Special Move: Mastermind's Scheme

While I've got other things I need to be working on, I happen to start brainstorming a special move for Warlords and Conjurers. Pretty sure it'll need tweaks.

Mastermind's Scheme
8: Random ally gains +1d6 damage on it's attacks until the end of your next turn.
10: On your next turn, you may treat your next conjuration as a minor action.
12: Treat target enemy's resistance as 0 until the end of your next turn. All allies may immediately roll 1d6 damage against said enemy.

Okay, I tried to make everything spaced out, legible, and easy to follow, but I make no promises. Ask any question you need if I didn't express myself clearly.

At first I thought the d8 might've been too weak, but now I think it's almost balanced. It's just a little awkward in its execution.
Let me explain. a good special to compare this to is the Be Prepared d8: deal 1d10 damage to target creature. This special only deals about 2/3 that damage, effectively, but it can be applied to an ally who used multiple attacks, creating a larger payoff. So damage-wise, it's balanced nicely.
But because the affected ally is random, you can't guarantee that effective payoff. Given that an adventuring party usually includes you and 3-5 allies, and only one of them probably has a build keyed to do multiple attacks per turn (say, the guy holding the wind rapier), you have somewhere between a 33% and a 20% chance of getting the positive payoff. If the recipient's build allows them to gain the bonus twice, then we would want more of a 50% chance of positive pay ( (1/2)*(2/3)+(1/2)*(4/3)=(3/3)= equivalent damage output to a comparable d8 special).
Ironically, the only way to decrease this chance is to lower the number of allies the warlord has, which reduces the effectiveness of his other abilities.

...I have no real way of fixing this except changing "random ally" to "target ally." This has the capacity to put it over the curve, but it should still be limited largely to the d8 level damage output. Plus, like other warlord talents, it fizzles if you don't have allies to work with.


I think the d10 looks very interesting, but it sort of limits the special. I love screwing with the action economy, and the d10 crit is aproximately equal to 1 standard action.* The problem is that an awful lot of builds that could benefit from the other support abilities don't use conjurations. I've personally built one or two pure support characters that don't use summons at all. So this really limits the utility of the build.
Instead, what if we gave the action to somebody else? We could limit it to only attacks or only utilities. How does this look:

d10: Flip a coin. If heads, on your next turn you may use a utility that would normally require a standard action as a minor action. If Tails, target(or random) ally may use an attack that would normally require a standard action as a minor action.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like one of the most entertaining special moves in the game to me. Maybe I just love the action economy too much.

*Be prepared d10 crit: heal 2d12 hp. 2d12 is 13 hp on average, and the HPR (healing per round) is 16, (DPR is 8, healing is worth half as much as damage), so it's only slightly below the damage/healing curve for one standard action**
**Alternatively: the [0] move is 1d14 damage, which means 2d14 healing (healing average: 15, vs. 2d12's 13)


The d12 appears mathematically sound, but at first glance it looks rather weak. Dazzling Performance's d12 crit shows us that the d12 crit is worth 4 pips. A comparable move to this special is:

[-4] Go For The Eyes! - Standard Utility

Target creature suffers vulnerability 2 until the end of your turn, and up to two allies can immediately use the following combat talent as a free action.

[0] Shoot For The Eyes - Free Attack

Deal 1d10 damage to target creature.

