Special Move: Mastermind's Scheme

I figure the player would just have to watch what they put in their build. Here's what I'm looking at as the "final" version of this:

Mastermind's Scheme
8: Target ally gains +1d6 damage on it's attacks until the end of your next turn.
10: Up to three target allies may immediately activate their d8 special move. If they do not have a special move, they gain +3 damage on their attacks until the end of your next turn.
12: Target enemy loses any resist it had and cannot gain resist until the end of your next turn. In addition, up to 12 allies may immediately deal 1d6 damage to that enemy, ignoring any (save ends) effects that would prevent them from attacking.

Gave the d12 a buffer against blinds and other things that would prevent it from working.

Looks good. Shall we send it in to the developers? I'm still not certain if there's an actual protocol for that or not. If you can't find one, just PM it to one of them. (It's my dream special, but it's your idea, so you should send it in.)

Wow, okay... Let's talk about balance.

The 8 ability...
This is way, way over the curve with any multiattack build. With free actions, interrupts and reactions plus minor action attacks - you could dish out absurd damage with this. It would easily be the most ridiculously strong 8 ability in the game.

The 10 ability...
Three 8 abilities is WAY more than one 10 ability. Two 8 abilities is more than one 10 ability, let alone three. One 8 ability you could get away with. If 10 abilities were 3x as strong as 8 abilities, it wouldn't make any sense to roll d8s instead of d10s.

The 12 ability...
This scales WAY too much to large parties and is broken in half with lots of conjured creatures even in a small party. 12d6 is too much d6. And that's not even thinking about vulnerability on the enemies.

Excellent...and I mean that in an incredibly non snarky way. That was some very useful constructive criticism on the direction needed for fixing this. Now to brainstorm the right way to go about things.

Separate question for anyone here, what's a pbp campaign arc that had a good example of team synergy?

Well, some of them can probably just be tuned down. Here's my idea on re-balancing before we start testing.

8: Target ally deals an additional 1d8 damage on their next attack

Specified "on their next attack." Increased the damage to a d8, to proportionalize toward Be Prepared's d10.

10: Target enemy suffers your Mark (save ends). While suffering this condition, you and all allies deal 1 additional damage to it on attacks. Additionally, any Resist they might have is instead set to 0.

I moved this to here, since it's somewhat situational as to how powerful it is. This mark is like all others, and can be over ridden by applying a new mark onto the creature.

12: Up to 3 target allies may immediately activate their Special Moves, as though they had rolled an 8 on a d8.

Moved this up to here since the no resist is at 10.

Other possible ideas. Not necessarily of the same set.

8: Target ally may roll 2d8.

10: Declare a die type (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20). Until the end of combat, whenever a die of the chosen type is rolled you may gain 1 hit point.

12: Until the end of the encounter, all allies may activate their Special Moves on a 7 on a d8, a 9 on a d10, and an 11 on a d12, as well as their normal activations.

In retrospect, I think I got a little blinded by a two part combo of wanting the d12 crit a little too badly and not actually expecting teams to have that many summons since the cheap ones probably won't see play and the good ones would take game time that would be slower/less efficient than just being direct. Still a folly in thinking since 6d6 is still a little crazy let alone the potential 12d6. Got a better idea of things and some thought on how to approach other ideas I was holding back on.

Quietkal wrote:Well, some of them can probably just be tuned down. Here's my idea on re-balancing before we start testing.

8: Target ally deals an additional 1d8 damage on their next attack

Specified "on their next attack." Increased the damage to a d8, to proportionalize toward Be Prepared's d10.

10: Target enemy suffers your Mark (save ends). While suffering this condition, you and all allies deal 1 additional damage to it on attacks. Additionally, any Resist they might have is instead set to 0.

I moved this to here, since it's somewhat situational as to how powerful it is. This mark is like all others, and can be over ridden by applying a new mark onto the creature.

12: Up to 3 target allies may immediately activate their Special Moves, as though they had rolled an 8 on a d8.

Moved this up to here since the no resist is at 10.

This does look a lot more sane and the d10 really fit the concept I was going for. Have a few specific concerns. First, what is the specific reason for the d8 being weaker than Be Prepared? I'm assuming that picking who uses it and being able to "store" it if they don't immediately attack weigh in but just curious. Wondering if it would hurt to allow the d8 to also grant a saving throw for the weaken condition on the target ally. Second, with the original concept being one for summoners with some leeway for warlords, I wondering if some sort of either/or format for the d12 could be achieved since summons lack special moves. Contemplating one of three ideas of varied concepts and sanity:

12: Up to 3 target allies may immediately activate their Special Moves, as though they had rolled an 8 on a d8. If target ally lacks Special Moves, they gain an additional 1d8 on their next attack.

Summons lack specials so you essentially roll yours extra times.

12: Up to 3 target allies may immediately activate their Special Moves, as though they had rolled an 8 on a d8. If target ally previously had less than 0 hp, grant them +1 hp and +1 pip.

"Playing possum" sneak attack and emergency save while still being clearly less efficient than a true healer. May need to be reworded since may not be rules legal in current form pending on how heals/rez works.

12: Up to 3 target allies may immediately activate their Special Moves, as though they had rolled an 8 on a d8. If fewer than 3 allies are conscious, you may summon a conjuration of choice without paying the pip cost.

Overt summoner focus.

Glad to hear you like. :^)
I went with the d8 instead of the d10 of Be Prepared because it can be splashed to multiple targets through adjacency or multiple targets.
The first 12 is probably the closest to balanced, though I really like the middle 12 being able to raise unconscious allies, even if only by 1 health.

Yeah, the second one feels the most like pulling off a "Scheme" as opposed to just being damage or summons. All things considered, gaining a pip is probably unneeded since players should have their own pip gaining moves and there's some really creative options that could come from this anyways pending on how your team is built.