than 1 monster?

Currently No. And I think it should be such: melee can only kill 1 monster at a time vs. area spells that can kill several monsters on one turn.

Orangebeard wrote:
I like your idea of Magical Resistance. I think this gives you the ability to have more variation in monsters and encourages players to think more about how best to kill the monsters. If Magic is a major element in your game, you might also consider resistance to certain types of Magic (Fire, Ice, Poison, Shadow, etc.)

Well I don't have that much room for different types of resistance - BUT by adding this variable does change how combat works for area spells. Since I am using 4 dice for melee, I will use UP TO 4 dice for area spells (so 2 targets = 2 dice, 3 targets = 3 dice, etc.) And the number of dice will vary according to the player's Experience...

So a Mage Skill (Magic Missiles) only does 1d4 damage (up to 4 damage). But if you can have 4 missiles (from leveling and experience), you get 4d4 (up to 16 damage). My monsters have Health points ranging from 10 to 40. Feels about right, playtesting will prove if it really is...

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Tue, 12/11/2012 - 12:51
#11
dameonunleashed
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If I'm understanding your

If I'm understanding your setup, you have multiple monsters fighting the players, but they are fought by melee and ranged characters in a stack, so they are damaged one monster at a time. The monster being fought has HP that are tracked somehow until it takes enough damage from multiple attacks to be killed, leading to the next monster in the stack.

Once you introduce area effects, you must be able to track that damage on multiple targets, or make the area effects binary, in that they either kill the monster or they don't affect it at all. If there is the potential for anything between those two choices, the game needs to keep track of it.

Have you considered treating the monster stack as a line instead? If you line up the cards, the Melee fighters still have to fight the first one until it's dead before moving on through the line. Your Ranged players could attack any monster in the line, as many cards down the line as they have range for (a set amount or different for each ranged character). Mages would then affect a set grouping of monsters in the line, such as 'target monster and each adjacent monster', "all monsters" or 'the last 4 monsters in the line', or somesuch. This way each monster can be tracked, and ranged and magic players can soften up the upcoming monsters the melee players have to take on.

Hope that helps.

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Tue, 12/11/2012 - 23:29
#12
questccg
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Keeping it as simple as possible

dameonunleashed wrote:
If I'm understanding your setup, you have multiple monsters fighting the players, but they are fought by melee and ranged characters in a stack, so they are damaged one monster at a time. The monster being fought has HP that are tracked somehow until it takes enough damage from multiple attacks to be killed, leading to the next monster in the stack.

Yes monster health is tracked for melee and ranged attack, the goal being killing a monster so you can move on to the next monster in the stack.

dameonunleashed wrote:
Once you introduce area effects, you must be able to track that damage on multiple targets, or make the area effects binary, in that they either kill the monster or they don't affect it at all. If there is the potential for anything between those two choices, the game needs to keep track of it.

The goal is NOT to track damage on multiple targets. This is not possible with the game's setup. One target yes, multiple no.

dameonunleashed wrote:
Have you considered treating the monster stack as a line instead? If you line up the cards, the Melee fighters still have to fight the first one until it's dead before moving on through the line. Your Ranged players could attack any monster in the line, as many cards down the line as they have range for (a set amount or different for each ranged character). Mages would then affect a set grouping of monsters in the line, such as 'target monster and each adjacent monster', "all monsters" or 'the last 4 monsters in the line', or somesuch. This way each monster can be tracked, and ranged and magic players can soften up the upcoming monsters the melee players have to take on.

Well I think the easiest thing to do is to accumulate the damage caused and then *remove* (as in kill) that many monsters. This would imply that area spells could target MORE than ONE creature (if the scores are high enough to do so). With melee even if you do MORE damage, you still can only defeat ONE creature (same goes for ranged). So that will be the difference between area damage and melee/ranged damage.

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Wed, 12/12/2012 - 10:43
#13
dameonunleashed
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That's a good way. Like I

That's a good way. Like I mentioned, if you can't track damage individually, then a yes/no on monster death was the other option. Accumulating damage all together is a great way to do that.

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Wed, 12/12/2012 - 16:26
#14
zmobie
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Maybe if there is a static

Maybe if there is a static "kill number" where you need at least that amount to destroy a monster, you could make area effect unilaterally lower the kill number for the group.

For example,

There are a group of skeletons with defense 10. Fighter has +4, Ranger has +3 and you get to roll a d6 on top of that for the group. All attacks are just combined into one group-swing, but party members can abstain from adding their attack bonus from the pool in order to do other actions. So its the players turn against the skeletons. Wizard decides to cast fireball, which lowers the skeletons defense by 2 for the rest of the combat, and also adds 1 to the party attack for the rest of the encounter (on fire!).

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