Inspiring Presence

To talk about expanding a trait which hasn't been expanded yet. I like it.
Anyway, changed up some stuff.

Inspiring Presence - Trait
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Inspiring Presence" until you choose new targets.
Creatures that are subjected to "Inspiring Presence" may, once per round, re-roll a die that rolled less than half its max.
(Less than: 2 on a d4, 3 on a d6, 4 on a d8, 5 on a d10, 6 on a d12, 10 on a d20)

I had a rough time coming up with what I wanted this to gift, given the variety of upgrades it can provide. I thought an inverse Maddening Mockery would be cool, without being a free Inspiration for 2 allies.

Bloodboil
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Inspiring Presence" deal +2 damage on their first attack each round.

Not sure if increase the damage to +3 per round, but not sure if that'd be too much of an increase.

Energizing Presence
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Inspiring Presence” gain 1 energy at the start of their turns.

Added because it was initially how I changed Inspiring Presence, but I like it as a dedicated 2 trait cost. Not sure how balanced this is, given it's 2 free energy every turn.

Soothing Presence
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Inspiring Presence” have Regeneration 2.

Not sure if underpowered still. Possible change would be to add temporary health at the start of each turn.

Indomitable Presence - Trait (Stairc)
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your Inspiring Presence also gain +5 to saving throws.

Increased because +3 to save throws is a 500 gold cost.

Inexhaustible Presence - Trait (Stairc)
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your Inspiring Presence fall unconscious at -7 hp instead of 0

No changes, it works for me.

Okay, I think the list you have is good, and relatively expansive. I also dearly want these traits to go through before my support Baby Dragon character starts his campaign. So if I come up with new ideas,  I'll post them later, but right now I'm going to come through with the mathematical balance train.
For the record: one trait should be worth 6 pips. 6 pips is equal to:
15 damage
~22 healing
Since you're giving this out to two people, each of them should be getting 3 pips worth of benefit. Another way of looking at it is that you want to grant two people half a trait each, or one person the benefit of a whole extra trait.
Other important note: Combat is assumed to last 5 rounds.

Inspiring Presence - Trait
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Inspiring Presence" until you choose new targets.
Creatures that are subjected to "Inspiring Presence" may, once per round, re-roll a die that rolled less than half its max.
(Less than: 2 on a d4, 3 on a d6, 4 on a d8, 5 on a d10, 6 on a d12, 10 on a d20)

This is arguably overpowered, since Inspiring Tune costs 6 pips to affect 1 ally. The options here are either to restrict it to one ally, which takes away from the flair of the talent, or to nerf the ability. Nerfing this is rather difficult, since rerolls have a set value that's hard to deviate from. You could make two allies:
Reroll all nat 1s.
Roll twice on all saving throws and take the higher result (possibly overpowered. could be limited to rerolling 1 saving throw per turn, perhaps at a bonus.)

Bloodboil
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Inspiring Presence" deal +2 damage on their first attack each round.

As it is, this move is overpowered, because it effects two people. So assuming they attack every round, for five rounds, they get a total of +20 damage out of the trait, which is 5 damage over the average. I suggest two ways of fixing this:
Bloodboil
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, choose 1 target ally that is already under the effect of your "Inspiring Presence." As long as this creature is under the effect of your "Inspiring Presence," That creature deals +3 damage on their first attack each round.
Pros:
-balanced to do 15 damage over 5 rounds.
-Activates Inspiring Words, one of maybe 3 traits that already exist for support characters (outside of healing traits).
Cons:
-Only affects one person at a time. Maybe put in a subclause saying you can take this trait twice, and choose a different target the second time?

Bloodboil
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Inspiring Presence" can use the following combat talent 1/round:
Bloodboil: Interrupt utility
Trigger: You deal damage to an enemy with an attack.
Effect: Flip a coin. If heads, the attack deals 3 additional damage.
Pros:
-Balanced at 15 damage over 5 rounds (the average damage granted by the talent is 1.5 damage. It is expected to be activated ten times, or 5 times each by two people. total damage: 15.)
-Affects multiple allies.
-Combos with anybody who has that coin reflipping trait.
Cons:
-Feels weaker. Having a distinct chance of doing nothing does that, but I can't find another way to provide a passive buff to two people for multiple rounds otherwise.