Assuming again that you have 3-5 allies in this battle, the special deals on average 4d6 damage (avg 14) vs the move's 2d10+4 (avg 15). Depending on the amount of resist you just mitigated, living with resist 0 or vuln 2 for a round can have very different effects, so as a whole I think they break even. So mechanically, the ability is sound. It's probably an absolute boon against all those demons they're putting in the monster manual.
The problem, at it's core, is that it looks like a weak ability. When I first did this calculation, I expected the bonus d6 damage to be far outpaced by the output of "Go for the Eyes." People will look at this ability and think "meh, that's a bit lame for a capstone. I mean, the d10 crit is totally worth it, but as a final support ability, Healer's Grace's d12 feels more miraculous. So we need the special to look cooler.
...and I have no idea how to do that. Hm.
Maybe we could focus all the damage in one person? Say:
d12: Treat target enemy's resistance as 0 until the end of your next turn. Target ally may immediately deal 4d6 damage against said enemy.
or
d12: Treat target enemy's resistance as 0 until the end of your next turn. Target ally may immediately deal 2d12 damage against said enemy. For each 12 they roll, they may trigger Their special attack twice instead of once.
Now that looks dangerous, and everyone loves to throw d12s around in Pony Tales, and it makes it feel even more like a support talent because it lets your ally do something that can't be done without you.
Ooh, I got one more idea for an alternative:
d12: Treat target enemy's resistance as 0 until the end of your next turn. Two target allies may each immediately deal 1d12 damage against said enemy. For each 12 they roll, trigger both of their special moves.
That's the power of teamwork right there.

Now that the analysis is done, I'd just like to take a moment to thank you SO MUCH for conceiving this special. I usually play support characters in this system, and I've been quietly lamenting the lack of a good support special for a little while. So this is awesome.
EDIT: For the record, the analysis is my way of showing how much I love this special. So count this whole post as a thank you and encouragement to continue with it. I'll be here to help!

ZamuelNow wrote:While I've got other things I need to be working on, I happen to start brainstorming a special move for Warlords and Conjurers. Pretty sure it'll need tweaks.

Mastermind's Scheme
8: Random ally gains +1d6 damage on it's attacks until the end of your next turn.
10: On your next turn, you may treat your next conjuration as a minor action.
12: Treat target enemy's resistance as 0 until the end of your next turn. All allies may immediately roll 1d6 damage against said enemy.

12: Target an enemy. All allies may immediately do 1d6 damage against target enemy. This damage ignores resistance.

Azureink wrote:

12: Target an enemy. All allies may immediately do 1d6 damage against target enemy. This damage ignores resistance.

But then the 0 resistance doesn't last for the rest of the round, and the special is severely nerfed. What about this:

d12: Target an enemy. If that enemy has the resist trait, they lose it until the end of your next turn. They cannot gain resist during this time. All allies immediately do 1d6 damage to that enemy.

It's a little awkward, and I'm not certain whether this should be until the end of "your next turn" or "the enemy's next turn." It's an important distinction with stun and the like, but making the resist-loss last less than one full round seems like it could undercut the effectiveness of the move. Then again, since my suggested wording allows you to remove a creature's resist indefinitely (through devices that exist, but I do not remember), that may be a good idea.

sunbeam wrote:Okay, I tried to make everything spaced out, legible, and easy to follow, but I make no promises. Ask any question you need if I didn't express myself clearly.

At first I thought the d8 might've been too weak, but now I think it's almost balanced. It's just a little awkward in its execution.
Let me explain. a good special to compare this to is the Be Prepared d8: deal 1d10 damage to target creature. This special only deals about 2/3 that damage, effectively, but it can be applied to an ally who used multiple attacks, creating a larger payoff. So damage-wise, it's balanced nicely.
But because the affected ally is random, you can't guarantee that effective payoff. Given that an adventuring party usually includes you and 3-5 allies, and only one of them probably has a build keyed to do multiple attacks per turn (say, the guy holding the wind rapier), you have somewhere between a 33% and a 20% chance of getting the positive payoff. If the recipient's build allows them to gain the bonus twice, then we would want more of a 50% chance of positive pay ( (1/2)*(2/3)+(1/2)*(4/3)=(3/3)= equivalent damage output to a comparable d8 special).
Ironically, the only way to decrease this chance is to lower the number of allies the warlord has, which reduces the effectiveness of his other abilities.

