Consequences of Heat & Recklessness
Welcome back to the Crossblog! I know in the last post that I said that we would be discussing the playable races in Crossroads, but before I post that I'd like to include some visual reference for all nine races to accompany the descriptions and evolution trait explanations. So I ask that you be patient while I work on those as well. Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles has been a predominantly one-man operation, so I have to focus on the areas that will yield the biggest, most immediate gains, while conducting my playtests. As such...
This time on the Crossblog, we will be taking a slight detour from our itinerary to have a look at a topic that was briefly touched upon back in Post #3: "What Do You Do?" Resource Management. We skimmed the surface of the concept of "Heat". We will be looking into this mechanic and what comes with this little floating number.
WHAT IS HEAT?
At its core, Heat is a moment to moment measure of how well your character is able to manage the rigors of combat that are affecting them at that time. By default, a character's Heat value has a value of "1". As long as the character is performing within the scope of their training back in the Academy, they are not stressing themselves out, trying to perform beyond their capabilities. Under these conditions, Heat will not accrue.
However, sometimes circumstances may arise in a combat scenario that may encourage a character to take actions that ramp up the action to a pace they may not be ready to keep up. It is in these actions that Heat creeps in. These sorts of actions are usually opportunistic or create opportunities. Upon completing the attempted action, the combatant's Heat value adjusts accordingly.
HOW DOES HEAT WORK?
By default, Heat starts at a value of 1. A character who is of a caster Path (Devoteé, Priest, or Psion) decides that they want to cast a spell for more damage by way of the Dynamic Casting System. The caster announces that they are doing so and how they are going to manipulate the properties of the spell. The caster completes their action. Regardless of success or failure, they immediately increase their Heat value. This new value persists until it is further manipulated or the character takes a brief rest.
Intense combat provokes a buildup of Heat. Whenever a character makes a dice roll while they have a buildup of Heat, they must make sure the unmodified dice roll is greater than their Heat value. Should their dice roll be less than or equal to their Heat value, they resolve that action and immediately end their turn due to becoming too stressed. This premature ending of one's turn is considered "reckless" because the character is unable to react to incoming dangers. This "reckless" state means that enemies are able to exploit these vulnerabilities that have presented themselves.
The fact that Heat only pays attention to the unmodified roll means that someone could still successfully complete their action AND succumb to Heat, because their bonuses were so high. This means that Heat will not cause you to fail your action, but increase the likelihood your turn will end early and leave you in a reckless state. This means that as long as a character has no Heat built up (a value of 1), even a critical failure (a 1% chance of an unmodified roll of 2) will not prematurely end one's turn.
CAN HEAT BE COUNTERED/MITIGATED?
As Heat is a semi-optional risk/reward mechanic, it can not be circumvented. "Semi-optional" because both players and enemies may have the capacity to alter their opponent's Heat value. However, there are ways to reduce the external influences to one's own Heat value. Usually this requires magical effects, or item usage to get these benefits. As stress can take some time to dissipate, the most effective way to reduce the impact of Heat is to have the character take certain actions that can calm/soothe/slow down the character so that they can regain focus. This could be things like a meditation phrase, reloading a weapon, receiving a Heat reducing spell effect, resting, or even getting knocked out. It is up to the player to determine how confident they are with letting their Heat build up. Should they ever start feeling sketchy about their circumstances, they can always endeavor to dial it down to a comfortable level.
MINIMUM HEAT
While the concept of Heat is represented as a floating number, there are certain actions that put a different type of stress on a person that cannot be reduced by these relaxing actions. These actions raise the character's Minimum Heat value. Examples of these actions are casting a healing spell or activating the Destroyer's "Eye for Blood" ability. Eye for Blood is something of a light rage ability that allows the Destroyer to upgrade their damage dice at the cost of increasing their Heat. These types of actions increase the character's Heat, but this Heat can only be removed by resting. This special Heat sits "at the bottom" of the stacking Heat and persists until rest is acquired. Because it sits "at the bottom", it is easier said that it increases one's Minimum Heat.
