STORMCROW'S PROFILE

trippy-chords, welcome and what's up!

What engine are you using first off? Always include that in any help thread.

So, hopefully if and when this thread gets going it will be useful for this kind of stuff. In the mean time, here are my two cents. (Thank you for mentioning Zork by the way, I feel incrementally less old.)

Four stats and four classes are nice numbers for keeping it simple with a roguelike type game. I'm not sure they're enough to support a feature length JRPG but for now I'll work with what you gave me.

Your mage having more health than your tank is just FUCKING WEIRD. (Since you're new, let me clarify: not yelling at you, I just enjoy capslock and swearing.) So is your archer having more health than both of them. Still, I'm using your stats as-is for the below.

Here are some basic thoughts towards an (intentionally dumbed down) formula. Personally, I like simple formula that can be easily grasped at a glance and that means small numbers. The Final Fantasy series' formulas with their "let's multiply everything by 512 and divide everything by 256" bullshit irk me.

Note I'm not bothering with to-hit formulas, just damage formulas for now. And I'm skipping mage because you do not have a magic stat that I can see and you need one.

Formulas by Class & Combat Options:

Assume all defense formulas also include any bonuses from armor.

Thief:
* Light Attack: (Strength + Weapon POW + Level) x Speed - (Enemy Defense + EnLevel)
Base Damage @ 1st Level w/ POW 2 Weapon: 16 -(EnDef + EnLevel)
* Cautious Attack:: (Weapon Pow + Level) x Speed - (Enemy Defense + EnLevel) plus the Thief's defense is doubled until the start of his next turn.
Base Damage @ 1st Level w/ POW 2 Weapon: 6 - (EnDef + EnLevel)
* Mug: (Strength + Level) x Speed - (EnDef + EnLevel) plus the thief steals a random item from the enemy.
Base Damage @ 1st Level: 12 - (EnDef + EnLevel)

Dragon Tamer
* Light Attack: (Strength + Weapon POW + Level) - (Enemy Defense + EnLevel)
Base Damage @ 1st Level w/ POW 2 Weapon: 13 - (EnDef + EnLevel)
* Cautious Attack: (Weapon Pow + Level) - (Enemy Defense + EnLevel) plus the Tamer's defense is doubled until the start of his next turn.
Base Damage @ 1st Level w/ POW 2 Weapon: 3 - (EnDef + EnLevel)
Base damage @ 7th Level w/ POW 9 Weapon: 16 - (EnDef + EnLevel)
* Heavy Attack: (Strength + Weapon POW + Level) x 2 - (Enemy Defense + EnLevel). Dragon Tamer's Speed is halved until the start of his next turn.
Base Damage @ 1st Level 1/ POW 2 Weapon: 26 - (EnDef + EnLevel)
* Reckless Attack: (Strength + Weapon POW + Level) x 3 - (Enemy Defense + EnLevel). Dragon Tamer's Defense is halved until the start of his next turn.
Base Damage @ 1st Level w/ POW 2 Weapon: 39 - (EnDef + EnLevel)

Archer
* Quick Shot: (Strength + Speed + Weapon POW + Level) - (Enemy Defense + EnLevel)
Base Damage @ 1st Level w/ POW 4 Bow: 15 - (EnDef + EnLevel)
* Power Shot (Strength + Speed + Weapon POW + Level) x 2 - (Enemy Defense + EnLevel) Archer's Speed is halved until the start of his next turn.
Base Damage @ 1st Level w/ POW 4 Bow: 30 - EnDef + EnLevel
* Piercing Shot (this one's a little complicated):
(Strength + Weapon POW) - (Enemy Defense + Enemy Level) - (Attacker Speed + Attacker Level)
Archer's Defense is halved until the start of his next turn.
Base Damage @ 1st Level w/ POW 4 Bow: 8 - (EnDef + EnLevel) - (Speed + Level).
So a first level archer would be making his attack against whatever the enemy's defense normally is minus seven for a piercing shot.

Now obviously to introduce more damage variance/randomness you can make every instance of 16 a "d16" (i.e. rand 1..16) and so on if you want.

Lookit this carefully and let me know what you think. (The first thing you should probably notice is that only the thief uses a stat as a multiplication factor, and that factor is Speed. Probably, this translates to "Speed should cost 2 points for every 1 point other stats cost for thieves on a game balance level).

I hope any of that was helpful!

Which stringed instruments if any do you play?

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!


Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha


Ahahahahahahah


...hahahahaha...

*wipes single tear*

...ha.

Sorry, but it's rare that I get to have a big, literal LOL belly laugh like that. As other people pointed out with varying degrees of pithiness (pith?), this community is {insert comical comparison here} nowhere freaking close to even being able to decide on a style guide for code for one particular version of one particular engine, let alone in a general case. We're talking "one thousand monkeys on one thousand typewriters ACTUALLY producing Hamlet" level of impossible here.

My version of Sooz' joke was going to be that we haven't even decided as a community if it's okay to use rips (but actually that's pretty simple, rips are allowed here because this is the land of the free WOOO, and forbidden on RPGMakerWeb because that's soviet communist china over there, by which I mean the official site).

author=Mirak

It's THIS fucker isn't it.
He's the one always reccommending me THIS SHIT.

roflolol

Is that...I forget, is that from one of the gag endings of Silent Hill 2? (Never actually seen it but heard of it.)

@Acra: Thanks for the in-depth answer! I really appreciate the detail you put into it. Lots to consider.

author=LockeZ
That said, I don't think tutorials for very simple concepts need anything more than a text box telling you the info you need in one or two sentences. A text box that says "You can go down pipes by pressing the down arrow" is all you need. You don't need an interactive sequence demonstrating it.

Thanks LockeZ, that was one of the main things I was trying to work out.

High praise! I'll take it, on behalf of myself and justashydoge!

Frankly that's exactly the kind of pullquote I'd love to have grace the cover of any of my books, games, or movies!