...I lied. Ideaaaa!
Bloodboil
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Inspiring Presence" can use the following combat talent 1/round:
Bloodboil: Interrupt utility (1/round)
Trigger: You deal damage to an enemy with a single-target attack.
Effect: the attack deals an additional 1d6 damage. You suffer Vulnerability 3 against the target's attacks until the end of your next turn.
Pros:
-Almost precisely balanced to do 1.5 damage per use, on average. I basically added a use of taunting strike to the previous version (I can explain the math in detail if anybody wants it, but it would take a little while to make sure it was all comprehensible and whatnot, so I won't post that here.)
-Feels more powerful.
-On a flavor note, the risk vs. reward of this fits the Barbarian theme of a name like Bloodboil.
Cons:
-Could be OP when used in conjunction with the coin flip trait. (though the limited number of uses means that opportunities to break it would be limited.)

Energizing Presence
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Inspiring Presence” gain 1 energy at the start of their turns.

Okay, this thing grants 10 pips over the course of 5 turns, which is way overpower. It's also worth noting that anything that grants straight pips to somebody gets a "Versatility tax," and usually only grants 4-5 pips over 5 rounds of combat (look as Spellscape Familiar and Rapid Recovery)
Suggestions for fixing it:
-Make it affect one person. Then it's balanced just fine. Use the same wording a my first suggestion for Bloodboil.
"Make it affect one person" is my suggestion for a lot of these traits that you would take after Inspiring Presence, because while basically anybody can Benefit from rerolling, only certain characters can make serious/extreme use out of a damage bonus or regen (Though, admittedly, most everyone can use pips). Letting you choose people who were already being buffed by one trait adds an extra element of strategy to playing a support character, since you have to make sure the right characters get the right buffs.
-I really can't think of a trait that grants pips and affects two allies that would look strong enough for someone to take. The only thing I have is that each ally only gets a pip at the start of their turn if they win a coinflip, and that just seems dull, especially if you could just gaurantee that one ally gets pips instead.

Soothing Presence
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Inspiring Presence” have Regeneration 2.

This is perfectly balanced, and you could make a "1 ally" variant of it that grants regen 4.

Indomitable Presence - Trait (Stairc)
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your Inspiring Presence also gain +5 to saving throws.

This works quite nicely. It could arguably grant a +6 bonus, but that would really be overkill. I'd like to note that this +5 bonus is the same statistical effect as allowing an ally to roll twice on all saves and take the higher result, if they have no bonuses to saving throws, which suggests that it might be balanced to just make this trait "roll twice on all saving throws and take the better result," which generally has more oomph.

Inexhaustible Presence - Trait (Stairc)
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your Inspiring Presence fall unconscious at -7 hp instead of 0

This is actually the same thing as letting an ally start the battle with 7 temporary HP, but it sounds cooler. With that in mind, let's put a price on half a trait of temporary HP. 1 trait is 2000 gold, so half a trait is 1000 gold. So if the person was equipped with a 1000 gold item that grants them temp. HP, how much would it grant? There's a 500 gold item that grants 4 temporary HP and I swear there was a 1500 gold item that granted 10 temporary HP, though it seems to be gone now. If we average these two together, we get 7 temporary HP for 1000 gold, so Stairc's suggestion "with no thought towards balance" is pretty darn close to perfectly balanced. The alternative would be to double the 500 gold item's effects, but it seems better to err on the side of caution.
This one is good as is.

[-3] Inspiring Tune - Standard Utility
Until the end of the encounter, target ally may use the following talent once per turn.

   Inspiration - Immediate Interrupt
   Trigger - You roll a d8, d10 or d12 and dislike the result
   Effect - You may reroll the die and take either result.

So, my version is slightly weaker than -6, since the bonus only triggers less than half the time. Granted, if you had Inspiration and you're rolling a pool of dice you'd pick the lowest anyway, but it's less functional than Inspiration with single die talents.

I'd be okay with changing Bloodboil so that it's a single ally, additional effect. Something like...

Bloodboil
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
At the start of each of your turns, you may choose up to 1 target ally who is a subject of "Inspiring Presence." That ally is the subject of your "Bloodboil" until you either choose a new target for "Bloodboil" or that ally is no longer a subject of your "Inspiring Presence."
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Bloodboil" deal +3 damage on their first attack each round.

Needs more...target.

Not surprised Energizing Presence is too strong, but 1 pip to 1 ally each round doesn't seem strong enough. Maybe it could be more...

Energizing Presence
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Inspiring Presence” may flip a coin at the start of their turns. If they win, they gain an energy.