For example: Dom is playing Dolabros, a Barbarian (Destroyer/Fighter). Dolabros is in the throes of combat and has taken actions or been hit by attacks that increased his Heat value up to 4. Dolabros is getting slightly agitated with the way combat is going and he's not feeling confident, so he decides that he needs to dial up the intensity to wear down the opposition. To do so, he activates his "Eye for Blood" and incurs a Minimum Heat +2. He increases his Minimum Heat to (1+2=) 3, but his current Heat is now (4+2=) 6. Anytime Dom makes a strain that comes up 6 or less, Dolabros succumbs to the effects of Heat and ends his turns prematurely, which is reckless. Let's say the combat ended immediately after this. Dom wants to get Dolabros relaxed after the hectic combat scenario. Dolabros can use the "Catch a Breath" Maneuver (which will be looked into more thoroughly later) to reduce his current Heat value by 4. This SHOULD drop his Heat value from 6 down to 2. Unfortunately, because Dolabros' Minimum Heat is 3, the lowest his Heat can become is 3 until he gets a rest.
WHY MINIMUM HEAT?
Well Minimum Heat came about as a result of the adventure that I was running with my playtesters. The party was comprised of an Assassin (Destroyer/Ninja), a Cleric (Fighter/Priest), and a Wizard (Devoteé/Priest). As the game carried on, I realized that even if the party was getting the crap beat out of them, the Cleric essentially was able to heal the party back to full in less than a minute. There was no need for the party to EVER stop or rest. There was NO fear of danger for the Cleric, who was tough and could heal on top of whatever damage managed to get through. It didn't feel like there was a real sense of danger for the party. I thought about it for a couple days and came up with the concept of Minimum Heat. Healing spells are powered by one's faith. Needing to heal repeatedly is taxing on the caster's faith in the party's circumstances. It is stressing to see one's allies standing on death's door and they are the one responsible for keeping everyone alive. It was something of an elegant solution that lay neatly within the already existing ruleset.
The best part is the Minimum Heat concept also aligns with my design principle of making Crossroads a game that played into the whole "Dedication Wall" concept. You can continue to keep pushing the party forward and healing them, but the harder you push the party, eventually your healer will render their self ineffective because their Minimum Heat will become so high from casting heals that they won't be able to make strains anymore. At that point, they will easily succumb to the effects of Heat. At some point the healer will have to tell the party "I can't handle anymore right now. I NEED to rest."
Depending upon the circumstances of the battle, there may not be any consequences. Ultimately performing a reckless act allows you to be attacked out of turn by enemies who have you in their Threat Radius (any square they can physically attack) at that instant. An enemy that decides to attack out of turn during this opportunity, can do so but they build 3 Heat each time they do it. They are pushing themselves beyond their normal capacity making all of these extra attacks. If you perform a reckless act and no one has a way to attack you in response, there may not be any consequences.
Again, it is up to the combatants to decide if they want to breach the "Dedication Wall" and bait an enemy into attacking them repeatedly by performing reckless actions. It is this level of player agency, that could potentially create some interesting scenes for the characters to resolve by way of their actions.
Hopefully, this helps you see some of the thought processes that inform the design of Crossroads. I believe that on the next Crossblog, we will be taking a sidestep talking about some of the things that I've learned from my recent adventure with Playtest Team Alpha: "Squad OP". If you have made it this far in this post, hopefully I have piqued your interest about Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles. If that is the case, please feel free to Comment your questions, Subscribe for updates, and Share with your friends to spread the word.
Until next time, this is Darrick Herring, signing off!
Good fortunes be with you!
This time on the Crossblog, we will be taking a slight detour from our itinerary to have a look at a topic that was briefly touched upon back in Post #3: "What Do You Do?" Resource Management. We skimmed the surface of the concept of "Heat". We will be looking into this mechanic and what comes with this little floating number.
WHAT IS HEAT?