...I have no real way of fixing this except changing "random ally" to "target ally." This has the capacity to put it over the curve, but it should still be limited largely to the d8 level damage output. Plus, like other warlord talents, it fizzles if you don't have allies to work with.

Wasn't sure if it would be balanced or not so I was erring on the side of caution but I did originally plan to make it 'target ally'. Would be more thematically fitting for it to be non random as well.

I think the d10 looks very interesting, but it sort of limits the special. I love screwing with the action economy, and the d10 crit is aproximately equal to 1 standard action.* The problem is that an awful lot of builds that could benefit from the other support abilities don't use conjurations. I've personally built one or two pure support characters that don't use summons at all. So this really limits the utility of the build.
Instead, what if we gave the action to somebody else? We could limit it to only attacks or only utilities. How does this look:

d10: Flip a coin. If heads, on your next turn you may use a utility that would normally require a standard action as a minor action. If Tails, target(or random) ally may use an attack that would normally require a standard action as a minor action.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like one of the most entertaining special moves in the game to me. Maybe I just love the action economy too much.

The idea of the d10 was almost solely to be used as fuel for the d12. More on that thought process in a sec but I really did want to see a move that changed around standard and minor actions.

The d12 appears mathematically sound, but at first glance it looks rather weak. Dazzling Performance's d12 crit shows us that the d12 crit is worth 4 pips. A comparable move to this special is:

[-4] Go For The Eyes! - Standard Utility

Target creature suffers vulnerability 2 until the end of your turn, and up to two allies can immediately use the following combat talent as a free action.

[0] Shoot For The Eyes - Free Attack

Deal 1d10 damage to target creature.

Assuming again that you have 3-5 allies in this battle, the special deals on average 4d6 damage (avg 14) vs the move's 2d10+4 (avg 15). Depending on the amount of resist you just mitigated, living with resist 0 or vuln 2 for a round can have very different effects, so as a whole I think they break even. So mechanically, the ability is sound. It's probably an absolute boon against all those demons they're putting in the monster manual.
The problem, at it's core, is that it looks like a weak ability. When I first did this calculation, I expected the bonus d6 damage to be far outpaced by the output of "Go for the Eyes." People will look at this ability and think "meh, that's a bit lame for a capstone. I mean, the d10 crit is totally worth it, but as a final support ability, Healer's Grace's d12 feels more miraculous. So we need the special to look cooler.
...and I have no idea how to do that. Hm.

I guess now I should talk about my inspirations for this move. The original name was going to be Mastermind's Supremacy, a deliberate shoutout to the Mastermind archetype and their inherent ability Supremacy which was a passive damage and accuracy boost to henchmen in it's line of sight. In working on a build for Fluttershy (and eventually doing one for Celestia) I was disappointed that the only traditional animal was a rabbit who's stats seemed sorta useless. But I got to thinking for a bit about ways to be creative and two rule confirmations set me on my way. The rules in question were that conjurations were considered allies and that there's no limit on conjurations per player. My brain locked into finding a way to do a bunny zerg rush ("The horror! THE HORROR!") The d12 special was explicitly supposed to be the strength in numbers move that started lackluster but got terrifying the larger your force. Adding in the Resist 0 was meant to really represent the tables being turned/a master plan coming together since the player can benefit from that part even without allies. The problem is figuring out how to balance it so it fits those concepts.

Now that the analysis is done, I'd just like to take a moment to thank you SO MUCH for conceiving this special. I usually play support characters in this system, and I've been quietly lamenting the lack of a good support special for a little while. So this is awesome.
EDIT: For the record, the analysis is my way of showing how much I love this special. So count this whole post as a thank you and encouragement to continue with it. I'll be here to help!

Thanks, I enjoy constructive criticism. I saw the healing and guardian based support specials and figured the offense gap could stand to be covered. As a whole, I'm trying to learn the system by doing.