Coin flips are fun.

I prefer the allied save throw bonus over the double save throw and take the higher, because of the conflict. Similar with the low regen value on 2 allies, and the low resist on Guardian's Oath (actual trait, not a suggested one).

The awkward thing people tend to miss about pip balance in this system is that a standard action is worth three pips. This literally means that if you do nothing (or almost nothing, like gaining 1d4 temporary hp), you get 3 pips during your standard action. So any [-] move actually costs 3 more pips than it is listed as (for the purpose of determining how much of an effect it paid for), because you are giving up the opportunity to earn 3 more pips that turn.
This is why minor actions cost 3 more pips than an equivalent standard action: They are producing the same effect for the same pip cost, but don't benefit from a starting point of [+3]: do almost nothing.
A good demonstration of this is Heartseeker, because it's a very straightforward move:

[-3] Heartseeker - Standard Attack
Deal 2d12 damage to target creature

If this move was the product of 3 pips, it would do, on average, 7.5 damage, because 1 pip produces 2.5 damage, on average. It's average damage is actually 13, quite a bit higher. It's not directly double the damage output because of a slight curve that I don't fully understand, but the fact that it can deal almost double damage is evidence that [-3] standard moves cost 6 pips, total. This, sadly, includes Inspiring Tune, meaning that granting one ally the benefit of Inspiring tune for the whole fight is worth 6 pips, one whole trait. Also, an important piece of syntax is that your bonus doesn't trigger less than half the time. It triggers once per round. Furthermore, your given trigger conditions almost perfectly match the triggering conditions for inspiring tune (dissapointing damage output, daggerstorm failure, low payday pip output, short chain lightning, are all the scenarios I can think of, and they all overlap).

So as it is, you are basically rewording Inspiring Tune. This is good, because it means outside observers won't think of the talents as interconnecting, which makes the system look slightly derivative of itself, as though there's only a few good ideas that get played out as far as they can be. Your wording dodges that neatly, but it doesn't change the fact that you are granting a 6 pip benefit to two different allies with a trait that should only be granting one 6 pip benefit.

A solution here might be to just make this a "Second tier" Trait. What if this whole idea worked like this:

Stage Presence - Trait
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Inspiring Presence" until you choose new targets.
Creatures subjected to your Inspiring Presence gain a +5 bonus to saving throws.

Inspiring Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Presence
You lose the benefit of Stage Presence.
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Inspiring Presence" until you choose new targets.
Creatures that are subjected to "Inspiring Presence" may, once per round, re-roll a die that rolled less than half its max.
(Less than: 2 on a d4, 3 on a d6, 4 on a d8, 5 on a d10, 6 on a d12, 10 on a d20)
Also note that as written, this currently allows you to reroll a failed saving throw, which is something Inspiring Tune cannot claim, which is pretty awesome.

Then, all the other traits just have "Stage Presence" as a prerequisite, and layer over the term "Inspiring Presence," Whether that grants a bonus to saving throws or offers rerolls. We could possible just turn Presence into a pseudo-keyword, where all the related abilities become "Bloodboiling presence," etc.

Another trait idea:

Greater Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
You can choose 2 more target allies when select the allies subject to your "Inspiring Presence" at the start of your turn. You may take this trait multiple times.

So you can affect multiple allies with your "Inspiring Presence," Then select which allies to layer with the stronger, single-target presence traits (Bloodboiling Presence style).

Does the stuff at the beginning make sense? My math can get a little incomprehensible at times.
How do the suggestions sound?

The math makes sense, but it's weird to say that a -3 talent is actually worth -6. Like...what?

I guess having Stage Presence and save throws be the pre-req would be alright, though I'm confused by the "You lose the benefit of Invigorating Presence." of re-worked Inspiring Presence. This should be Stage Presence?

I had intended to add an "increase amount of subjected allies" trait, but walked away from my computer and came back and was like "...what did I plan 'expansive presence' would do?"


I don't think "Presence" needs to be a keyword, just keep with the "target ally becomes the subject of X." It's understandable if you've got the trait, and quick to pick up if you're affected by it.

Quietkal wrote:The math makes sense, but it's weird to say that a -3 talent is actually worth -6. Like...what?

I guess having Stage Presence and save throws be the pre-req would be alright, though I'm confused by the "You lose the benefit of Invigorating Presence." of re-worked Inspiring Presence. This should be Stage Presence?

