It's Over! speed combos, a practical look.

After some brainstorming with a friend(using some creative thinking), I have found numerous ways to abuse and break the "It's Over!" combat talent...

We've managed to compress the PiP gains so much, that It's Over! can be used on turn 2, assuming that you have 3 cooperating ponies...
A few prereqs:

• All three ponies have Draw Blood
  
• The first two ponies to move have Energize and Pincer Maneuver
  
• The 3rd pony has "It's Over!"

Definitions:

• Numbers on pony's names represent only their place in initiative.
  
• Pony's taking a free standard action, will have said action noted during the triggering pony's move.

Turn 1:
Pony 1: Energize(Target Pony 3)
Pony 2: Energize(Target Pony 3)
Pony 3: Gather Energy
PiPs: 5, 5, 7

Turn 2:
Pony 1: Pincer Maneuver(Target Pony 3)
•Pony 1 uses Energize(Target Pony 3)
•Pony 3 uses Draw Blood
Pony 2: Pincer Maneuver(Target Pony 3)
•Pony 2 usesEnergize(Target Pony 3)
•Pony 3 uses Draw Blood
Pony 3: Draw Blood, It's Over!
PiPs: 1, 1, 1

Spoiler:

This is an extreme case, which could potentially end the entire fight in 2 turns.


There is also, the solo Turn 5 variation:

1. Draw Blood
   
2. Draw Blood
   
3. Draw Blood
   
4. Gather Energy
   
5. Draw Blood, It's Over

This high damage output early in a fight, is off set in part by the fact that you did nothing for 4 Turns. Arguably less broken than the first one, however still obscenely annoying the Pony Handlers.

Now, as for a solution...
Bar removing It's Over! or reducing the PiPs gained from Draw Blood, there is little in the way of simple solutions.
The reason that lowering the PiP gains from Draw Blood wouldn't be quite right, are simply this: Draw Blood, on it's own is pretty well balanced. You do next to nothing for the turn, so you get a fair number of PiPs

Now, then let's look at "It's Over!"...
It's 6d12 damage (that's pretty much an average of 39 damage) to entire enemy team; OR 12d12 damage (averaging 78) to one target.
One could say that reducing the number of dice, to 4d12 or 8d12, might work. That would reduce the average damages to 26/52 respectively.
Alternatively, it could stun you until the end of your next turn; which would remove the chaining possibility.
Or maybe, you would only be able to use it once per battle if you didn't kill at least 2/3 of the targets.
Or, make it an immediate reaction; like so:
[-17]It' Over! - Immediate Reaction
Trigger: An ally is knocked Comatose.
Effect: Deal 6d12 damage to all enemy creatures OR Deal 12d12 damage to the triggering enemy creature.


There are a lot of options to modify this ability, however I have a mechanical change to the combat system that would compensate for the early damage:
A PiP/action consumption limit.
It sounds a lot more complicated than it is, basically you can only spend so many PiPs per turn based on the turn number. I'll even provide a number of the values for the equation that I chose:

Spoiler:

Using this mechanism, you can't use "It's Over!" until turn 15; which makes it likely that you'll not be plotting to use it multiple times, by then you may be able to pick off the enemies within a couple of turns anyway.

I said this before, and I'm adding SilentBelle's statement: If you're getting It's Over off in the way you've described, either something's gone wrong on the GM's end with the monsters, or you've worked well enough together that you deserve to be able to use it. It's fine as-is, and adding a PiP limit defeats the purpose of the PiP system.

Well, it would be pointless to not be able to use a move for 15 turns. Because battles last for about 3-8 turns for the most part.

And imagine instead, if they are facing three opponents (which is a fairly likely event I would assume), if every pony on the team decided to use Fireswath on their first turn, (3d10 dmg to all enemies) And then use fireball on their next turn. (3d8 to all the enemies (because there are three))
This requires no combos amongst each other. You end up with an average of (30 damage to all the enemies)

Compared to the average of 6d12 which is 39 to all enemies.

