Psionics

Psionics:
 Hey, everyone,

  Well, I am now very close to being done the Encounter Gen; I
am also very burned out on coding it, since to be frank it took
way longer than I had expected and I'm not 100% sure it was
worth it in a cost-benefit sense to the game, as opposed to just
using that time for debugging and adding content. but it's (very
close to) done now, so it's water under the bridge.

  I hope to release a beta version of the game strictly to this
group (since the balance will probably be a bit broken) at the
end of the month. In the meantime, I'm uploading a file to the
Files section called "EncStats.txt" with a dump of some
encounter-gen theoretical output, honestly because I'm feeling
a bit desperate to share my recent work with someone else. :)

  I've also been adding some new monsters to the game, which
I'm going to keep doing because it's fun and relaxing for me
compared to less immediately visible development. :)

  I've been thinking about a lot of different things recently, two
of which are the overland map and psionics. I think I'm going
to start adding code and resources to generate the overland
map "in theory" as a debug function, because it's a large task,
very theoretical, and I don't want to get into the same position
I did here where the code doesn't work for a long time. I really
felt a bit "cramped" with the encounter gen, trying to produce
a playable version of it without having the time to leave it in
the back of my mind and try to find a good balance for it while
working on other tasks. The OM is much bigger, and has the
same need for "tweaking", so I'll definitely need to work on
perfecting it at the same time as I'm debugging and maintaining
the game.

  I've also been thinking about full-scale psionics and the
psionicist class, doing design work when I get too frusterated
with the e-Gen, and I've come to a bit of an impasse in terms
of the system I want to use. I've got great power use mechanics
and mental combat all planned out, but I'm sticking on the
limiting factor for psi. The glitch is that (1) I vey much want
psionics to be different mechanically from magic, (2) D&D
traditionally uses a point-spend system for psi, and (3) I've
already used almost the exact same system for magic in
Incursion, so a straight translation of and version of D&D rules
would feel very "been there, done that". The options I've got
are as follows:
* Psionics doesn't use any points. You activate powers for
  free, and the limiting factor tends to be Fatigue -- you
  fatigue from fighting based on the number of powers you
  have active, just like wearing armor.
  This is the current assumption of my system. Fatigue
  lost to psi probably won't regenerate, if only to prevent
  dwarves from becoming psi-gods, if only because it's
  out-of-genre for them. This also very much fits with my
  mental image of classic psi from sci-fi, which tended to
  exhaust the user. (You might also lose fatigue from
  "overclocking" powers, like an inherant kind of Maximize
  Spell.)
* Psionics use power points like in D&D. This is the truest
  translation of the system, and allows for some neat
  mechanics with power points (i.e., psi recepticles,
  spending point to overpower, points in psi-combat, etc.)
  but it would feel like a retread of the magic system, and
  adds extra stats to the character sheet.
* Psionics use a point system, and magic starts moving
  toward a more authentic spell slot / memorize per day
  system. This would take a fair bit of work, so I'm not
  hugely enthusiastic about it.
* Psi uses the same points as magic does. This has a
  nice "unified field theory" feel to it, but it makes psi feel
  more like another flavor of magic, which I don't like.
  (I /do/ plan to have psi powers that manipulate/utilize
  mana in odd and unexpected ways, but that would be
  the concept of the power, much like a psi-power which
  manipulates thoughts, gravity or sound.)

  I like the first system, but I worry that it might be hard
to balance well. I'm also imagining a system where XP
would be a distinct secondary cost of many psi powers,
moreso than with magic, so that players have to balance
immediate effectiveness vs. long-term advancement.

  Tangent over.

  Anyway, I /really/ /really/ hope I finish the e-Gen this
next weekend and work out the few remaining kinks
and glitches -- and really, I should; there's not much
more to do.

 In May, I'll try to divide what time I have left between
new content and bug fixes, foncusing on things talked
about here recently and the prestige classes I put
forth a while back.

-- Julian Mensch