Weird Numbers in IronClaw/JadeClaw [gaming]

[the_gneech]

I started building a JadeClaw character last night; I'll post the details of him when he's done and see what more experienced players think of him. But I've noticed something weird about the stat system.

The basic concept behind this character is that he's a tiger who started out as a warrior monk but whose order was wiped out, forcing him to turn to a vagabond kind of lifestyle to survive. (There's more to him than that, but that's the quick hook.) To that end, I worked on maxing his Brawling skill, particularly when using his claws.

But in IC/JC there are two major factors that determine your skill at any given endeavor, which are the number of dice, and the size of those dice. The more dice you have the better, generally speaking, if only to avoid a botch (which happens when you roll all 1s on a task). However, once you get past three of any particular kind of die, you quickly get into the realm of diminishing returns with that.

Between race, profession, an increased trait, and an extra trait IIRC (I don't have the character sheet in front of me), Fiery Mountain (the character) starts out with a Brawling skill of something like 2d8+d6+d4 when using his claws -- which means that his chances of rolling a botch are virtually nil. But on the other hand, he still doesn't actually fight all that well. The highest he can possibly roll is an 8, which is a respectable number but not likely to generate overwhelming success. In other words, having a handful of dice just means that Fiery Mountain never fails at being mediocre! 0.o

It strikes me as very weird, that with all these advantages stacking up in his favor, i.e., a race that has natural weapons, a profession that teaches him brawling, a martial arts-related trait, and so on, he's still not actually any better than a dabbler.

So in order to actually have him be good at fighting, I went ahead and spent the 5 points to give him a d12 skill die on Brawling, which suddenly gives him a Brawling skill of d12+2d8+d6+d4 -- several miles into the realm of overkill if I understand the rules correctly. I'm going to have to figure out a way to shift at least one of those dice off to another skill; probably the one from his profession (which is currently Escort). Besides just being able to viciously maul his opponents, I want him to be able to avoid and/or suck up damage. Dodge skill? Resolve? Hmm. Is there a "Soak" skill? ;)

More tinkering required!

-The Gneech

Comments

[drfgeek.livejournal.com]

Dodge might help, which is directly related to your speed die. Resolve is used to overcome pain, linked to your will die, and increase your chance of not going reeling. Keyword here is "overcome"; as in you won't get any negatives due to the amount of damage you've taken. That negative being reeling, which causes all of your defences to be -1 until the next round when you roll your resolve to overcome the pain and get back into the fight full force, instead of doubled over. The only thing that can really increase your soak is your body amount and armor.

[purrzah.livejournal.com]

Actually, Soak can be increased by increasing your body or gaining the gift "robust" (I think, I don't have my book with me).

Keep in mind that size of dice still only means a slight advantage over quantity. As a game master I can have NPC's with all d12 skills but still have characters with d8 skills beat out my rolls!

All this matters naught, however, unless you find ways to add damage die. The more dice you can roll in damage, the more likely you'll take out your opponent!

I would definatly suggest making sure Dodge and Resolve are skills he has, as recommended by drfgeek.

Also, look very hard into the Martial Arts. Several of those can help tip scales by affecting special outcomes.

[drfgeek.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, forgot about robust. Never used it myself...but then I don't like making "tank" characters.

As for the matial arts skills...well, there's a reason why the Jadeclaw book is thicker. :P

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, he's currently got Body d12, Speed d10, Race d8 (which adds to his Brawling when he uses his claws), and the gift of Strong+1.

At the moment, he's only got one martial art gift, which is the counter-attack with natural weapons. I also bought him an extra trait (Tien, I think it was?) that gives him some martial artsy goodness.

I'll look into Robust, but right now he's pretty point-hungry. I've tried to give him a few interesting non-combat skills in order to flesh him out a bit -- but most of them are at d4 or d6 since I was so strapped for points at that point.

-The Gneech

[purrzah.livejournal.com]

Just remember that you can use about any skill without having any points in it, you just apply experience points later. The exception are magic skills.

There is also the "unofficial" gift of "wirey" which was bandied about on the mailing list for a while, which allows you to add levels of strength and/or robust without adding mass to the character... I don't have the details here.

I had one player who used martial arts to quite an advantage for both his Jadeclaw Elephant Marine character and his Ironclaw Fox Burglar. It came to where I only felt a combat was challenging enough for everyone if the enemy managed to get one telling blow in on him before they died. ;)

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, in the case of Fiery Mountain, mass is fine. As his name implies, he's a big boy. ;)

But I don't think I'm going to be able to competently pick martial arts abilities until I manage to see some actual combat in action. So for this character, I'll just say his skills have atrophied since he's been out of training for so long.

-The Gneech

[purrzah.livejournal.com]

It would work for me as a game master for explination! ;)

If you haven't already, I'd suggest joining the Ironclaw yahoo group, at least for the sake of being able to dig through the files to get an expanded character sheet as well as other fun additions that have come from discussions there.

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and we don't bite. hard. often. n_n

[purrzah.livejournal.com]

Unless you think too hard on the source of wool in the game. ;)

See the group archives for explanations (and I spelled it right this time!)

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Or, milk, or those lovely, lovely cookies. n_n

"Look Vaslov, mummy made cookies again! numnumnum!"

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Well, like they say, your characters start off at lower levels and work their way up. Think of it as the difference between starting a d20 game at level 1 and the character at level 10 down the road, after you've put some time in, they're gonna get nastier of course.

Sorry about the rambling on that.