Special Moves

We don't seem to have a thread for special moves, so I'll make a new one. Post anything related to special moves here, including new special moves suggestions and mechanics questions or discussion.

I'll start it off by sending a few mechanics-based questions/critiques to Dan:

1) If you manage to roll a d12 special attack, shouldn't that be able to let you use the "weaker", d8 or d10 specials? This situation can occur if you don't want to perform your d12 due to circumstances, or outright can't perform it (e.g. the "knights presence" d12 was already cast on all your allies, or you don't have any allies in the fight, making that special useless to you, or the d10 special is simply much more useful for the current situation, despite being "weaker").

The logic behind this idea is that since a d12 critical is statistically "harder" to roll than a d8 or a d10, it should allow you do do a move that would "simpler" to perform.

A similar approach would allow a d10 ability to be substitutable for a d8, since rolling a d10 ability is "harder" than a d8 one. The reverse approach wouldn't work, for obvious reasons.

2) The other question is about "knight's presence" d12 ability: As it currently stands, it can't be cast on yourself (target ally), and once you cast it on all your allies (or the allies are already protected by "guardian angel, an identical effect"), it doesn't seem the ability has any further use.

Can it be further "stacked" onto your allies (e.g. ally only gets 1/4 damage), or does it simply become useless from that point onwards?

For reference:
Knight’s Presence
d8: You gain resist 5 until the end of your next turn and target enemy must attack you on its next turn.
d10: Up to two target allies cannot be attacked until the end of your next turn.
d12: Halve all damage target ally takes for the rest of the battle.

Zarhon wrote:We don't seem to have a thread for special moves, so I'll make a new one. Post anything related to special moves here, including new special moves suggestions and mechanics questions or discussion.

Awesome. This is a great idea.

Zarhon wrote:1) If you manage to roll a d12 special attack, shouldn't that be able to let you use the "weaker", d8 or d10 specials?

Probably not. Could be a trait for that though. There are a few issues with this, the main one being that if d12s have not only added power but also added versatility - they will be substantially more powerful than the other options. At present, their increased power is meant to offset the lower probability. Additionally, I like that if your 10 ability is more helpful in a situation, you might intentionally choose to activate a d10 talent instead of a d12 talent, which adds depth to character building and combat decisions. If we let d12s trigger lower abilities, it's almost always better to roll a d12.

That's the theory at least. I could be dead wrong of course, but since there seem significant reasons not to let specials trigger lower tiers - I shy away from adding the extra rule. Extra rules make the system take longer to learn and create additional opportunities for confusion. Whenever possible, rules should be treated like laws - as few as necessary to make sure people can play happily.

Zarhon wrote:2) The other question is about "knight's presence" d12 ability: As it currently stands, it can't be cast on yourself (target ally), and once you cast it on all your allies (or the allies are already protected by "guardian angel, an identical effect"), it doesn't seem the ability has any further use. Can it be further "stacked" onto your allies (e.g. ally only gets 1/4 damage), or does it simply become useless from that point onwards?

Useless. If you get as many crits on d12s as you have allies, then get another one, you're probably way too fortunate to worry about needing the extra special at that point. It also adds another meaningful reason to change your combat strategy if you've gotten lucky, so you start rolling d10s and d8s.

The combat system gets more interesting if there are often factors that make it so one combat talent isn't always better to use than another. Specials having different effects, some of which are more useful than another at various times, help add to that.

Fury of the Tempest wrote:BOOM TIME
d8: Stun 1d4 random creatures (save ends)
d10: Deal 1d8 to every creature.
d12: Stun all enemies (save ends) and deal 1d4 damage

Shocking Display
d8: Deal 1d6 damage to target enemy
d10: Do either 1d6 damage to target enemy and stun them to the end of your next turn or deal 1d6 damage to two target enemies.
d12: Deal 1d6 damage to all enemies.

Hmm, I think the Boom Time definitely is overpowered, at least it's d12 is. Stun is the most powerful status effect to put on any creature. Even if this stunned for a single turn it would be really really powerful. Add (save ends) to it, and your opponents have almost no chance.

As for the d10 special, it's weak; in fact it feels almost like a +2 pip move, while it should be a fair bit better than that.

Then you have the 1d8 which, while not technically over-powered because of chance, it's still far too heavy of an effect. Stun (save ends) should almost never be applied to anything short of a single-target move, which costs at least 5 pips, or has a d12 trigger. Having this happen in combat is too much for either the foes or the party. If you ever play a game where one of your players has been Stunned (save ends), you will realize just how much damage it causes. So the d8 is pretty much too heavy-handed on it's effect.

Shocking Display, for this one, it doesn't do enough. It's just damage for the most part, it should have some sort of effect. Something that makes it worthy of being considered a Special move.

