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Do Dominated creatures lose the ability to use their Reaction and Interrupt abilities if they would be happening during their turn?

Ramsus wrote:Can Friendship Never Dies be used to resurrect fallen NPC friends of the party or only PCs? If the later, the wording should be modified to reflect that.

Do Dominated creatures lose the ability to use their Reaction and Interrupt abilities if they would be happening during their turn?

Yes it can, unless one of my own DMs- not dan- was mistaken. And they can still use reactions or interrupts if the one Dominating them chooses to.

Hey folks, I've been swamped with midterms and playtesting the traits revamp. So, time to answer some backlog of questions!

RavenscroftRaven wrote:Speaking of defunct legacy stuff, seriously, what is Combat Advantage and why is it in the skype version of Treasure Trove on the Overloader?

It's a typo. Combat Advantage is a very important thing in the board system, but it's meaningless in the skype system right now. We'll deal with that when I get a moment.

Hayatecooper wrote:I'm assuming the answer is yes but I'm asking anyway just to make sure.
When using Iron Shield does your character still take all the damage but sets it's health to 1?
Or do you take damage up to what would leave your character at 1?

Mainly cause of the cool combo's with Vengeance is Mine.

You take all the damage, it just reduces your health to one instead. Enjoy your vengeance.

Xel Unknown wrote:

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:Once we got the above balanced we've been playing around with how to simplify it. Here's the current idea for the Skype version.

[-9] Wild Abandon - Minor Utility
For the rest of the battle you may deal +3d6 damage on one single-target attack each round and you suffer Vulnerability 4.

When is this (and maybe a -5 (+1d6 and 2 vul) and -7 (+2d6 and 3 vul) versions too) getting to be added to the equine power doc? Cause as is it still got the old very broken version in there.

EDIT:

[-X] Drain Blood - Minor Attack
Deal X damage to target creature. Target creature gains X+2 life. X cannot be less than 1.

This attack deals with two different targets, right? Also you can in theory hit yourself with this talent, right?

1) We really should have added that a while ago. So in answer, when we get a sane moment. We just kind of forgot about it during playtesting. So many things to keep track of.

2) Yep, two different targets and you can indeed hit yourself with it if you like.

Philadelphus wrote:If you use a Boomstick with a single-target attack, does it still count as a single target attack for talents or traits that care about such things? For instance, if you use Meditate to gain 1d12 damage on talents with "2 or fewer" targets, then use Stab (1d10 damage) with Boomstick on an enemy with two adjacent enemies, would you deal 1d10+1d12 damage to all three enemies, or just 1d10? Or more simply put, does Boomstick turn a single-target talent into a multi-target talent?

Boomstick basically turns a single-target attack into a fireball-like-thing. So sadly you can't break it in half with Meditate and similar.

sunbeam wrote:The level 7 shapeshifter utility talent, Form of the snake, mentions a talent called Careful Study. I can't find it in the player's handbook or the talent show. Did it get renamed?

EDIT: Second question! If I use make my own fate to get A Step in Evolution (3 new racial points), can I rearrange the rest of my racial points? The book's exact statement is "You instantly gain the new traits, though changing them will require morphing again." But this doesn't quite clarify it, especially if you don't get the Morph ability.

Also, can You take a level 7 Destiny more than once with I Make my own Fate? So could I get 6 or 9 racial points by taking A Step in Evolution twice or 3 times?

1) Yes it did. Another wonderful example of why it's such a pain to develop for two flavors of the handbook at once. It means Pinkie's Interrogation. The snake form has recieved some editing purely for the purpose of avoiding confusion.

2) Sadly, you won't be able to change them without the morph ability.

3) No, like utility talents you can only choose a specific destiny benefit once.

Ramsus wrote:Can Friendship Never Dies be used to resurrect fallen NPC friends of the party or only PCs? If the later, the wording should be modified to reflect that.

It absolutely can.

LoganAura wrote:

Ramsus wrote:Can Friendship Never Dies be used to resurrect fallen NPC friends of the party or only PCs? If the later, the wording should be modified to reflect that.

Do Dominated creatures lose the ability to use their Reaction and Interrupt abilities if they would be happening during their turn?

Yes it can, unless one of my own DMs- not dan- was mistaken. And they can still use reactions or interrupts if the one Dominating them chooses to.

Actually Logan, according to the definition of Dominated:

Dominated - The dominated creature has its turns controlled by the dominating creature.

you only control the creatures turns, not the creatures interrupts, reactions, or additional out of turn actions.

I'd also suggest you put on the list of to do when you got a sane moment: Updating the Riural Knife...

And to ask another question, how goes the next game update? That going to be out soon-ish or what?

The next game update (trait expansion and revamp) goes extraordinarily well. However, as the current playtest is in board form and there is just so much to playtest (over 100 traits in the board version), it's difficult to say when it'll be ready for an open Skype beta.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

Philadelphus wrote:....does Boomstick turn a single-target talent into a multi-target talent?

