Balancing in ICRPG: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Spellburn

I have a mage at my table. Her name is Sabina, the Pyromage. She has a spell that can either:

1. Clear a Room of up to three, small (2 Heart) Enemies in one hit, or;
2. One-shot a non-fire-resistant boss monster. 

Sabina is awesome. Provided the spell doesn't explode in her face, miss... or accidentally hit her sister.

Because there is another adventurer in the party. Her name is Agnes, the Twin Blade. She's pretty cool too, and her regular attack can one-shot 1-2 Heart creatures. Add the Kettish Chains' ability to re-roll on high Attempts and she easily does similar damage at close range.

I love both these characters. But sometimes Agnes feels like Sabina takes the spotlight a little too much. That's on me as the GM, because Sabina has almost zero ability in STR or DEX tasks, things Agnes excels in. I need to design more STR and DEX based Effort challenges to give Agnes more screentime. Sabina can lay down some heavy covering fire.

On the subject of "balance," the only issue I have is the potential for "table-hogging." In fact, I care so little about how much damage they actually do that I'm giving them something called the Bloodstone next session, the potential Alfheim equivalent of a few thousand Tzar Bombas, just to see what they do with it.

But maybe you're having similar problems at your table and are banging your head against the wall. How does one fix this without:

• Penalizing player choice in creation/progression;
• Meta the game to compensate via escalation (resistant enemies, etc);
• Single out players in Gameplay (suddenly, everything targets one player);
• Nerf (remove or limit items via house rules)?

As far as "singling out players" goes, if you have one party member that is clearly the "danger cannon" of the group and your Monsters have an ounce of intelligence, they will probably figure out who to concentrate on. Assuming, of course, they survive the initial encounter. The rest? Well...

Behold: GM Grizzly's "Table-Balancing" Tips. 

Note: ICRPG Terminology from RUNEHAMMER Games, LLC used.

SPELLBURN

Spellburn is my favorite thing. Seriously. This is the number one way to balance a table when it comes to Magic or even high-powered Loot items. After a year in the system, I employ Spellburn as early as Session 1 with all magic users, and make it a universal cooldown. Sometimes, I make individual spells and powers a unique Spellburn that is an automatic trigger when cast, though this rule usually takes effect after a session or two. I call it "Mental Fatigue."

That was a lot of words. So let's start at the beginning. What is Spellburn? It's simple as of edition 1.3.5 of ICRPG CORE:

After four successful casts of Magic, immediately make an INT/WIS check. Fail, and lose the ability to cast magic for 1D4 rounds. Succeed, and restart the counter! 

In short, it's a potential cooldown, a way to build tension when casting. Players know how long until they have to make this check. I would suggest making it a HARD check to increase the chance of its triggering. 

What about making it universal? I apply it across the board. It's not tracked for individual spells; it's for Magic in general. Mental Fatigue is what really makes a super power like Pyroblast a risk to cast (aside from its inherent instability), as it immediately triggers the HARD INT check for Spellburn when cast. Why do this? Isn't this penalizing the player? Not at all. In fact, it now turns something that made the table resentful (show-stealing magic) into a reward that they look forward to in a tough fight. 

Mages have plenty of other ways to help in a fight outside of casting spells. They can Investigate things to aid other players. Sabina is a Hillman and can do Basic Work on things like Translations or Studying quickly. She also has Medicine tools and can perform basic healing on Agnes. Players are crafty. And probably have other Loot items that get forgotten until the Magic dries up for a time.

BACKFIRE/BLUNDERS

Backfire. A word that should strike terror in the hearts of Magic users everywhere. Again, this is something already in the CORE 1.3.5 edition, and as such is not penalizing or singling out players. It is the risk/downside of playing such a powerful Hero.

What is Backfire? Backfire is the magical version of a Blunder, or rolling a 1 with the D20 on an Attempt. To me, Backfire and Blunder are and should be very different because magic is inherently unstable while steel is reliable and straight-forward. 

Backfire comes in two flavors: INT Spells and WIS Powers, or Spells and Holy Backfires, respectfully. Each have D4 things that can happen, all bad. Some are worse than others, ranging from forgetting the Spell/Power to having the might of the ability reflect back onto you.

Normally, a GM would have a player re-roll for a Blunder, meaning they would need to roll double 1's in a row for true Blunder. I would keep this rule... for a Blunder. I define Blunders as double 1's on any Attempts non-magical in nature. For a Backfire, I would remove this re-roll. Magic should be dangerous.

CHECKS (And Balances) 

A simple way to "balance" a party is in Room Design. Unless every player is playing the same character, the 6-point or even 8-point builds prevent Jack-of-all-Trades characters. There are ways to make challenges for everyone. There are limits to Magic, just as there are limits to the body. As GMs, we should be designing encounters that include the strengths of all party members. 

Balance in ICRPG (if such a thing exists) isn't about the amount of damage a player can do. They should be Heroes and legends after a few adventures. It's about how much table-time they control on a regular basis.

LOOT (And the Nature of Fragility)

ICRPG is very different from most other table-top systems. Powers, abilities and even Spells are bound to Loot items. There are many monsters in ICRPG that literally eat Loot. And things can break under enormous stress. I would only have monsters like this on rare occasions, but they exist and can terrify even the most powerful characters in ICRPG simply because of their ability to strip PCs of power.

CONCLUSION and the D.E.W.

If you're a regular to The Grizzly Rant, then you probably know I'm big into the D.E.W.. If players are regularly complaining about a specific character's power-level, then it may be a good time to sit back and review the Game Master's Oath and the Room Design core principles, especially the D.E.W.. Why are they more concerned about the mechanics of a character they should be thankful to have in such a deadly game than the consequences of failure in the adventure? Are you being the Terror to Behold? Are you letting the torrent flow, being poetic, creating Wonder and Energy at the table? Are Rooms designed with multiple facets in mind, the TTTs, L.O.G., Architecture, narrative structure?

You are the creator of their world. They are in the sandbox of your mind. 

You are a Game Master.

Happy gaming!