minor shadow
I love the image of heroes fighting through inclement weather, like the Battle of Helms Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers film. Its already very cinematic, but since this is Draw Steel I wanted it to be tactical as well. Below is my first draft at the idea. Thoughts are welcome!
pastel glade
Like it, but there should probably be a way to use your maneuver to avoid sting damage
golden sinew
Feel free to ignore any part of this! I just had some ideas around it.
I like the idea of using Malice to power these, but they honestly just feel like map wide DTO's (not a bad thing) so I'm not sure Malice makes sense as a baseline for some with less overall impact. Maybe have free base weather effects that don't have strong impact on the combat, but with malice spend to improve the weather effect for the remainder of the combat? That'd make the basic level just be a different tactical consideration for how the party has to fight, but you can mix it up by spending malice to make it harder.
A couple of examples: "Fog" is free and adds Hard to See 10, Upgrade to Heavy Fog for 3 Malice (Hard to See down to 7 and it counting as concealment.
Rain could cost 2 and make all uncovered terrain difficult terrain. Upgrade for another 2 to make it Heavy Rain and now it counts as Concealment. Upgrade for another 2 to make it a Thunderstorm. Allow for skipping middle tiers if you just spend the full malice (IE 4 to go from Rain to Thunderstorm).
Similar idea for Snow > Snowstorm > Blizzard
This would give another avenue to spend malice, provide very cinematic "The weather is worsening" situations, and a little more control for the director.
minor shadow
Feel free to ignore any part of this! I just had some ideas around it.
I like t...
Making them DTO's is a good idea. That is probably the best implementation. I actually considered it. My plan was to make malice abilities, then have a rule on how to convert each malice ability into a DTO instead. I probably will still do that, but the reason I haven't yet is because I know nothing about DTO EV calculations, so I'd have to study that first.
On the "lesser weathers" like fog instead of heavy fog, or rain instead of heavy rain. I didn't include those because they technically already exist as mechanics in DS via the Blessing of Fortunate Weather feature (see Heroes pg. 81). If I added combat effects to those then I would be downstream buffing that Blessing. It would be a big buff to, I suspect making it the clear best choice of Blessing. I didn't want to effect the existing balance like that.
golden sinew
Smart catch! Still feels like it could be a good way to "upgrade" from a lower weather that is set by a player for combat effects. Maybe always make those upgrades cost Malice, but leave the original effect in place to avoid it being a feels bad thing for the player responsible.
minor shadow
Smart catch! Still feels like it could be a good way to "upgrade" from a lower ...
Can you elaborate on this, I'm not sure I understand entirely. Lets use fog as an example:
Current "Foggy" does the following: You and your allies gain an edge on tests that use the Hide skill.
Heroes with the Blessing can set this on all combats for an entire day.
How would you allow it to upgrade to my version Heavy Fog?
golden sinew
When upgrading to Heavy Fog during combat, you keep the Foggy benefit, but then add Hard to See 10 or 7, and concealment. That should probably cost some malice, but it could definitely benefit the party as much as the enemies depending on the teams abilities.
I'd say dig into the DTO info since they do similar "upgrades" but raising EV instead of costing malice. You might be able to lean into that model as well, with malice spend being for BIG mid combat changes.
lapis matrix
This is amazing, just what I needed. Will try to find a way to have it influence normal travel as well using the same system. Thanks alot
golden sinew
No matter what you land on I do think what you've come up with is already usable. Really cool concept I'm sure a lot of people will play around with.
flint moss
This is such a clever idea! Using Malice options to simulate weather effects. Good thinking
minor shadow
This is such a clever idea! Using Malice options to simulate weather effects. Go...
Thanks! That means a lot coming from you!
flint moss
Thanks! That means a lot coming from you!
Psshaw 😅
radiant dock
this is amazing
excellent design and it keys into other things very elegantly
only point of feedback i have is i find "hard to see" a bit clunky of a keyword
golden sinew
I agree, but I hadn't come up with anything that I thought would work better so I didn't comment on it initially. I just landed on "Acuity" after thinkin about it for a while, but I still don't love it.
eager harness
I agree, but I hadn't come up with anything that I thought would work better so ...
Maybe Obscured or Murked? I know Murked isn’t a word, but it sounds like it could be.
golden sinew
I was trying to avoid Obscured because of it's association with many other games, but it may be the best single word option.
eager harness
I was trying to avoid Obscured because of it's association with many other games...
Totally fair!
minor shadow
only point of feedback i have is i find "hard to see" a bit clunky of a keyword
I get that, but tbh, I kind of like "hard to see." It expresses the concept perfectly.