At its core, Heat is a moment to moment measure of how well your character is able to manage the rigors of combat that are affecting them at that time. By default, a character's Heat value has a value of "1". As long as the character is performing within the scope of their training back in the Academy, they are not stressing themselves out, trying to perform beyond their capabilities. Under these conditions, Heat will not accrue.
However, sometimes circumstances may arise in a combat scenario that may encourage a character to take actions that ramp up the action to a pace they may not be ready to keep up. It is in these actions that Heat creeps in. These sorts of actions are usually opportunistic or create opportunities. Upon completing the attempted action, the combatant's Heat value adjusts accordingly.
HOW DOES HEAT WORK?
By default, Heat starts at a value of 1. A character who is of a caster Path (Devoteé, Priest, or Psion) decides that they want to cast a spell for more damage by way of the Dynamic Casting System. The caster announces that they are doing so and how they are going to manipulate the properties of the spell. The caster completes their action. Regardless of success or failure, they immediately increase their Heat value. This new value persists until it is further manipulated or the character takes a brief rest.
Intense combat provokes a buildup of Heat. Whenever a character makes a dice roll while they have a buildup of Heat, they must make sure the unmodified dice roll is greater than their Heat value. Should their dice roll be less than or equal to their Heat value, they resolve that action and immediately end their turn due to becoming too stressed. This premature ending of one's turn is considered "reckless" because the character is unable to react to incoming dangers. This "reckless" state means that enemies are able to exploit these vulnerabilities that have presented themselves.
The fact that Heat only pays attention to the unmodified roll means that someone could still successfully complete their action AND succumb to Heat, because their bonuses were so high. This means that Heat will not cause you to fail your action, but increase the likelihood your turn will end early and leave you in a reckless state. This means that as long as a character has no Heat built up (a value of 1), even a critical failure (a 1% chance of an unmodified roll of 2) will not prematurely end one's turn.
CAN HEAT BE COUNTERED/MITIGATED?
As Heat is a semi-optional risk/reward mechanic, it can not be circumvented. "Semi-optional" because both players and enemies may have the capacity to alter their opponent's Heat value. However, there are ways to reduce the external influences to one's own Heat value. Usually this requires magical effects, or item usage to get these benefits. As stress can take some time to dissipate, the most effective way to reduce the impact of Heat is to have the character take certain actions that can calm/soothe/slow down the character so that they can regain focus. This could be things like a meditation phrase, reloading a weapon, receiving a Heat reducing spell effect, resting, or even getting knocked out. It is up to the player to determine how confident they are with letting their Heat build up. Should they ever start feeling sketchy about their circumstances, they can always endeavor to dial it down to a comfortable level.
MINIMUM HEAT
While the concept of Heat is represented as a floating number, there are certain actions that put a different type of stress on a person that cannot be reduced by these relaxing actions. These actions raise the character's Minimum Heat value. Examples of these actions are casting a healing spell or activating the Destroyer's "Eye for Blood" ability. Eye for Blood is something of a light rage ability that allows the Destroyer to upgrade their damage dice at the cost of increasing their Heat. These types of actions increase the character's Heat, but this Heat can only be removed by resting. This special Heat sits "at the bottom" of the stacking Heat and persists until rest is acquired. Because it sits "at the bottom", it is easier said that it increases one's Minimum Heat.
For example: Dom is playing Dolabros, a Barbarian (Destroyer/Fighter). Dolabros is in the throes of combat and has taken actions or been hit by attacks that increased his Heat value up to 4. Dolabros is getting slightly agitated with the way combat is going and he's not feeling confident, so he decides that he needs to dial up the intensity to wear down the opposition. To do so, he activates his "Eye for Blood" and incurs a Minimum Heat +2. He increases his Minimum Heat to (1+2=) 3, but his current Heat is now (4+2=) 6. Anytime Dom makes a strain that comes up 6 or less, Dolabros succumbs to the effects of Heat and ends his turns prematurely, which is reckless. Let's say the combat ended immediately after this. Dom wants to get Dolabros relaxed after the hectic combat scenario. Dolabros can use the "Catch a Breath" Maneuver (which will be looked into more thoroughly later) to reduce his current Heat value by 4. This SHOULD drop his Heat value from 6 down to 2. Unfortunately, because Dolabros' Minimum Heat is 3, the lowest his Heat can become is 3 until he gets a rest.
