A Game Where the Points are Made Up and Very Much Matter

A censor, a conduit, an elementalist, a reaver, a shadow, a tactician, and a talent walk into a dungeon … and then they SMOKE every foe they come across because the game is unbalanced in the heroes’ favor.

Hey folks, it is I, your James Introcaso, back to talk to you about the MCDM RPG and the thing that’s been on my mind this week—game balance. Last week, I wrote a post about what game balance means when we’re talking about player character options. I’ll be touching on that in this post, but the main thing I’m trying to tackle right now is the balance of difficulty in combat encounters and adventures. How do the heroes measure up to the enemies they battle?

What Do You Mean by “Balance?”

Game balance in a TTRPG can mean a lot of different things depending on the context and who is using the phrase. Some folks find the word repulsive, because they think TTRPGs shouldn’t care what level the player characters are. If you go into a murder cult’s temple, there should be as many cultists in each room as it makes sense to have, not a number based on the size and level of the party. That’s far more reflective of reality than a game with encounter-building guidelines. I’ve had a lot of fun playing games like this where player characters sneak through dungeons with hooded lanterns, avoiding every dangerous denizen while they touch every tile with a 10-foot pole on their way to steal some gold. In some of these games, combat and hazards are a consequence—the result of bad luck or poor planning (usually a combination of the two). One might even argue that these games do take balance into consideration, they just don’t mind the scales tipping wildly in one direction or another, but that’s a conversation for a game we might make after this one.

However, in a heroic game like our current project, the player characters don’t avoid fights. They’re heroes! They charge into marauding hordes of gnolls, leap off cliffs onto the heads of giants, and Leeroy Jenkins their way into slime caves (except they survive to tell the tale). They do it all in the name of protecting the innocent and smiting evil. Combat isn’t a failure state. It’s where heroes shine! Well, get your sunglasses out, folks. These heroes shine a little too bright. Folks are building resources faster than they can spend them, using ult moves all the time while ignoring the other options on their sheets and barely spending any Recoveries. Encounters, even boss battles, just aren’t tough enough—yet!

The heroes winning every battle isn’t a bad thing. We want the heroes to succeed 99(ish)% of the time. What we don’t want is a cakewalk where the heroes cleave through every wraith in a graveyard then walk into a dragon’s den and cut the head off an ancient wyrm in 1.5 turns without breaking a sweat. The challenge of combat and the threat of failure raise the stakes and make the game more fun. When that risk is present, good tactics yield big rewards and lucky rolls feel all the more fortunate. Without that danger, the game can get boring. No need to think tactically, because it doesn’t matter if you’re playing sloppy—you got resources to spare! Plus, you’re not really a death-defying hero if there’s no risk of, ya know, death. The player characters actually feel more heroic and the game has higher stakes if combat presents a challenge.

However, swinging too far into the danger zone presents a different issue. If the risk is too great, then the players aren’t eager to throw down with evildoers. Instead, they flee at the first sign of danger, fighting only when cornered, or they want to rest after every battle to get back their Health. That doesn’t feel very heroic!

Our game should sit somewhere between the two extremes. In this case, balance is about finding the place where power and competence meet with threat to create fun. It’s the place where foes and hazards are real challenges, while players still feel like their characters are big darn heroes.

These feelings are subjective, so what feels heroic yet dangerous for me might be in a slightly different place than what feels right to Matt. That’s a big reason why we test! We want to find the maximum fun point for most folks playing the game. That’s how I currently know something needs to change. In our tests across the board, including my own, folks are reporting the game is too easy.

Despite the game being too easy, testers are reporting folks having fun with the core concepts. The Core 2d6 roll, a single roll for attack and damage, and the building of resources and victories are all concepts folks like. That’s awesome! It means we can move on (knowing that nothing is set in stone) and start to work on other parts of the game—like classes and character options—in earnest. We can go from “fun” to “fun-cking amazing!”

