Talk:Master of Time and Space (Legend Track)

Why?

"This cannot be used to start with extra swifts at the beginning of combat"

I can see the balance behind this, clear as day, but the physical consequences of it are absurd. Including such an ability in the game means that a "combat detector" is a perfectly valid gadget. "Well, looks like the kids are fighting again. I wonder where they are?"

Also, does this mean when you want to gank someone to death, you should initiate combat with your allies a few rounds before busting down the door? --Foxwarrior (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Practically speaking, it just means that you can't walk around with a pile of swift actions stored, and its too much effort to refresh it constantly. Hence, you start charging when combat starts.

The type of interaction you describe is the result of taking a description for what happens in the scope of an [Encounter] and extending it to the general case.

This type of thing is a general occurrence with Legend's [Encounter] duration. [Encounter] duration buffs, abilities, and use limits are very common, yet how they translate to out of combat is not clearly defined. The situation of initiating combat a few rounds early if you can is equally applicable to anyone with [Encounter] duration buffs. Mystify (talk) 20:36, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Well then. I'm sorry Legend takes such a cavalier attitude to one of the most interesting advantages a TTRPG has over a CRPG or a wargame. --Foxwarrior (talk) 20:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I've always preferred having encounter-based durations rather than strictly time-based ones (as I think I've mentioned before) since players tend to try to min-max the time and rush through things when there might be clues left by the DM so that their buffs don't run out. --Ghostwheel (talk) 20:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Outside of an [Encounter] you don't need to be as strict about these things. Instead of having things like "You can use fireball every 5 minutes", its "You can use fireball once per [Encounter]", and now you don't have to worry about precisely how long things took, and you can interpret it outside of combat as "I can occasionally throw a fireball". The system can be vague because it is a TTPRG and not a CRPG, and hence can support more free-form handling of things. Legend doesn't get hung up on finicky details. You don't have to worry about the weight of every coin you carry or precisely how long you have been walking. Its a more abstract system, which is one of its strengths Mystify (talk) 20:59, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

If you like to let the DM freely pick the more dramatically appropriate answer to "how long does it take to glass the Sahara desert" or "can I ferry the Trojan army to china with Space Bends in time" (does teleport let you bring allies?), then I suppose that is a strength. --Foxwarrior (talk) 21:12, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you think it makes sense to take the rules laid out for an encounter an extend them indefinitely to figure out how long it takes to glass the Sahara Desert? That type of thing is likely to give you a nonsense answer in any system, so why pretend its useful. The DM giving a dramatically appropriate answer is the best way to handle things like that.

Teleport does allow a certain number of allies. Those details are given in the teleport spell in the main rules. Based on that limit, a once per scene teleport is not going to convey an army. Mystify (talk) 21:27, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

"Not going to convey an army" is a rather blanket statement to make when I haven't specified whether "in time" is a matter of hours, days, months, or years. --Foxwarrior (talk) 21:30, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Fine, given a long enough time you can ferry an army. What is your point? Are you just trying to poke imagined holes in a system you haven't read? Mystify (talk) 21:37, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Foxwarrior just got a hateboner against encounters-based actions. --Leziad (talk) 21:51, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

For future reference, I think the term that all the kids are using nowadays is "hate-on". Surgo (talk) 18:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Wouldn't be too hard to make it more clear...let's see what I've gotten out of this. Let me know if I'm correct or not about any of this. From what I understand and have read so far in Legend, there are plenty of non-combat "encounters", so pretty much any time you want to start using your 1st circle ability you can just say an encounter started. This could include a few rounds before you actually engage: "the encounter has started, but we haven't ambushed them just yet". This should let you store up your swift actions, provided the people you are trying to kill don't see you or something that would make the fight start instantly. This means that the Master of Time and Space is pretty deadly in an ambush situation, but I'd honestly be a little offended if that wasn't the case what with how they can bend time to their advantage.

I don't quite find the "it takes effort to maintain" bit a particularly satisfying explanation, because it takes effort in combat (specifically combat, not any encounter) too -- so if that's the fluff, it should probably have some meaning when the combat is actually happening. If I was to be completely uncreative about it that means some penalty to rolls, or some kind of damage when used, or something. Surgo (talk) 18:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

There are many things that you could leverage to your advantage like that in a combat situation. This lets you get the benfit of your swift actions, but other things could be gettign the full benefit of standard actions.

"Takes effort to maintain, so you can't use it indefinitely" doesn't nessecarily mean "is disproportionatly draining so as to effect your abilities in combat". I would also say that it takes effort to swing a sword at combat speeds, and you are unable to do so day in and day out without pause. That doesn't mean the system needs to model the drain it takes within the scope of an encounter. There are swift action abilities that let you attack with energy bursts, for instance. I bet those are draining too and you would have a hard time doing it contantly, even if it is at-will within the scope of an encounter. Mystify (talk) 18:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough point. My question is though -- would this sort of ambush strategy be a legitimate use of the swift action rules? I have nothing against it; on the contrary, I think it's kind of cool. Surgo (talk) 18:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I think so. It at least works as well as any other ambush strategy in Legend. Mystify (talk) 18:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

@Mystify: One thing that you might like to do that I've done with some of my token-based classes is simply declare that at the beginning of a combat encounter they begin with 0 resources (swift actions in this case). Why? Who knows. But for some reason no one's had a problem with the berserker having no adrenaline at the start of an encounter. --Ghostwheel (talk) 21:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That is pretty much what I did. Are you trying to suggest an alternate phrasing you think would be less abrasive? Mystify (talk) 22:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah--just replace the line, "This cannot be used to start with extra swifts at the beginning of combat, and swift actions in the pool expire at the end of the [encounter]." with "At the beginning of an [encounter], the Time Master's temporal capacitator is empty of any swift actions." as we don't care about non-encounter situations, since if anything becomes challenging it'll automatically take care of itself by becoming an encounter. Furthermore, it's as simple as possible while leaving the reason as open as possible. Maybe the start of an encounter jars their system? Maybe it's the shock of so many wills colliding in the temporal flow. Maybe the cogitator's neural wetware is undergoing a Snaffian approximation of the third law of Zojja in the trilateral bisector. (Been playing my Asura too much lately.) But it keeps the focus as little as possible on the mechanic, allowing people to draw their own reasons as to why it starts empty and doesn't make a big deal out of it while not forcing them to be unable to do so out of an encounter. --Ghostwheel (talk) 22:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Alright, that sounds good. I've changed it.

Get rid of the second part too? It becomes meaningless and redundant. --Ghostwheel (talk) 22:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That means there is no implied duration of storing them, except you start empty for new encounters. I want to keep the [Encounter] expiration. Mystify (talk) 22:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)