WHY MINIMUM HEAT?
Well Minimum Heat came about as a result of the adventure that I was running with my playtesters. The party was comprised of an Assassin (Destroyer/Ninja), a Cleric (Fighter/Priest), and a Wizard (Devoteé/Priest). As the game carried on, I realized that even if the party was getting the crap beat out of them, the Cleric essentially was able to heal the party back to full in less than a minute. There was no need for the party to EVER stop or rest. There was NO fear of danger for the Cleric, who was tough and could heal on top of whatever damage managed to get through. It didn't feel like there was a real sense of danger for the party. I thought about it for a couple days and came up with the concept of Minimum Heat. Healing spells are powered by one's faith. Needing to heal repeatedly is taxing on the caster's faith in the party's circumstances. It is stressing to see one's allies standing on death's door and they are the one responsible for keeping everyone alive. It was something of an elegant solution that lay neatly within the already existing ruleset.
The best part is the Minimum Heat concept also aligns with my design principle of making Crossroads a game that played into the whole "Dedication Wall" concept. You can continue to keep pushing the party forward and healing them, but the harder you push the party, eventually your healer will render their self ineffective because their Minimum Heat will become so high from casting heals that they won't be able to make strains anymore. At that point, they will easily succumb to the effects of Heat. At some point the healer will have to tell the party "I can't handle anymore right now. I NEED to rest."
Now we switch to that word I've been flinging around: reckless.
THE RECKLESS CONCEPT
The concept of something being "reckless" comes from the fact that sometimes people in combat do things that leave their self vulnerable to enemy responses should they be capable of capitalizing on the opportunity. While this is not an exhaustive list, the following are considered reckless actions:
- Succumbing to the effects of Heat in combat. (Rolling an unmodified value below your current Heat value.)
- Performing certain melee & ranged maneuvers. (Maneuvers will be talked about in an upcoming post.)
- Invoking the Dynamic Casting System (modifying a spell on the fly) while reacting to a reckless action.
- Casting a spell that is not Fast (2AP) while in melee with an enemy.
- Being knocked up, knocked back, knocked down, tripped, or getting up QUICKLY (one can also get up CAREFULLY).
- Performing an action that causes a character to owe AP on their following turn while in an enemy's Threat Radius. This would be Full-Actions that were not performed at the start of one's turn, like laying down suppressing fire.
- Being inflicted with a status that renders one unable to respond to reckless actions, like Blinded, KO'd, Stunned, or Tripped.
- Moving closer to/farther from and enemy who's Threat Radius you are in without Encroaching or Vacating (taking a 1AP Side-Action to 5-foot step to/from an enemy).
Depending upon the circumstances of the battle, there may not be any consequences. Ultimately performing a reckless act allows you to be attacked out of turn by enemies who have you in their Threat Radius (any square they can physically attack) at that instant. An enemy that decides to attack out of turn during this opportunity, can do so but they build 3 Heat each time they do it. They are pushing themselves beyond their normal capacity making all of these extra attacks. If you perform a reckless act and no one has a way to attack you in response, there may not be any consequences.
Again, it is up to the combatants to decide if they want to breach the "Dedication Wall" and bait an enemy into attacking them repeatedly by performing reckless actions. It is this level of player agency, that could potentially create some interesting scenes for the characters to resolve by way of their actions.
Hopefully, this helps you see some of the thought processes that inform the design of Crossroads. I believe that on the next Crossblog, we will be taking a sidestep talking about some of the things that I've learned from my recent adventure with Playtest Team Alpha: "Squad OP". If you have made it this far in this post, hopefully I have piqued your interest about Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles. If that is the case, please feel free to Comment your questions, Subscribe for updates, and Share with your friends to spread the word.
Until next time, this is Darrick Herring, signing off!
Good fortunes be with you!
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