Still, I like that you've tossed out some ideas to get us started, and I hope to see more. I mean I haven't even thought up any yet, so it's better than what I've got.

Sniper
d8: Target Enemy takes 3d6 damage, and suffers 1 ongoing damage (save ends).
d10: Target Enemy is blinded (save ends).
d12: Target enemy is reduced to 1 HP.

I was gonna say d10 is stun and d12 is auto KO, but I figured (for reasons stated above) that I might as well give the bad guy a chance to come back.

Bronymous wrote:Sniper
d8: Target Enemy takes 3d6 damage, and suffers 1 ongoing damage (save ends).
d10: Target Enemy is blinded (save ends).
d12: Target enemy is reduced to 1 HP.

I was gonna say d10 is stun and d12 is auto KO, but I figured (for reasons stated above) that I might as well give the bad guy a chance to come back.

Well the d10 could be a single turn stun, just not a save-ends. And that d12 special made me laugh, as it's so amazingly powerful against a solo (Although I guess that's the point of a sniper huh?), maybe if it halves the enemy's HP instead?

As for the d8, I think it might prove to be more flavourful if you were to change it to do 1d6 damage and 1d8 ongoing damage (save ends). Or something like that.

I like the idea anyway

SilentBelle wrote:Well the d10 could be a single turn stun, just not a save-ends. And that d12 special made me laugh, as it's so amazingly powerful against a solo (Although I guess that's the point of a sniper huh?), maybe if it halves the enemy's HP instead?

As for the d8, I think it might prove to be more flavourful if you were to change it to do 1d6 damage and 1d8 ongoing damage (save ends). Or something like that.

I like the idea anyway

It was originally Stun for a single turn. So I guess that's alright to use? And I picked 3d6 because I wanted it to potentially do a decent bit of damage, but not have the capability to reactivate the Special, especially if it would just reactivate the same effect (And because Specials activating Specials is ridiculous in general).

Drop shocking Display down a dice size so it can't cycle around and happen forever, and I like it.
As for Boom Time, if the Random Creature includes all allies, that might be good.

Fury of the Tempest wrote:Can't cycle around? What do you mean?

1d12: 12
1d12 and vul 3 on enemy: 12
1d12 and vul 3 on another enemy: 12
1d12 and vul 3 on a third enemy: 12
etc.
It happened in Stairc's game.

Fury of the Tempest wrote:Can't cycle around? What do you mean?

As you've wrote them, in theory you could trigger a special then trigger the same special again given the dice you've put so far, so it could go even for a third time or endless... Highly unlikely but just because the chance is there makes it not so great.

Fury of the Tempest wrote:... Huh, had no idea that could happen...

*Shrug*
One of the current Specials is designed so 1d12 can give the 1d10 special. Or was it so the 1d10 could give the 1d12 special... one or the other.

Buccaneer Blaze does that:

Buccaneer Blaze
8: Stun target enemy until the end of your next turn.
10: Deal 2d8 damage to target creature and that creature is blinded until the end of your next turn.
12: Deal 2d10 damage to all enemies and 1d10 damage to yourself.

Then again maybe your skill should just use 1d6, 2d6, and 3d6...

Fury of the Tempest wrote:BOOM TIME
d8: Stun 1d4 random creatures until the end of your next turn
d10: Deal 1d8 to every creature and stun 1d4 random creatures until the end of your next turn
d12: Stun all enemies until the end of your next turn and deal 1d6 damage

Shocking Display
d8: Deal 1d6 damage to target enemy and give them vulnerability 1
d10: Deal 1d8 damage to two target enemies and give them vulnerability 2
d12: Deal 1d10 damage to all target enemies and give them vulnerability 3.

Ah, no (save ends) is awesome. As for the cycling thing, I wouldn't worry too much about it. After all, in this case, you only roll once, you don't roll for each enemy individually.

See, the way Derpy's Lightning works is that it gives the player the opportunity to roll a d10 from the d8 trigger, and a 1d8, 1d10, and 1d12, when you activate the d10 special. As your move stands you only roll once to determine the damage for all the targets.

I do suggest for Shocking Display that you add a (save ends) to each line with the vulnerability.

Hmm...

Blood Calls to Blood
d8: Deal 1d6 damage to two target creatures. You gain temporary hit points equal to the total damage dealt this way.
d10: Up to three target creatures gain Vulnerability 1d4 (save ends). You gain Regeneration 1d8 for 2 turns.
d12: Target creature loses 3 pips and you gain the amount of pips lost this way.

I realize d10 can proc d8, it is a feature not a bug: You would then target the Vulnerable enemies for more hp gain. I'm not sure on its power level here, but I wanted a "vampony" special set. It may be too complicated for the simplicity we're aiming for, though.

