About Cool-down mechanics :(

[Garritt]

Now I haven't played an arcane, ever. So I haven't came across much of the new rules for such a character. But for my new WinterHaven character, I had been planning a Sage/Arcane(through discipline). But some things have been irking me about spells that are keeping me apprehensive about playing such a build.

First things first, a return to commenting on 'Cool Down' times on spells. I know this has been talked about before at the start of last year, but still seems like a horrible mechanic (as written). It's sometimes hard to get my point across in text, but I'll try not to ramble.

"Cool-down Times"

The use of some skills are extremely taxing and require the character to rest for a period of time before being able to use any of their skills again. When any skill with a Cool-down time is used it causes the character to be in "Cool-down fatigue."

During this time no Active skills may be used until the "Cool-down" process is complete. The Cool-down process may also be interrupted
as would a Charge or Timed skill and if so the Cool-down count starts again. The character may move normally during the Cool-down process.

I must have misunderstood how these worked until now, because I'm recently shocked at how that is a horrible mechanic to have for such an interactive Role-playing game as ours.

For example, I was planning on taking the skill "Counterspell"- it just fits my new character. But I now realize, just a single use of this skill not only costs a Life Point (appropriate), but negates my entire character sheet of skills, with the exception of dual-wielding "1", and read/write, for 20 minutes! All that, for the only cool-down skill I possess???

And because I can be disrupted as with any normal timed skill, to get that 20 minutes over with as soon as possible, I actually have to hide from any chance of an NPC affecting me, therefore likely missing out on the scene.

I can't even use the aforementioned dual-weilding very well, because I'll likely be taking damage in return, thereby disrupting me constantly- resetting the 20 minutes every time. Theoretically, if I pop a counterspell near the start of a long cave battle, and considering how hard it is to escape being effected by anything in a cave, I could easily see myself constanly "cooling down" in resetting spits and spurts for the rest of the cave battle, which can even prohibit me from being capable (which is rough on a sage) of using any information skills during anything at the end of the cave.

Frankly, why should a skill mechanic so completely stop me from being relevant in the game actions that follows, and for so long?

Wouldn't it make sense (and I think it would better fit the feel of spells, and how "cool-down" times were supposed to replace "casting times") if when "cooling down" from such a skill, no other skills with cool down times could be used.

In effect, like reload times, but covering a "set" of skills.

[GM-Mike]

Spells used to be that you had to "cast" them for twenty minutes without doing anything else and if you got interrupted then too bad for you. Now, sure, you got to use your otehr skills, but you didn't get your cool spell off. Now you get the spell off. That's the trade-off in a nutshell. If I have more time, I can go into it deeper if you like.

[Garritt]

Oh, I understand you. Cooldown makes an arcane useless 'later', and casting times made them useless 'now', which is sort of a trade-off, absolutely. But on alot of the spells, it's comparing apples to oranges.

The sort of break I see happens when comparing spells to the old magic system, when they are spells that are reactive, rather than proactive, and in this case it's counterspell. (Admittedly, if only because I notice it solely because I was going to choose it- I'm trying not to make it sound like "this should be fixed, because it affects me in a way I don't like", but instead being a general conversation).

Back to "pro" vs. "re", all three of the other Master spells used most often (Displace time, attack of the elements, Artic blast) be used whenever the player wishes, at any time in the game.

Counterspell is like a resist, in which it is only useful if the game staff decided to throw an effect that the ability counters (which, in truth, effects like this happen so little, people with a skill to affect things want to jump at the chance) . And it's only truly the most useful when a large amount of players might be affected by an un-stopped spell.

Which still is kind of wonky. Six players (which is usually a bit above average for a non-triangulated spell) saved from an Attack of the Elements by a counterspell is 1LP being spent to instantly stop 60 damage. A Resist Magic can do the same thing to "30 Magic" packets, without stopping, for as long as the player has LP, and then they go get healed and didn't need to wait for a game-stop to occur to even use the skill.

Counterspell, once, makes a player effectively have to stop playing the game for 20 minutes, which seems counter-intuitive at a LARP AND because of the lack of NPC game stop effects, you might only be able to use the skill once or twice within a weekend, or in some cases, not at all (admittedly, once in a great while you might see it in most scenes in a weekend, depending on theme).

Like I said before, I'm really hating the fact that all this might make me sound like I'm being crabby about a skill I think should be better, conveniently in time for me to use it in a game, but I think it's justified, considering the dearth of players that are even bothering to use such a "powerful" skills set because of the downsides. It's just that noticing this particular downside because of a skill I was going to pick that finally made me look around at the other arcane spells in general and go, "Wow, all these other skills are way too harsh, as well."

So, if the goal of cooldowns was to-

A: let Arcanes be effective immediately rather than after a set time

B: limit the casting time of multiple spells from a character, so they're still happening with the same frequency as the "old way"

-Doesn't my thought do the same thing, but without interrupting the "flow" we enjoy about a live-action game? Mages would still need to choose the timing of their spells wisely, but they would still be able to have fun and get stuck in during the meantime.

In my character's case (considering a proposed situation where an ongoing cooldown effect would NOT stop the use of other active skills), is it really way too powerful to use a 4th level arcane spell, start my "spell cooldown" and then sit down to use Recall in the interim, considering any random game effect could disrupt not one, but both skills I'm using, while at the same time not making me set back and watch the entire game base continue to have fun without me?