>_<
I originally called Stage Presence Invigorating presence, and didn't use presence as a full-blown keyword. I thought I changed everything, but apparently not. Derp.

The way I think of the math is that a [-3] talent is worth 6 pips. 6 pips is dev speak, anything in [square brackets] is how it functions in combat. So if I'm discussing a combat talent rotation, I use [-10] to describe Royal Command, but if I'm discussing it's balance I point out that it's worth 13 pips, which is why the effect is more or less balanced.

Also, on the use of "presence" as a keyword:
First off, if "presence" isn't a keyword, then you can't combine Greater Presence with Inspiring Presence, as written. This was the simplest method of making a breadth-related buff (greater presence, which widens your range) and a depth-related buff (Inspiring Presence, which deepens your effect) interact properly that I could come up with off the top of my head.

Not that that means it actually works. No, that would suggest that my first instinct is ever worth sticking to, which it's really not.

See, Greater Presence, as written, actually doubles the effect of every presence trait you would take that applies to "all allies under the effect of your inspiring presence." So it wouldn't double the range of the new Bloodboil, but it would double the range of both Invigorating presence and, say, soothing presence, which means it has the benefit of two traits for the price of one. Which means every trait with the term ""all allies under the effect of your inspiring presence" would have to be reworded to "choose two allies under the effect of your inspiring presence," along with the rest of that whole "At the start of your turn...until you choose new targets" schpeel. While this isn't really that bad, it makes the whole series of traits look clunky, Especially if someone doesn't want to take Greater Presence. So the syntax would need a change.

Okay, I had a series of suggested Syntax changes here, but then I remembered that you've been basing this off of the guardian's oath trait, and I started wondering why I hadn't picked that trait up for my support character. Then I shook my head and tried just porting that wording, with the addition of "under the effect of your inspiring presence," Which I think is what I just said would be a bad thing. And really, it doesn't look that bad.

Soothing Presence
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each turn, you may choose up to two allies subjected to your "presence." Those creatures become the subject of your “Soothing Presence” until you apply your Soothing Presence to another creature. A creature that is subjected to your Soothing presence gains regeneration 2.

I feel silly for overthinking this. This works just fine.

So at least for the moment, though the use of the term "presence" across two traits is currently questionable, the whole system in internally conclusive. Greater Presence increases the number of allies you can target with either "presence," but doesn't increase the number of allies you can target simultaneously with any other traits. It also provides a template for any other buff people could possibly want to throw in. You could even make a trait that gives 2 allies a 2000 gold buff each, by making another presence trait a prerequisite for it.

Okay I gotcha. Picking up what you're putting down, as the saying goes. Changing to Presence <keyword> would allow Greater Presence to not only increase the size of Stage Presence, but everything else.
Hmmm. It's interesting, but you'd need to take it at least once for Stage Presence before putting it on any other Presence trait, so that you actually had enough allies subjected to Stage Presence to affect. But I guess if you've already sunk 3 traits into Presences, you might as well keep on going.

Great to see this trait line getting thoughtfully developed. It's a great exploration of some new design space and fills a niche we haven't developed yet. I could see this getting added to the system rather soon after it's all worked out.


Just a quick thing to Sunbeam's explanation of -6s.


Yes, a standard action is worth 3 pips. [+3] powers in the system are designed to be "like skipping your turn, but doing one minor thing so it didn't feel like you skipped your turn". Draw Blood is a good example. So, a standard action is worth 3 pips.


Your confusion about why 2d12 isn't 15 is due to the skype system's standard action being worth a d12 (6.5) while the standard action for a melee attack in the tabletop version is 7.5 (due to melee having a disadvantage compared to attacks that don't care about being right next to the enemy). So, it's actually right on curve.


Actually, there *is* a bit of inflation on higher-pip moves - but in terms of power. The idea is that a [-6] power is worth more than three [0] pip powers would be - because you could use the 0s three times in a row, but you'd have to do almost-nothing for two turns before seeing any action off the -6.

Thank you for explaining the kink in my math. That answers most every question I've ever had about why my calculations weren't working.

Does that mean one pip in Skype is only worth about 2 damage, as opposed to 2.5?

Quietkal wrote:Okay I gotcha. Picking up what you're putting down, as the saying goes. Changing to Presence <keyword> would allow Greater Presence to not only increase the size of Stage Presence, but everything else.
Hmmm. It's interesting, but you'd need to take it at least once for Stage Presence before putting it on any other Presence trait, so that you actually had enough allies subjected to Stage Presence to affect. But I guess if you've already sunk 3 traits into Presences, you might as well keep on going.