So I really don't see that big of a deal with it. I mean sure that extra 9 damage across all enemies might come as a surprise to a DM who isn't expecting their party to build their characters into an optimized combo. But it can quickly be prepared for in the next session or battle. And frankly if you are able to pull off a combo that catches the DM off-guard, then you deserve that victory for all the effort that you put into the plan and executing it.

I still don't think it needs a nerf. Or if it does, it probably shouldn't be more than a pip or two more.

SilentBelle wrote:Well, it would be pointless to not be able to use a move for 15 turns. Because battles last for about 3-8 turns for the most part.

Okay, true.

SilentBelle wrote:And imagine instead, if they are facing three opponents (which is a fairly likely event I would assume), if every pony on the team decided to use Fireswath on their first turn, (3d10 dmg to all enemies) And then use fireball on their next turn. (3d8 to all the enemies (because there are three))
This requires no combos amongst each other. You end up with an average of (30 damage to all the enemies)

Compared to the average of 6d12 which is 39 to all enemies.

Okay, that's great. But I think you skipped the part where you can repeat this same three turns forever.

SilentBelle wrote:I still don't think it needs a nerf. Or if it does, it probably shouldn't be more than a pip or two more.

I just edited in a slight rework, that counters all of the super combos and makes the name more accurate.

I actually rather like the new move that you came up with, but I would give it a new name and probably lower it to 10 or 9 pips and consider it a new combat talent instead of replacing It's Over. I really don't think that It's Over is particularly broken.

Yeah, it's Over is made to be broken in the way you've described. Most combats are targeted to last 5 rounds, so using It's Over on turn 5 is definitely appropriate. And sure, you can get it off earlier working as a team, but as mentioned - you have to give up a ton of other free damage.

It's Over is also a great power for DMs to deal with because it's really easy for a DM to deal with it. Just put a punching bag for the players to hit with it, planning for it to be used on turn 2, or else be evil and give a monster the equivalent of Stunning Heron's Hoof.

And yeah, your own move is very cool. Something like that'll probably make it into a combat expansion.

Personally, I imagine if it's broken - someone will break it with a tactic similar to abusing Derpy's Lighting's final special move... But as that's a 1/60 chance of activating every time you roll a d12, I think it's fair... Just going to be awesome when it happens.

Healer's Grace
Turn 1: Gather Energy
Turn 2: Daredevil's Rush + Anything that gives +2 or more PiPs
Turn 3: It's Over!

Turn 2 if a single party member has Pincer Maneuver.

I call this combo Silence in honor of my character Whisper who I was looking at combos for when I stumbled along this, special thanks to Elfy, and minor thanks to Kal.

Seems pretty high-risk, high-reward of a combo.

I thought healer's grace could only heal allies, not yourself, on the d8 special... I could be wrong though.

So you're right. Though there's almost no risk of killing yourself with DR since if you roll even a single 8 it cuts the damage you do to yourself in half.

Stuff like this is why It's Over is banned in Canpaign of Jokers...

Xel Unknown wrote:Stuff like this is why It's Over is banned in Canpaign of Jokers...

We're capable of breaking combat in other ways anyway.

Rolls on Daredevil's Rush, 10 d8 rolled (random number generator), five results:

Roll 1:
3
2
6
4
7
3
3
4
8
7
[Divide by two] = 23.5 damage.

Roll 2:
1
4
1
1
5
3
2
4
8
5
[Divde by two] = 14.5 damage.

Roll 3:
2
2
3
7
2
7
3
6
4
1
36 damage

Roll 4:
1
1
5
5
3
4
4
4
5
5
32 damage

Roll 5:
8
4
6
5
3
8
5
3
4
4
[Divde by Two] = 23 damage


So [hardly mathematically sound considering the small sample but] about a two-in-five shot of instantly knocking yourself unconscious. Considering that as soon as the DM realizes what you're doing they're going to be turning all foes against you, though, it's closer to a four-in-five chance of knocking yourself unconscious before turn three ever shows up - turn two if you try this in enough battles. Add that to the fact that if you hit zero HP your PiPs also hit zero, and...

...well. Like I said: high risk, high reward.