Templates are your friend.

I just finished the Weapon trees for what felt like the fourth time, but this time was aided by making a template. This will be the core of the development tools for creating your own character tree in Tides of War, and it will be automated to be pretty simple.

First thing to do is describe your attack.

"I swing my greatsword around in a huge arc, hitting all targets within 2 squares of me and knocking them back!"

Next we break this down into numbers.

Greatswords deal 2d6 base damage. All targets within 2 would be an AoE2 effect. and Knockback 2 seems like a good effect to add to it.

Put these numbers into the template.

2d6=2 points, AoE 2=1.5 points. Knockback 2=0.5 points.

Add them together, and you have your Stamina cost of 4 for this attack. But what if the attack comes out to be an odd number of Stamina? You can use other effects to balance out, raise, or lower the cost. Taking a -2 Accuracy penalty to the attack could give me 0.5 more points to work with, or making an attack Limited.

Want a giant attack with a lot of BANG? Let's try a new Charge Attack. Charge attacks add an element of time and strategy. If you do a big attack that says "Charge 5," that means that it will go off in 5 turns. (or 5 cards on the initiative deck.) You will have to watch out, though - you're susceptible to attacks while charging, or your enemy might be lucky, have his turn come up first, and be able to escape. On the plus side, Charge Attacks lower the stamina cost of your big risky moves considerably, allowing you to pull off impressive feats, like this one for Heavy Blunt Weapons (such as great clubs):
Slugger
6 Stamina Charge 4
Limited
Requires 13 Physique
Wind up one massive attack to send your target airborne. Deals 3d12 damage and knocks the target up to 6 squares away.

The higher the stat requirement for a maneuver, the more points you'll have to work with, as well. You luckily don't have to worry about the math too much, as our development tools will do the work for you!

Learning The Code As I Go Along

The website is up! I'm super learning a lot of programing as this comes along. I made a custom template for this blog, and as you can see it's still a work in progress. I might have to just take the fundamentals of the main site, rather then a straight copying of the look. I am 85% of the way done with weapons and their trees, and should finish up today if I can peel myself away from the coding.

As I'm going along, I'm pondering the process of the character developer tool. Since Tides is going digital, and I want to make it a requirement to physically go to the site to be able to generate a character, this is going to be the biggest deal for launch. Since I'm teaching myself complicated coding as I go along, I am up to my neck in variables and SQL. The character builder itself looks like it'll be the easiest part. (Albeit time consuming!) The saving a character, converting that info into printable .pdfs and character cards... that'll be the though bit. I might need to hire a true web developer to point me in the right direction.

Another project underway today is the point-based development tool. This will help pinpoint exactly how much you can do per point of Stamina, for players and monsters. Once that is made, anyone can just plop the values into a cool spell or maneuver, and know it'll be balanced for the game. If you want a big budget spell, you can negate some stamina cost by making it a Charge attack, or subtracting some Accuracy. This will help me iron out the rest of the trees for the new system a lot quicker as well.

Tides of War

Exhausted, you flee from the lumbering behemoth while wondering how long your stamina will hold out. Your wounds bleed heavily, draining your life force with every step. Each move you make must be carefully planned if you are going to bring this beast down. Within seconds, the monster is nearly upon you.. it opens it's yellowed jaws wide, acidic saliva dripping from it's gaping maw, and lets forth a bellowing roar. When all seems lost, you are struck by a sudden confidence. The creature's weakness is clear, and you have a new surge of strength. The fickle Goddesses of Fate have looked down upon your battle, and decided it was you who would live today.

Welcome to ToW! This blog is going to follow the creation of a new, free to play pen and paper Role Playing Game that will be available through tidesrpg.com. If you have an interest in game design, role-playing, fantasy worlds, monsters, magic, or math then stick around for the ride.

Previews of the game will be posted here while we wait for the site to launch, as well as playtest logs, incoming art, design ideas, stories written of the world, and sneak peaks.