Are you suggesting that Greater Presence can apply to any one presence trait (instead of just Stage Presence) of your choice, and you can take it multiple times? Because that could work, but it gets awkward if you don't expand your stage presence first (Since you might have to choose 4 target allies that are under your stage presence, but you only have two of them.)

Now that I think about it, why are we trying to limit people's abilities to hand out buffs to their allies? With how we've got this set up, you basically have to take stage presence to get to any other buff. Wouldn't it be better to just make these all separate traits, so that people can take the buffs they want? Alternatively, if that might be too powerful, what if we kept Stage Presence as a prerequisite (with a general bonus that everyone can benefit from, like saving throw bonuses), but didn't require that later traits target the same allies as stage presence? That would clear up a lot of the issues we're having with syntax here, and it would give us a little more freedom with trait progression, since we wouldn't need to worry about a trait overlapping and boosting something it wasn't supposed to.

[b style="font-weight: bold;"]@Sunbeam[/b] - No problem. And you're pretty much correct - though we need to revamp the +1 and +2 moves to be on a pip-by-pip basis. The original idea was that they could be stronger or weaker than that curve - because it would still be a good idea to mix them up with [-] powers - but it makes balancing unnecessarily difficult. We're going to go on a pip-by-pip basis for the eventual combat revamp (which will also redo the crits as discussed before) - for now it helps to think of things in terms of standard actions and weight in the middle on a pip-by-pip basis when possible.

sunbeam wrote:Are you suggesting that Greater Presence  can apply to any one presence trait (instead of just Stage Presence) of your choice, and you can take it multiple times? Because that could work, but it gets awkward if you don't expand your stage presence first (Since you might have to choose 4 target allies that are under your stage presence, but you only have two of them.)

Oh whoops, that's what I thought you were going for.

Now that I think about it, why are we trying to limit people's abilities to hand out buffs to their allies? With how we've got this set up, you basically have to take stage presence to get to any other buff. Wouldn't it be better to just make these all separate traits, so that people can take the buffs they want? Alternatively, if that might be too powerful, what if we kept Stage Presence as a prerequisite (with a general bonus that everyone can benefit from, like saving throw bonuses), but didn't require that later traits target the same allies as stage presence? That would clear up a lot of the issues we're having with syntax here, and it would give us a little more freedom with trait progression, since we wouldn't need to worry about a trait overlapping and boosting something it wasn't supposed to.

I think keep the Stage Presence pre-req, although I'm open to changing the traits so that they're not required to target the same allies that have Stage Presence.

Okay, so currently we have something like this.

Stage Presence - Trait (Stairc & sunbeam)
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Stage Presence” until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Stage Presence” gain +5 to saving throws.

Inspiring Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Inspiring Presence” until you choose new targets.
Creatures that are subjected to "Inspiring Presence” may, once per round, re-roll a die that rolled less than half its max.
(Less than: 2 on a d4, 3 on a d6, 4 on a d8, 5 on a d10, 6 on a d12, 10 on a d20)

Bloodboiling Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 1 target ally. Those allies are the subject of your "Bloodboiling Presence” until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Bloodboiling Presence” deal +3 damage on their first attack each round.

Energizing Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Energizing Presence” until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Energizing Presence” may flip a coin at the start of their turns. If they win, they gain an energy.

Soothing Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Soothing Presence" until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Soothing Presence” have Regeneration 2.

Inexhaustible Presence - Trait (Stairc)
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Inexhaustible Presence" until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Inexhaustible Presence" fall unconscious at -7 hp instead of 0.

Greater Presence - Trait (sunbeam)
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
When you take this trait, choose another trait you have that subjects allies to a Presence. That trait may subject an additional 2 allies to that Presence.
You may take this trait multiple times, choosing new affected traits each time.

Slightly worried about how Greater Presence will interact with Bloodboil, given it triples the amount affected by Bloodboil, while doubling any other presence trait.

Additionally, should Greater Presence be "allies" or "creatures"? Changing to creatures would allow the character taking the traits to benefit from them as well.

Thanks so much for revising all of them, I was seriously just thinking about doing that.
These look pretty great. I just have a few minor corrections I want to make. One or two syntax changes, and making Inspiring Presence a Second Tier trait, like it needs to be.
I'm going to bold my changes and put the explanation in red right after it.