Change the Heroes

The game being too easy is an issue we’ve had since the start. I’ve been slowly creeping up the Health and Defenses of monsters since we started playing the game to help them last longer, but I’ve realized that continuing to do that is just going to make combat last longer without making it any more difficult. The issue is the heroes’ power. They accumulate resources so quickly that they’re always using their most powerful stuff and just wipe out baddies with ease. In 5e terms, we created a wizard with unlimited fireball spells. Why would they ever cast fire bolt?

Our current pregens are really prototypes. We made them to test the core of the game. They’re our best approximation of what a 1st-level hero could be like maybe sorta kinda in our game. With the core of this game settling into place, it’s time to start figuring out how powerful a 1st-level hero really is. Then we can rebuild our monsters to challenge those foes.

Damage

The first thing I did was get to work figuring out how much Damage I think a 1st-level hero should be able to do thanks to their best Attack (which comes from their class). When it comes to Damage, I think we have two types of classes. Type 1 have Attacks that deal some Damage and have extra effects, like supporting allies, battlefield control, or tanking. The main job of a Type 2 hero’s Attacks is dealing Damage. (Note: Types 1 and 2 are JUST about Damage. Classes have many more distinctions than just Damage, but for the purposes of this post, I’ve divided them into two groups.)

After a lot of testing, I decided that the maximum Damage a not-at-will 1st-level ability for a Type 1 hero should deal is the Core 2d6 + their highest Characteristic score + 1d8 Impact Die. The maximum here is 23 and the average is 14.5. Pretty great! This isn’t an ability we expect you to use every encounter.

Type 2 heroes should deal more Damage, they get a boost to the maximum Damage of their best ability that deals damage, allowing them to roll a maximum of TWO Impact Dice instead of 1. That means the average Damage of this sometimes-ability is 19 and the maximum is 31! Whoa! Pretty dope.

Effects

Many Attacks have an Effect beyond just dealing Damage. An Attack might force move a target, light them On Fire, knock them Prone, target multiple creatures, allow an ally to move, or have any number of other effects. Then I gave every effect we’ve used so far a rating from 0 (Worst) to 6 (Best). These were assigned by me based on the experiences I’ve had with the game. There is some math involved in figuring out an effect’s impact, but a lot of this is subjective. As we test, I’ll be constantly adjusting these values. As we develop new Effects, they’ll be added to the chart.

Rating-0 Effects include stuff that can happen with Signature Attacks, like Pushing or Pulling a Target a number of squares equal to one of your Characteristic scores, dealing a tiny bit of Damage to a secondary target, granting a Boon to the next ally to Attack the target, imposing a Bane on the target’s next Attack, granting an ally a free shift of a few squares … that kind of thing. Signature Attacks use your Action and never cost resources.

Effects with a rating higher than 0 can only be used in Attacks that cost resources or take more time than just an Action to activate. We call these Heroic Attacks.

For their best Heroic Attacks, 1st-level Type 1 classes can inflict one Effect with a rating of 2 or up to two rating-1 Effects.

At 1st level, Type 2 classes can have a total of one rating-1 Effect on their Best Attack.

Rating-1 Effects on Attacks include: inflicting the Frightened, Grappled, Nauseated, Shocked, Slowed or Taunted condition until the end of the target’s next turn, shifting your speed, Sliding a target, and a whole lot more. They’re more powerful than Rating-0, but still nothing like opening the gates to the Seven Cities of Hell. Rating-2 effects include Pushing or Pulling a target double a Characteristic score, inflicting the Dazed condition until the end of the target’s next turn, granting an ally a Basic Attack in addition to your Attack, and stuff that is equally impactful but still appropriate for the 1st-level of our game.

Building Attacks

Now comes the fun part. Making the Attacks! When creating a hero’s most powerful 1st-level Heroic Attack, I should spend 2 points. Each Impact Die is worth 1 point. Each Effect is worth a number of points equal to its rating. (Rating-0 effects are only for Signature Attacks for the purposes of this exercise.)

Following the restrictions above, Type 1 classes can have Attacks built in the following ways:

• The Attack can inflict one Rating-2 Effect.
• The Attack can inflict two Rating-1 Effects.
• The Attack can inflict one Rating-1 Effect and deal 1 Impact Die of Damage.