Okay, the d12 makes more sense now, but I feel like now this is very purely a summoner's special. With a conjuration based d10 and a d12 designed for conjuration armies (Bone mites...oh god the bone mites! They all do 1d6 damage, then explode and deal 1d8 more...the carnage), There really isn't much room for the support characters. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like so many of the other specials have multiple uses on multiple builds. I know that for my support character, I was having trouble deciding if I wanted Crippling Strike(debuff) or Dazzling Performance(buff, because the only thing I could activate at the time was the d12). Then Be Prepared appeared and I dropped both of them like a hot curling iron, but the point is that all three were applicable for my build. I just liked the versatility of Be Prepared. If this special exists, then this is THE special for summoners, but not for anyone else, not even other support characters.

I think we might be able to take the focus off of conjuration by going with something like my version of the d10. It still has the rather cool ability of screwing with the action economy, and since most summons are utilities anyways, it could still work for summoners. It would actually be sort of funny, because warlords would be hoping to give other people actions while summoners would be hoping to hoard the actions for themselves...

When you point out the value of summons, I think the d12 can more or less stay as it is. The problem is still the badass factor. I didn't think of abusing conjurations with this at all until you pointed it out. I'm going to try to rework the wording, to give it more punch:

d12: Target enemy loses any resist it had until the end of your next turn. That enemy cannot gain resist until the end of your next turn. In addition, all allies may immediately deal 1d6 damage to that enemy.

I think that sounds a little better. Also, I think technically we're supposed to limit "all allies" to "up to six" to avoid, say, 3,874 orcs activating this special. ("but the whole army are my allies, right?") Actually, what would make this sound cooler is if we threw in a big ceiling number...

d12: Target enemy loses any resist it had until the end of your next turn. That enemy cannot gain resist until the end of your next turn. In addition, up to 12 allies may immediately deal 1d6 damage to that enemy.

The idea here is to point out the sheer amount of damage you can do with these d6s, and to induce this thought process:
"How am I supposed to get 12 allies on the field? Oh, conjurations. ooh..."
And then people realize just how dangerous this can be, if you get your 1 hp rabbits to survive.

What do you think?

Also, it doesn't matter much that rabbits are the only traditional animal, because you can rename and reflavor the summons. You could make the celestial avenger a horned owl and the celestial swordsman a dire rat and the shadow archer...I dunno, a bat?

Probably was being a little too literal with flavor for things but a lot of things still didn't seem to fit. Anyways, here's what I'd revise it to:

Mastermind's Scheme
8: Target ally gains +1d6 damage on it's attacks until the end of your next turn.
10: Flip a coin. If heads, on your next turn you may use a utility that would normally require a standard action as a minor action. If tails, target ally may use an attack that would normally require a standard action as a minor action.
12: Target enemy loses any resist it had until the end of your next turn. That enemy cannot gain resist until the end of your next turn. In addition, up to 12 allies may immediately deal 1d6 damage to that enemy.

Just about looks good, didn't you say you meant for it the d8 to be "target ally?"

I did, fixed.

I think we should keep it to six target allies instead of twelve, to keep with the general "six target" thing.

I had two reasons for changing it from up to six allies to up to twelve allies. The first is that the "up to 6" clause is supposed to allow you to hit all enemies, without letting you target 3,874 orcs with one fireswath. This move is supposed to allow you to target all allies. If it's just a regular teamfight, up to 6 allies would be sufficient, but if the Mastermind or an ally is a summoner, then that's an insufficient cap.
The second reason is that the move really needed a wow factor. It seems underwhelming if it's just up to 6 allies do 1d6 damage, because most of your allies can do plenty more than 1d6 damage on their own time. Making it up to 12 gives the move more verbal punch, and makes people think "How can I produce 12 allies in this combat?" At which point they hopefully turn to summons, which is where the d12 crit really shines.
The cap itself could certainly be lower (I picked 12 because it was twice the normal limit), but I think just making it "up to 6" doesn't make the move sound strong enough. in most situations, you won't need more than 6, but the possibility of, say, 8 or 9 allies using this is what makes it worthy of being a d12 crit.