Hell, wouldn't being able to self-interrupt (thus restarting the cooldown time each time) a cooldown be essentially the same game effect as well? You would be trading off the chance to get off another cooldown-inducing arcane skill in a timely manner, for the chance to be involved in something current.

*edit: Man, I ramble, lol.

[GM-Mike]

I will add here that the times are purposefully long to encourage the use of focus items which halves the time, so assuming you have a focus item which is not hard to get then we are really talking ten minutes--still a while but not as bad. Why encourage focus items? because spells used to have a cost associated with them as well. This is that cost put back into game.

I understand your point and I know you see our rationale, but I am going to pause my participation here in the hopes that Travis will give his point of view (I actually don't know what his opinion is on this) because he uses coutnerspell every event and I've never noticed him be useless following, but he could comment better than I.

[cole45]

With the advanced skill plus the focus item you can do a heck of a lot. Add potions during which is the best way.


That being said it was trinket that let me cast it effiently.


I did have to do nothing after casting dominate monster, and I typically ran for the back and grabbed hand fulls of potions to bring me back up and my cool down was ten minutes.

I do like the idea of no other skills with cool down instead and that might be worth looking at.

also maybe a skill in an expansion that reduces cool down some more would also be good. maybe in exchange for more life points. Or one that stuffs the cool down on another person.

As a wizard I like the new method of spells. before you got stuck in one place for ten minutes or an hour for a spell you might not ever be able to cast. now you can but you get only one.



Warning thread jack Hey CJ, can you post you and Dani's alternate alchemist rules sometime?

[Garritt]

Like I said, I'm just commenting on a rule that kind of makes me shake my head, but wanted to have a calm conversation about it (which I have to say that love the fact we've been able to have one).

And as Travis aptly said, comparing what a very high level character with what a low-level character can do with the same skill and using it to justify the restraints of the skill for the said low level character is one of the things I hate to see happen. Before the advent of Heroes and Villains and specialization skills , everyone getting quickly to a level playing field and then afterward only pure roleplaying and gaming defining them further was always one of the great advantages of this LARP.


(Also, a skill that would reduce cooldowns would be cool- for Wizards using the main path. But alot of the things that are meant to "balance" the versatility of Wizards hinders playing just an Arcane discipline. The logistics of Focus items and their means to reintroduce the previous style's cost of spells seems obvious when considering a Wizard that can choose from 4 Advanced and Master effects that will be affected, but Discipline-only Arcanists will only ever have 1 of each rank at the most.

It seems harsh that I have to pay as much as a Wizard to have the focus item only affect a maximum of 2 cooldown spells, which would compare to a much lower resource cost than the possible 8 wizard spells, if we keep comparing everything to earlier incarnations of spellcasting.

For instance, my new character would have to buy a Advanced focus item to solely supplement "counterspell", an reactive-only ability that only has the possibility to be better than a "Resist/Parry skill" but on far less frequency in the game. If I never get a chance to use counterspell (my only cooldown effect), for an entire event, I then way overpaid.

Mostly, it seems that I'm seeing a skill that would hamper me the most when several factors come into effect, really. The foremost being how cooldown really only affects PC's the most, because with the new instant-casting situations can easily arise like this:

Situation 1 (probably a big battle, but could conceivably happen anytime:

-An NPC Empath throws a 30 Magic that hits a PC with Resist Magic- the PC uses a LP to do so. The NPC dies, respawns as an Empath and repeats to the same character(or another NPC does the same attack.) The PC laughs and Resists again. He/She's now resisted 60 magic damage with the loss of 2 life points and no time.

Situation 2:

An NPC casts Attack of the Elements (If only because it's the skill that seems to get the easiest and quickest high damage to PCs, so in this situation it applies the most) and it hits three PCs. That's 30 total Damage dealt to them if they can't stop it. Crowley counterspells and laughs. The NPC dies and respawns and ends up soon afterwards doing the same attack- the respawn making them unaffected by the 20 min cooldown. Crowley has to shrug and let any PC's get hurt, because he's in "Cooldown fatigue".


I dunno. Maybe it just doesn't click with me because I'm seeing Counterspell as a resist as opposed to a "do lots of mad damage" spell, which gives the concept of cooldown times such a weird vibe when they are linked to it.

Like I said before, I think it would be perfectly cool if you could elect to self-interrupt a cooldown time, thus currently hindering the rest of your "spell" skills that use cooldown times, for the chance to use a skill at the moment, like Recall or Necropsy, or even healing. It wouldn't even affect how Focus items work, because their worth of keeping spell costs in the game seems intrinsically tied to the frequency of such spells being cast and how cooldown times affect that frequency- which in the case of interrupting a current cooldown to use an Active/timed/charged skill, would be prolonged even further.

I do love that this is a civil conversation though.

Edit. Want a weird random idea just for Counter-spell? Make it a talisman-based spell that has the caveat that it can only be cast on the owning character. It then takes up the slot for sage-buffs as other talismans, and up the LP cost to 2LP per counterspell, maybe even with a 30 second cooldown time.

Also, make it like I've been hearing, and have the caster be required to be within "packet distance", or at the very least have 'line of sight', to perform a counterspell.