Current Type 1 classes include the Conduit, Elementalist, and Tactician. Granting an ally a free Basic Attack against a target has an effect rating of 2, so the Tactician currently has this as their most powerful Attack:

The Conduit has this little diddy:

Knocking a target Prone is a rating-1 Effect, and we throw in the Impact Die to get that extra SMITEY flavor.

Our Type 2 classes, currently the Reaver and the Shadow, can have Attacks built in the following ways:

• The Attack can deal 2 Impact Dice of Damage.
• The Attack can deal 1 Impact Die of Damage and inflict one rating-1 Effect.

The Shadow has this Attack, which is pretty straightforward:

While the Reaver has this going for them:

Bleeding an amount equal to a Characteristic score is a rating-1 Effect. Bleeding is a condition that means the target loses Health equal to the condition’s value at the start of their turn until they save or until they regain Health.

You’ll notice that the examples I pulled all have a cost of 5 resources (or 5 turns in the case of the Elementalist), but that’s not the case for all the classes. Each class builds, manages, and maintains resources differently from the others, as discussed in a previous post. It just so happens that after doing a little math, I think 5 is the right cost for each of these Attacks based on the way each class builds resources. I think 5 is enough that these Attacks will be used in likely every other battle or so (more on that below). That could mean two or three battles in a row followed by not getting to use the power in a stretch of encounters after as they rebuild resources, or it could be pretty close to actually being every other combat for another. Personal play style is a big factor here too! Do you burn resources as soon as you have them, or horde them and only use your biggest and best stuff?

Each class has other Attacks that cost resources but are less impactful. I get 1 point to spend on creating those. Classes also have other ways to spend resources on non-Attack abilities. All of that gets balanced in a similar manner. All the rebalancing has not only brought the classes more in line with each other, it also brought down the overall power level of the party, which means things should be a little more challenging for them. But we’re not done yet, baby!

Resources Accumulate Slower

We also need to slow the accumulation of Resources way down. For instance, in this latest round of testing, we had the Tactician accumulating 1d4 Focus at the start of each of their turns in combat in addition to gaining 1 Focus whenever they used a Signature Attack. I’m not kidding when I say that I saw Matt roll 4 every time he rolled for Focus across two sessions. It was a good 10 or so rolls. Even if he had gotten the average, it would have been a bit too much. The Tactician now gains 2 Focus at the start of their turn, or 1 if they’re Bloodied in addition to gaining it from making Signature Attacks. We’ve made little tweaks like this across the board for all classes in addition to adjusting the cost of their Attacks and other abilities. Now everyone gets their resources slower, but still at a rate fast enough to feel heroic … uh … I hope. Testing will tell us for sure.

Recoveries Decreased

Victories increase a hero’s power and encourage them to push it to the limit before resting while Recoveries limit the amount a hero can heal and force them to eventually Rest. (When you Rest, your Victories become converted into XP and you regain all your Recoveries and Health.) However, our tests found that folks have so many Recoveries that they’re not really feeling the tension at all. They can stack up their Victories high, which in turn makes them SUPER powerful. So we’re slimming down the number of Recoveries each of our pregens has just a bit.

Lessen the Impact of Victories

The current implementation of Victories is a little too impactful. Some pregens had Attacks that just always add the number of Victories to Damage. Others used Victories to increase the effectiveness of another ability, allowing them to teleport further, force move enemies greater distances, or greatly increase the Armor Defense of an ally every time they Parry. The blanket use of these was too good. Instead of making these at-will benefits, Victories can now only be used to power up Attacks and abilities once per encounter at 1st-level. Still very impactful and fun, but not so powerful that the Director struggles to challenge the players.

What’s Next?

We have a lot more work to do. Matt and I are looking at some changes to Threat, Counters, and more that we’ll be testing in the coming weeks. We might write about them here too! In the meantime, you can chat about the game in Discord with other enthusiastic folks! Honestly the conversations there are super fun. We got a great community. Join us, you great-os.

Ex animo,

James Introcaso

MCDM Lead Game Designer