Boomstick basically turns a single-target attack into a fireball-like-thing. So sadly you can't break it in half with Meditate and similar.

Ah, thanks for the answer. That's what I expected. Excited to hear about the trait expansion!

Bumping a few questions...

1) Crescendo: Can you use the crescendo attacks in any order you wish (e.g. start with strongest one, end with weakest), or strictly in the written order that the talent states?

2) Crescendo: Can you choose to not utilize/perform/target with one or more of its attacks after spending the PiP cost (e.g. when you have only one target and don't wish to accidentally kill or defeat something)?

3) Interrupt/reaction utilities: Can you combine identical interrupt utility talents on top of themselves? For instance, can you use "The Stare" or "Yee-Haw" multiple times on the same skill check, further boosting the roll (this is achievable either by having multiple magic points, or by having several allies use the same thing)?

4) Eternal Flame enchantment: Can it "spread"? What's is its color or appearance, compared to a regular flame (is it an obvious difference or not, or can it be used to bluff creatures with threatening them with it)? How much control does the caster have over it (Where does it appear, what range, can it fly around, etc...)?

I got a simple question:
What happens when you summon something and then you go up in the initiative order? Does your summon follow you? Alternatively, can you summon something and then on the next turn delay until after your summon goes, or do summons ALWAYS go right after you?

Um: Spiked Armor, Hellspike Armor, and Lightning Blade have their combat talent be labled only Reaction... Not a Reaction Attack or Reaction Utility, just "reaction"... So um... Is that ment to be there or did you misplace that when you were doing your art of war update? Also, do hope you are going to update the voice chat's version of Ritual Knife? It still has the lame version there... I thought that was updated to something a good deal cooler for a long while.

Is it just me or is the only thing It's Over! used in anymore Derpy's Lightning cheese? In fact, is there even any other reasonable situation in which it can come up? If so, I'm not entirely sure the move should really exist if it's only use is to be granted for free.

But if it's a balanced, functioning move, even if it only works in one or two extreme builds, shouldn't it still be allowed for the sake of those few builds?
Back when it was mathematically overpowered, but still a mite impractical, and I literally thought it was there to bait people into inventing pip gain chains, I would agree, but as a balanced talent it seems to have this flavorful "no kill like overkill" feel that most moves (except maybe Crescendo) lack.

Except it's not balanced to being free. So if the only way it can be used is to be free then it's not balanced at all.

Um, way before this gets out of hand: We've talked about It's Over about thirty times, talking about it any more is sort of beating a dead Pony.

Technically I was only asking if there was any other viable place for it to be used (before turn 5, sans Ritual Knife cheese) outside of DL's d12 crit.

It's not like DL's d12 crit needs a move specifically just for that effect now that we have so many good high pip cost moves. It's already the most easily abused Special there is, it doesn't need a move that only works for it that nobody else can really use. (And spending 5 turns to use It's Over! is actually underpowered compared to pretty much anything else you could be doing during those 5 turns. Especially the AoE effect. So I'm not sure why anyone actually would use it that way. Even with the Ritual Knife.)

Edit: I'd also like to point out that there shouldn't really be an attitude of "we've talked too much about this thing" as fresh opinions are always important. (And this is hardly the issue that was being discussed last time we talked about It's Over! iirc.)

Ramsus wrote:Except it's not balanced to being free. So if the only way it can be used is to be free then it's not balanced at all.

It actually is balanced pretty well to being used with derpy's lightning, as the most focused Derpy's Lightnign builds even with the old It's Over were barely above the curve in damage output.

So yeah, it's a flavorful and flashy move. However, it's not broken and some people really like it - plus it's nice in the popular Derpy's Lightning build. So we definitely don't want to take it out of the system. When some people really like a combat talent and it's not hurting anyone else's experience - that's a nice addition to the system.

Well, I know as a GM it'd certainly be ruining the experience for me if I built a neat boss monster and someone basically one shots it on turn one because they got to use It's Over! twice in a row or such.

As a player I don't really appreciate someone else randomly ending the fight all by themselves without anyone else's participation being necessary either.

So, I'm not entirely sure how you define "hurting anyone else's experience" but, the way I do, it hurts mine.

I think if someone manages to trigger It's Over twice in a row off a derpy's lightning, the sheer awesomeness of that incredibly-low-probability-event happening would probably be a good thing for the players and the game. =)

Also, it's such a small chance it'll happen extremely rarely. And when it does, it will feel awesome for the players.

But, as you've said before, you don't mind it when DMs actively police their games and ban certain combat talents. So if you really, really don't want it in there - you can feel free to ban it in your personal games. Overall though, it seems like a solid addition to the system.

Besides, sometimes the players are just going to do cool things to the big bad guy. Like using Misdirection on his super-attack. These things happen and they make the players feel cool. =)

It's not really all that low probability if you build for Derpy's Lightning in a decently optimized way. (Admittedly the fight may have already ended in the middle of your insane chain of free piles of d12's but... *shrug* you wouldn't know that in a play by post until you stopped rolling or you'd been rolling for a solid minute or so.)

