Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Duke5150 Oct 14, 2009 0:02:41	I often ask people how to create powers. You know, at wills, encounters, dailys and utilities. More info, tips and suggestions never hurt. So, I thought I'd attempt asking here, in detail. Some of the questions I'll ask will be very simple, but I'd like to  hear what YOU all think, so here I go.   1.What makes an "AT WILL" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced. How can you create new balanced atwills, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes an "at will" different than any other power beyond its usage limit?   2. What makes an "ENCOUNTER" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced encounter powers, while keeping them fresh and original?What makes an "encounter" different than any other power beyond its usage limit?   3. What makes a "DAILY" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced daily powers, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes an "daily" different than any other power beyond its usage limit?   4. What makes a "UTILITY" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced utility powers, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes an "Utility" different than any other power beyond its usage limit? 5.  4. What makes a "RACIAL" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced racial powers, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes an "racial" different than any other power beyond its ownership?   6. Going beyond questions for character powers, what makes a "monster" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced monster powers, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes "monster" powers different than any other power beyond it belonging to a monster and not a PC? 7. Do you introduce new keywords and mechanics in your games when creating completely new powers? Do you stick to whats in the books and just refluff? Do you have a balanced system for power creation? If so, willing to share it with the rest of us?   Thanks for playing along, folks. This will be interesting to read your replies on how you handle things and it will be useful for creating new classes.
#2 Qube Oct 14, 2009 0:17:00	I don't create them from scratch. I check out what other classes (with the same role!) have, and make analogus powers. same thing for monsters.
#3 Tony_Vargas Oct 14, 2009 2:10:06	1.What makes an "AT WILL" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced. How can you create new balanced atwills, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes an "at will" different than any other power beyond its usage limit? These are about the only one's I'm really comfortable with.  They should be just a bit better than a basic attack, and support the class's role.  They should be fairly broadly useful, since they're the class's fallback attacks. 2. What makes an "ENCOUNTER" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced encounter powers, while keeping them fresh and original?What makes an "encounter" different than any other power beyond its usage limit? Encounter powers should be a bit better than at-wills.  They should either work, or not.  If they have miss or effect lines, they should be minor.  You get to use 'em every encounter, so if they don't work, it's no big deal.  Encounter powers should support the class's role, and should tie into it's build choices and secondary stats somewhat.   3. What makes a "DAILY" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced daily powers, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes an "daily" different than any other power beyond its usage limit? A Daily can be fairly situational - something that won't be ideal to use very often.  It can be quite powerful.  It should have some miss or effect or something to keep it from just fizzling if you miss, because you don't get to use it often, so it should be dramatic regardless of how your dice are feeling. 4. What makes a "UTILITY" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced utility powers, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes an "Utility" different than any other power beyond its usage limit? A utility is any class power that isn't an attack.  Even attacks aren't always attacks, so it's tricky.  While they're not attacks, most of them /are/ combat aplicable. 5.  4. What makes a "RACIAL" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced racial powers, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes an "racial" different than any other power beyond its ownership? You just have to look at the existing ones, and ask if the new one is comparable in desireability to them.  Asside from them all being Encounter powers, and building on some aspect of the race's uniqueness, I couldn't say.   7. Do you introduce new keywords and mechanics in your games when creating completely new powers? Do you stick to whats in the books and just refluff? I think that if you're creating a lot of powers, and you find yourself typing 'special' a lot, and a lot of the same stuff after 'special,' you're looking at something that should be a keyword.  It'll make the powers more suscinct and easier to understand.