Quietkal wrote:Okay, so currently we have something like this.

Stage Presence - Trait (Stairc & sunbeam)
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Stage Presence” until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Stage Presence” gain +5 to saving throws.

Inspiring Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
You lose the abilities granted by Stage Presence(This ability is worth 2 traits, so you have to lose the previous trait to keep it balanced)
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Inspiring Presence” until you choose new targets.
Creatures that are subjected to "Inspiring Presence” may, once per round, re-roll a die that rolled less than half its max.
(Less than: 2 on a d4, 3 on a d6, 4 on a d8, 5 on a d10, 6 on a d12, 10 on a d20)

Bloodboiling Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 1 target ally. This ally is(Grammar) the subject of your "Bloodboiling Presence” until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Bloodboiling Presence” deal +3 damage on their first attack each round.

Energizing Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Energizing Presence” until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Energizing Presence” may flip a coin at the start of their turns. If they win the flip(Clarification), they gain an energy.

Soothing Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Soothing Presence" until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Soothing Presence” have Regeneration 2.

Inexhaustible Presence - Trait (Stairc)
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Inexhaustible Presence" until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Inexhaustible Presence" fall unconscious at -7 hp instead of 0. (I don't have anything to say here, I just freaking love this trait.)

Greater Presence - Trait (sunbeam)
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
When you take this trait, choose another trait you have that subjects allies to a Presence. That trait may subject twice as many allies to that Presence.
You may take this trait multiple times, but cannot enhance the same trait twice(Together, these two edits mean that this trait basically lets you take any 'presence' trait twice, but no more than that.)

Slightly worried about how Greater Presence will interact with Bloodboil, given it triples the amount affected by Bloodboil, while doubling any other presence trait.

Additionally, should Greater Presence be "allies" or "creatures"? Changing to creatures would allow the character taking the traits to benefit from them as well.

I think all of these traits should only be able to affect allies. One of the keywords that jumps out here is "while you are conscious," and between soothing and inexhaustible presence, you could make yourself rather bulky while still buffing at least one other person, which seems excessive. Also, for somebody who isn't focused on multi-attacking or similar exploits, bloodboil is actually way better than duelist, arguable the closest equivalent trait, so it seems dangerous to let people use that on themselves.

In other news, what else can we think of in the way of offensive buffs, or generally making these stronger? Just as an example, most Pony Tales tanks (and all manner of other characters) will have some form of resist of their own, so granting them resist 2 (which is granted by guardian's oath, the quasi-inspiration for all of these), is probably negligible. Would we want to introduce second tier traits for some of these? Or could we perhaps make the 'unstackable' buffs 'stackable':

Soothing Presence - Trait
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Soothing Presence" until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your “Soothing Presence” have Regeneration 2. If they have regeneration from another source, increase that value by 2.

I actually like that second way better. It ensures that the support characters can always enhance the primary purpose of whoever they're buffing. Also, the lack of that sentence in 95% of all the other items and traits in existence means that these traits really stand out, which is good, since
a) The buffs are rather small, since they're spread across multiple allies.
b) Support is generally a quiet, unassuming sort of class, so this helps people notice their support options.

Thanks! The direct changes work well, and I agree with your choice of allies-only.

I'm split between not wanting these traits to stack the effects they give while the rest of the system doesn't, and not wanting to make it so you have to dump all of your traits into them to make them super cool. I think leave them as not stacking for now, and if they prove underpowered we can add the stack to significantly buff them.

If the idea is that the extra traits don't need to choose the same people as your base trait - and they're supposed to be equal to one trait on their own - why make them have the prerequisite?

I was considering asking that question, but I think I was hesitant about letting people pick and choose precisely the buffs they needed. It would probably be okay, though, and it would certainly help the "mind-numbingly open options problem" of 'okay, I've taken Stage Presence. Now I can make the buff more powerful OR make the buff wider OR get a new buff...' by ensuring that not all of those decisions would have to happen at once. Also, I liked the idea of having to take a general buff trait before taking buffs that help with more specific builds, but that's a minor point.