If it were only that It's Over! twice itself would end almost all fights, that'd be ok(ish). But getting It's Over! as your free move basically ends the fight as you then most likely get another free multiple d12's move.

As a GM I'm free to ban the move all I want as you say but, as a player I can't make other people not take the talent and it's not fun for me there either. (As a matter of fact, I find at all optimized Derpy's Lightning builds to be incredibly boring at this point since it's basically just Critfisher till you randomly win and that's all there really is to it. There's no aspect of teamwork or real choices ever involved.)

Misdirection requires planning on the part of the player both in bringing it in and making sure they can pay for it and then more with themselves or their teammates making sure the Big Boss is going to hit them with the super move (which almost certainly far less strong than It's Over! unless the GM was attempting to kill people's characters in one hit). It also can be interfered with.

A slashback style effect on a d12 granted It's Over! is frankly ineffectual unless it's just obscene and a damage negating move is at that point basically telling that player their participation in the fight is just to ensure other people can hurt it. A misdirection effect on It's Over! would probably kill a party member. It could even kill someone who wasn't the person who used It's Over! . I can only imagine the sour grapes that would cause. On the other hand, those responses to a Misdirected super move back at the boss are all reasonable things.

If I'm the only person who feels this way, then whatever, go ahead and ignore it then I guess. But, I'm pretty sure I'm not.

All these are great points if Derpy's Lightning builds could trigger the talent regularly... But math indicates that they really can't. Rolling a crit fisher for 2d12 is a 2/60 chance of getting a 12 special and then triggering the It's Over combat talent. If each battle lasts a full 5 rounds, you'd expect to see this happen only once in every 6 combats (and if you get it near the end of a battle in rounds 4 or 5 - it's not even that different form using a normal move). So the chances of getting it on round 1 or 2 of one of these combats are extremely small... And the chance of the fight also happening to be the one with the big bad in it is even smaller. And getting to trigger it twice in a row in the same fight is such a small chance that it's truly astonishing (about 1/900). The chances that this twice-in-a-row is also the critical big bad fight make it even smaller.

With that in mind, it's going to happen so rarely that it'll be an awesome moment for the players when it does happen. At least, most players I've seen love it when they crit and when the crit is awesome. It's an epic and powerful moment.

So with such low probability meeting such a cool moment for most players - I'm fine with the talent.

I could have sworn that someone asked this already but can you use the same interupt twice on a single action? ie the stare to boost a roll by 40

But you're not rolling 2d12 for Critfisher, you're rolling 5d12. And at level 2 you're taking either King of Fools or Crushing Blow. Then the other one.

Edit: Then when you do roll a nat 12 (or otherwise trigger the d12 crit) the move you use is likely going to be rolling a minimum of 3d12.

You can't use more than one of your interrupt/reactions on the same action. Each player can only do one once per trigger.

Ramsus wrote:But you're not rolling 2d12 for Critfisher, you're rolling 5d12. And at level 2 you're taking either King of Fools or Crushing Blow. Then the other one.

Edit: Then when you do roll a nat 12 (or otherwise trigger the d12 crit) the move you use is likely going to be rolling a minimum of 3d12.

In that case you're spending traits and doing nothing but trying to trigger the critfisher. 5d12 without king of fools is still only a 5/60 chance. With king of fools it's 5/30, which is still unlikely to trigger even over a 5 round fight. If you break down the expected damage, it's not actually unfair. It's just a strong build that some people like. And some people really, really like it.

Since it's not broken and some people really like the build, it doesn't make sense to erase the talent (hurting other peoples' fun) just because some people might not enjoy playing in a group that has a super-focused derpy's lightning build in it.

Ramsus wrote:Is it just me or is the only thing It's Over! used in anymore Derpy's Lightning cheese? In fact, is there even any other reasonable situation in which it can come up? If so, I'm not entirely sure the move should really exist if it's only use is to be granted for free.

Ramsus, what are you doing?

Ramsus wrote:But you're not rolling 2d12 for Critfisher, you're rolling 5d12. And at level 2 you're taking either King of Fools or Crushing Blow. Then the other one.

Ramsus!

Ramsus wrote:Edit: Then when you do roll a nat 12 (or otherwise trigger the d12 crit) the move you use is likely going to be rolling a minimum of 3d12.

Stahp!

The problem, Dan, is that you aren't looking at a 1 in 12 chance (don't cal it 5 in 60 please, that's poor form. We reduce here) of getting It's Over for free. In the Derpy's build you have Critfisher, It's Over, Daggerstorm, Call Lightning and Royal Command. So you are getting a 5 in 12 chance of grabbing at least 1 more d12 (and that's just you rolling poorly on daggerstorm by the by) which can keep the chain going on for longer. Add in Crushing Blow at level 2, and suddenly 4 of your 5 options regularly bring you 5+ d12s, which ensures this keeps going to crazy town.