Also, for fun:

(Un)Lucky Skipjack
d8: All creatures may make one saving throw.
d10: You gain Resistance 6 and Vulnerability 9 for 2 turns
d12: All enemies gain 1d10 ongoing damage and regeneration 1d4 for 3 turns

(Why a skipjack? Because it's a funny word to say and the fish for some reason sounds Irish to me; hence, luck.)

RavenscroftRaven wrote:Hmm...

Blood Calls to Blood
d8: Deal 1d6 damage to two target enemies. You gain temporary hit points equal to the total damage dealt this way.
d10: Up to three target creatures gain Vulnerability 1d4 (save ends). You gain Regeneration 1d8 for 2 turns.
d12: Target creature loses 3 pips and you gain the amount of pips lost this way.

I realize d10 can proc d8, it is a feature not a bug: You would then target the Vulnerable enemies for more hp gain. I'm not sure on its power level here, but I wanted a "vampony" special set. It may be too complicated for the simplicity we're aiming for, though.

Also, for fun:

(Un)Lucky Skipjack
d8: All creatures may make one saving throw.
d10: You gain Resistance 7 and Vulnerability 10 for 2 turns
d12: 1d4 enemies gain 1d10 ongoing damage and regeneration 1d4 for 3 turns

(Why a skipjack? Because it's a funny word to say and the fish for some reason sounds Irish to me; hence, luck.)

Let's see. I'd say the Vampony one is pretty good as is, though maybe consider making the d12 move cause a more random amount of pip drain (1d4+1) maybe. Maybe I'm over thinking on that aspect, but the other moves both have a slight randomness to them so I figured it might make sense to keep a similar randomness throughout. Regardless, I really like this set

As for Skipjack, maybe lower the values of resist and vulnerability a bit (Maybe 5 and 8?). The point is to play with luck right? So ideally an enemy will take a pause and take a swipe at you to get that chance of 3 bonus damage if they hit you hard enough. I think resist 7 might be a bit too high and will, for the most part make your character be ignored by the enemies. Where as most enemies will have at least a somewhat decent chance (30-40%) of doing enough damage on their standard attacks.

Anyway, the Skipjack set is random enough to make me laugh Although, I think the first one has better flavour.

The issue with Skipjack's d10 is, regardless of the numbers chosen, it depends heavily on type on the enemies used. The current (rather paltry, we await the Monster Manual with anticipation) selection of monsters would have 5/8 be quite reasonable. (Remember, it's a critical, so it can't be TOO even, it needs to offer some advantage). On a 1d8, the average roll is 4.5, I'd want 6ish to counteract it with some benefits (the monster, if dueling alone 1v1 at this point, could focus on PiP-up abilities if they're worried on hitting). On a d10, it's 5.5, so move resist to 7. On a d12, the average roll is 6.5, or in other words, there's a ~50% chance this ability bites the user in the flank, which isn't ideal for a "critical".

Of course some abilities use d6s, however I notice a worrying trend in the monsters in the forum section to have every [-] ability deal in d12's, or otherwise in multiple dice (even 2d6 deals on average 7). I'd like, ideally, the ability to give 2/3rds immunity for a little bit, similar but quite contrasting to the 1/2 immunity for the entire battle offered by the knight's d12 (which has no drawback). I don't think I can finalize a number until the info page comes out, to see. Alternatively, I could make it 5/8, which basically would translate into "minions don't hit Skipjack, but bosses hit Skipjack extra". With the tendency of many DMs to send single monsters against PCs instead of groups, it would do well for the Skipjack to never roll a d10 with many DMs, that's the only concern.

I'll edit it down to 6/9 for now at the least, I agree it may be a bit too strong, it's just weird "balancing" a completely situational critical.

Wheel of Fate
d8: Perform a d8 special move belonging to one of your allies, determined randomly. Once determined, you must perform this move, if able.
d10: Perform a d10 special move of a different type, determined randomly. You may choose to re-roll a different one, once.
d12: Perform one of two different randomly picked d12 special moves.

Time Lord
d8: Target creature has its next ability take effect at the end of its next turn, rather than immediately. The effects are known and can be prevented by disabling the creature.*
d10: Negate any damage, healing or status effects that will be inflicted on a chosen ally for a single round.
d12: Restore yourself or an ally to the state it started the battle in, resetting their PiPs, HP, items and traits to appropriate values.

* example: Pony uses special on a dragon. Dragon uses its dragon breath which hits everyone for 15 damage. Due to the special, the damage will be inflicted after its next turn. If the dragon is stunned/prevented from attacking/KO'd before that, no damage occurs.

Loose Cannon
d8: Set your health to one, double the damage of your next attack, and prevent PiP loss for when next KO'd.
d10: Set your health to half its maximum, and deal X damage to all enemies, X equal to amount of health lost or gained this way.
d12: Pay any amount of hp as damage to a single enemy, or half of that to all enemies. You cannot pay if it would KO you.