It's mostly a carry-over from when all they all affected the same 2 allies. Would they be fine without having the pre-req? Probably, but it feels better to start with a general support before getting into specialized support. Plus, I like Stage Presence. It's grown on me. and as such I shall force people to take it wherever possible hahahaha
But that could just be my love for the Paper Mario franchise carrying over. Regardless, I'd like to keep the pre-req on there.
If it makes the traits severely unbalanced, then remove it.
If a decent amount of people complain about it, remove it.
If a small group complains because they don't want to spend 2 traits so they can side some specialized support to overkill their friend's build, tough cookies they can do without being completely streamlined (there's a more common word but I'm blanking on it.)
Simple solutions.

Note that I haven't read the entire thread, but I might suggest an idea for the templating. It is odd if there's a specific bonus to start with, so there shouldn't be a prereq one. However, I like the idea that all the bonuses fall under a single "Inspiring Presence," so that if you pick a bunch of these traits the beginning of your turn isn't a slow slog of "Who to give this buff, and now who needs this buff..." so I suggest a trait line that goes like this:

Inspiring Presence
At the beginning of your turn, choose two allies. Those allies are subjected to your "Inspiring Presence" until the start of your next turn.
When you take this trait, choose one of the following features. You may take this trait multiple times, each time choosing a different feature.

• Feature A
  Allies subject to your IP gain X
  
• Feature B
  Allies subject to your IP gain Y
  
  

sunbeam wrote:Inexhaustible Presence - Trait (Stairc)
Prerequisite: Stage Presence
At the beginning of each of your turns, you may choose up to 2 target allies. Those allies are the subject of your "Inexhaustible Presence" until you choose new targets.
While you are conscious, creatures subjected to your "Inexhaustible Presence" fall unconscious at -7 hp instead of 0. (I don't have anything to say here, I just freaking love this trait.)

So, hypothetical question: let's say you've got this trait. The ally just ahead of you in initiative gets hit and drops to -4 HP, becoming unconscious (they don't have the trait that changes the unconscious point or anything). Now, at the start of your turn, you apply this trait to that ally. Do they then suddenly become conscious again, since they have more than -7 HP?

No, as it dictates when they fall unconscious. It can't revive people that are already unconscious.

Kindulas wrote:Note that I haven't read the entire thread, but I might suggest an idea for the templating. It is odd if there's a specific bonus to start with, so there shouldn't be a prereq one. However, I like the idea that all the bonuses fall under a single "Inspiring Presence," so that if you pick a bunch of these traits the beginning of your turn isn't a slow slog of "Who to give this buff, and now who needs this buff..." so I suggest a trait line that goes like this:

Inspiring Presence
At the beginning of your turn, choose two allies. Those allies are subjected to your "Inspiring Presence" until the start of your next turn.
When you take this trait, choose one of the following features. You may take this trait multiple times, each time choosing a different feature.

• Feature A
  Allies subject to your IP gain X
  
• Feature B
  Allies subject to your IP gain Y
  
  

This could be the most elegant way to handle it. The sudden slog of 'who to give X to and who needs Y most' will definitely be a pain.

Hold on, Dan realized a problem. Now, like THIS:
Inspiring Presence
At the beginning of your turn, choose two allies. Those allies are subjected to your "Inspiring Presence" until the start of your next turn.
When you take this trait, choose one of the following features.

• Feature A
  Allies subject to your IP gain X
  
• Feature B
  Allies subject to your IP gain Y
  

Greater Presence
Prerequisite: Inspiring Presence
You gain an additional feature for your Inspiring Presence. You may take this trait multiple times.

Awkwardly, a +1 damage would be underpowered, but +2 damage would be overpowered, since that's 20 damage, where it should be 13. +1/Round damage is actually closer to the mark, but it seems lame that it does less... oh weird... what if SOME of the presences came with drawbacks? Like, they get +3 damage and vuln 2 or something?

Very weird but possibly doable.

Just tossing a few ideas...

Uplifting Presence
Creatures subjected to your “Uplifting Presence” may flip a coin at the start of their turns. If they win the flip, they gain an extra minor action.

Selfless Presence
Whenever a creatures subjected to your "Selfless Presence" would be KO'd, its hp instead only goes down to a minimum of 1hp, whilst the remainder of the damage is dealt to you instead, and it loses the "Selfless Presence".

Generous Presence
Creatures subjected to your “Generous Presence” may use your pips to pay for the cost of their own abilities. Whenever they do so, you may roll a d8, d10, or d12.

Dreadful Presence
Creatures subjected to your “Dreadful Presence” may flip a coin at the start of their turns. If heads, their next attack used during that turn inflicts vulnerability 2 until the end of their next turn, in addition to its normal effects.