#4 Johnathan_Vagabond Oct 15, 2009 8:37:06	Generally speaking, you should keep the damage from at-wills between Basic Attribute Mod damage to 1d6+Mod or 1W+mod.  You can add riders that do more (Warlocks do another 1d6+Mod for specific actions) but generally it's better, when you aren't a striker, to add effects.  Something special happens to you or your enemy, but not something big. For example, it makes sense and is balanced to have a 1w+Mod Slide 1 attack power.  A 1W+Mod Slide 3 is too much. On the other hand, you have these situations where you involve an optional, secondary attribute.  Then you try 1W+Mod Slide Con Mod.  That could be decent (the person doesn't specialize in that state) or way out there (the person is a +2 Con race with a big boost to Con).  When that happens you try to limit it.  Changing Slide to Push or Pull helps.  So does adding riders like "The target must end this movement adjacent to you".  Getting creative lets you know.  I've used the following functions as Baselines. Striker: 1d6+Mod and 1d6+Mod on an easy to not trigger effect.  Easy to not trigger and easy to not care about aren't the same thing.  Dire Radiance deals the extra damage if the target comes closer to you.  That's easy to not do, just don't move closer, but it's not easy to not care about. Controller: Ranged Burst 1 1d6+Mod and Mod damage if the target makes an Opportunity Attack.  It not only does damage to a larger group, but carries a penalty that limits your targets options.  Note that, because it does decent damage to a large group, the status condition needs to be small.  Limiting the damage makes slighty stronger status conditions acceptable.  Mod damage and Slowed would probably be ok. Defender: 1W+Str damage and Push 1, you may shift to Follow; must use shield.  This is the perfect example of a defender at will in my eyes.  You push the target away, and shift to stand between the target and your ally.  Pure defendering.  Less damage for greater effects, sure, but the rider (must use shield) keeps the damage from getting too high. Leader: 1W+Mod damage and -2 to one defense until the beginning of your next turn.  This seems ridiculous, but you aren't benefiting from it. The character did the same damage as an MBA would get them.  But all your allies can target that defense, letting you lead. In general, that's how I measure my at-wills.  I just make Encounter powers Stronger and Daily powers stronger than Encounters, with a 'no failure effect'.  Be it a Miss line, Effect line, or the Reliable Keyword. Now, one quick thing about 1W and 1d6.  Most classes treat them generally the same, but you have to be careful.  A maul does 2d6 damage, so a 1W power with a Maul will deal twice as much as a 1d6 power.  On the other hand, a dagger does 1d4, similar but generally inferior to the 1d6 power.  When building these powers you need to consider what weapons your class will use.  Base it on proficincies, benefits, and restrictions.  If a class uses really big weapons (barbarian) then it needs limited effects.  If a class gets big benefits for using daggers (rogue) then it can have better effects.
#5 slobo777a Oct 15, 2009 9:14:21	5.  4. What makes a "RACIAL" power and how do you create one from scratch? How do you keep it balanced? How do you create new, balanced racial powers, while keeping them fresh and original? What makes an "racial" different than any other power beyond its ownership?   This one is quite well defined. First and foremost, the racial power should be something that helps define the race within the game. It should be a mechanic that matches to the fluff for the race in an obvious way. It should be compatible with every class, and preferably easy to use by every class. If you can make it most useful to classes where you have not applied stat bonuses to primary stats, then you are well on the way to creating a well-designed race. In addition, using the power should always be a better option than not using the power, in the "game slot" in which you place it, with few exceptions. This is why many race attack powers are Minor actions, as an attack is a pretty good use of the minor action "slot". If you make a racial power a Standard per-Encounter action, this is generally bad design because either a) It has to be more powerful than a high level Encounter attack power or b) It will never get used. The design goal here is that the racial power should get a lot of "screen time", which reminds the players what race the character is, and why it is cool. A class/race combination should always have the race abilties show through in some way, even though the vast majority of powers used will come from the class. Racial powers should also "scale" in that they should be useful to the character at any level. For attack powers, this might mean building in bonuses to hit and damage in each tier. The scaling also means that the power should not stand out as the "best" power that a first level character has. This is why many racial powers work with first level powers (human's extra At-Will, half elf Dilletante etc), or alter game mechanics in a very generic way (Halfling's re-roll)