In other news, Logan never commented directly, but he said the d10 sounded like a d12 crit, and honestly I sorta agree with him. Could we maybe switch the d10 and the d12, then nerf the d12 down to d10 levels? That might also remove the need for a debate over the "up to 6" setup if, say, we lowered the cap to 4 allies to limit the damage output.

sunbeam wrote:In other news, Logan never commented directly, but he said the d10 sounded like a d12 crit, and honestly I sorta agree with him. Could we maybe switch the d10 and the d12, then nerf the d12 down to d10 levels? That might also remove the need for a debate over the "up to 6" setup if, say, we lowered the cap to 4 allies to limit the damage output.

I think a lot of the problem personally is that I like the idea of the current d12 crit so much that I'd actually rather have the d10 pulled out altogether and become part of it's own special than swap it with the d12. Which...actually isn't that bad of an idea considering there's still conceptual breathing room for a superspeed or a time/reality warp special. Guess I'm really stuck on the concept of the force multiplier aspect of it. Plus, I think that rewording it in such a way that a player asks "How can I produce 12 allies in this combat?" is brilliant since it make people think of the move differently and gives the special a unique quirk the others don't have.

This thread died.
I want to make this crit set a reality.
I don't have time for that right now.

That's where you guys come in. I call upon other people to provide feedback here! Where do you think we should go with this build? Should it be a "power in numbers" sort of build, that's made for summoners, or a "buffed to high heaven" sort of build, all about granting a few powerful allies actions. Is there some method of toeing the line here, or is that not really possible with the limits of a crit set? Help me, please.

It would be best to make well two crit sets one for the summoner and one for the buffer.

sunbeam wrote:This thread died.
I want to make this crit set a reality.
I don't have time for that right now.

Been a little busy (plus my hard drive died last week) but I really think the d10 should be swapped out to become part of a different special. Problem is that I'm not sure what would be best to replace it with. Been toying with the idea of making a conjuration as a free action with a reduced pip cost but I'm not sure.

Mastermind's Scheme
8: Target ally gains +1d6 damage on it's attacks until the end of your next turn.
10: Flip a coin. If heads, on your next turn you may use a utility that would normally require a standard action as a minor action. If tails, target ally may use an attack that would normally require a standard action as a minor action.
12: Target enemy loses any resist it had until the end of your next turn. That enemy cannot gain resist until the end of your next turn. In addition, up to 12 allies may immediately deal 1d6 damage to that enemy.

the D10 is a bit out of place...
I have an idea building off of your idea (warning may be utterly horrible and or broken there is a reason I normally only make monsters).

10: Make a conjuration as a free action paying -X pips less than the normal cost where X is the final number of pips that you spent or gained in the triggering move. The cost of the conjuration may not be reduced lower than 0.

What about...this. (and this is pretty crazy what I'm about to suggest)

10: Target ally may trigger their Special Move as though they had rolled an 8 on a d8

That's a sweet idea. It allows for a lot of strategizing, but it does seem underpowered. Especially because d8s just generally aren't the most useful special abilities. A d10 crit should be worth more than fireball or stab (equivalent to Bucaneer Blitz's and Be Prepared's d8s, respectively). How about this:

d10: Target ally activates one of their special moves at random.

It's still more buff centered than summon-centered. Maybe...

d10: Target ally activates one of their special moves at random. If you target an allied conjuration, you may activate one of your special moves at random.

That just seems silly, though...

Speaking of buff vs. summon, Zamuel, I'm really leaning away from making only conjuration/summoning talents cheaper, because that just limits the utility of the special moveset so much. I'll admit that a crit set that works great for summoners is awesome, but a crit set that only works for summoners and no one else just seems like a bad idea.

A few ideas for summon based things that have utility to other sets:
really widespread buffs

d10: up to 4 creatures gain +3 damage until the end of your next turn

d10: up to 8 creatures gain +2 damage until the end of your next turn

Or combine them.

d10: Either grant up to 4 creatures +3 damage until the end of your next turn, or grant up to 8 creatures +2 damage until the end of your next turn.
(all based on for great justice and a d10 equivalence to 3 pips)

Other idea, that's sort of awkward and that I'm having trouble explaining so I'll just show it to you:

d10: grant target allied conjuration a standard action. If there are no allied conjurations, grant target ally a standard action.

It's arguably stronger if you have no conjurations about, but can still be used in tandem with them, and the power limit helps make it weaker than the original super-badass "grant yourself a minor utility or an ally a minor attack" that was probably too powerful.

Well, we can add a coin flip and get closer to balance.

10: Flip a coin. If heads, target ally activates their (10) Special Move. If tails, target ally may activate their ( Special Move.

If that's still too underpowered, then the tails could be 2 target allies activate their ( Special.

Another possibility is that either you or target ally may immediately use a utility talent (activate this special only once per target per round)

Is that supposed to be a combat utility? Because as it is it sounds like a utility talent like howling chains or magecraft.
I actually like the idea of 2 allies activating their d8 special. That could just be the d10:

d10: Up to two target allies activate their d8 special move as though they had just rolled an 8 on a d8.

The second half of that is to ensure that this activates things like crushing blow (which I'm pretty certain it should).

Either this or the 1d8/1d12 could work. What do people think are the pros and cons? the d8/d12 one feels like it has more flair to me, because everyone is really hoping that you get heads, but the solid 2d8 could be nice too.

Oh, whoops. I meant more in the sense of combat attacks/ utilities.
Yeah, it should combo with Crushing Blow, though I don't know what you mean by

Either this or the 1d8/1d12 could work.

I'd suggest maybe having the d10 give a free action of "Heads I win, Tails You Lose"???

Quietkal wrote:Oh, whoops. I meant more in the sense of combat attacks/ utilities.
Yeah, it should combo with Crushing Blow, though I don't know what you mean by

Either this or the 1d8/1d12 could work.

The d8/d12 was my original suggestion about special moves activating other special moves, after you suggested the single d8:

d10: flip a coin. If heads, target ally may immediately activate their d12 special move. If tails, target ally may immediately activate their d8 special move.

@Xel: ...As a free action...that's not bad. It's definitely worth considering. Okay, compilation of current ideas:

d10: flip a coin. If heads, target ally may immediately activate their d12 special move. If tails, target ally may immediately activate their d8 special move.
d10: Up to two target ally may immediately activate their d8 special move.
d10: Flip a coin. If heads, you or target ally gains 2 pips. If tails, deal 1d8 damage to target creature and that creature is weakened (save ends).

That last one has the added benefit of being analagous to crippling blow and dazzling performance, so it's like you're activating your allies specials anyways. Hm...

d10: up to 4 creatures gain +3 damage until the end of your next turn

d10: Up to two target ally may immediately activate their d8 special move.

These are the two I personally like the most. Sort of have a preference to effects that affect a group of allies for this special. I didn't note the "8 creatures gain +2" since I felt allies greater than 6 worked best as being the d12's wow factor. With the second concept, while d8 specials are weaker, the ability to directly choose them could have interesting uses on a varied team. Of course, this makes it less impressive for summoners. Perhaps it could be:

d10: Up to three target allies may immediately activate their d8 special move. If they do not have a special move, they gain +3 damage until the end of your next turn.

ZamuelNow wrote:

d10: Up to three target allies may immediately activate their d8 special move. If they do not have a special move, they gain +3 damage until the end of your next turn.

That looks really cool to me. I think it nails the "works with/without conjurations," tightrope. The only awkward thing is that several constructs can't really do damage (Spectral Warden and Celestial Commander are the two that come to mind, but they might be the only two...), and thus can't take advantage of this special. Thoughts from other people?