A modest in-combat resource management scheme.

[Lago PARANOIA]

When you build up power by attacking or otherwise doing combat actions, then ambushing parties who strangle a bunch of chickens before combat are at a stupid advantage. Whether the advantage can be overcome or not, it is stupid and I don't want to do it.

And that is why the D&D system of charge casting and the Dragon Ball Z system of attack buildup are shitty. They don't work very well. So what does work fairly well?


Winds of Fate if you roll a die every turn and you can use a power that has a threshold less than or equal to the die result, your characters will be using all kinds of crazy powers. The level 6 mega blast will only be available one turn in six, so characters will actually use powers other than their mega blast most turns.


Martyr Points sure advancing the rage bar by hurting enemies is broken by the bag of rats, but getting spell points by being damaged doesn't suffer from that kind of problem as long as healing takes the spell points away with it.

What I don't like about the Winds of Fate is that there isn't a guarantee that you can use a power when you want to.

When a hero uses a finishing move or a secret technique, they don't just pull it off randomly in a fight, they have to do some stuff first to use it.


What I think instead should happen is that powers work sort of like some of the gem conversion/destruction spells in Puzzle Quest--when you use a spell, they deplete some kind of finite resource you have but also give you resources in another column.

If you use a spell without having enough gems or whatever for it, it operates either at a reduced effect or you can't use it at all.

For example, everyone starts out with 4 Green, Red, Blue, and Yellow gems. When they use the Dual Shot power, it takes away two green gems and gives them a red and a yellow gem. If they use Dual Shot again, it operates at a reduced capacity since the spell has a caveat that if you have less than 3 green gems while using it you take a penalty to your attacks and defenses with it.

To prevent people from strangling chickens before combat starts, you don't get any advantage from it. You always start combat with full gems--going over the limit doesn't give you any advantage. You just lose them.

The downside to this approach is that it creates Five Moves of Doom combos. I think this can be gotten around by having attacks also deplete a character's gempool. That way when (N)PCs see possible enemy combos coming up they're encouraged to use attacks that deplete a crucial gem resource in the combo, forcing the enemy to use something else.

[Username17]

Puzzle Quest to me lacked a lot of replayability because it's exactly the same challenges even if you're a different class. All the capture missions are exactly the same puzzle and all the monsters are in the same place. It's a game that is badly in need of a couple mission packs. After I beat it as a Wizard, I didn't even bother finishing it as a Druid because I was pretty much doing the same stuff against the same opponents in the same order to get the same text boxes.

But regardless, the basic problem with that kind of thing is that it only works because you start every "combat" with your standard setup of green, blue, red, and yellow resources. The problem is that as soon as you are playing a genuine role playing game rather than a roleplaying themed puzzle game, people can just be "in"combat when their opponents aren't. If you need to sit there and glow and chant for several seconds to get "powered up" to do your super moves with the Soul Edge, it's just unreasonable to expect people to role play not doing that before they kick the door in and start fighting orcs.

When people are moving actual people round a conceptual world rather than playing through scripted puzzles in a rigid computerized story, people can and will just do stuff to power up when no one is fighting them in any meaningful fashion. Not only is it a five moves of doom scenario, it's a one move of doom scenario because the first four moves were taken before you even walked in off the street.

When you're in a world instead of a puzzle there's nothing preventing you from masturbatorily taking a bunch of turns on your own lookout. If that breaks the proposed system, that system won't work.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Puzzle Quest to me lacked a lot of replayability because it's exactly the same challenges even if you're a different class. All the capture missions are exactly the same puzzle and all the monsters are in the same place. It's a game that is badly in need of a couple mission packs. After I beat it as a Wizard, I didn't even bother finishing it as a Druid because I was pretty much doing the same stuff against the same opponents in the same order to get the same text boxes.

But regardless, the basic problem with that kind of thing is that it only works because you start every "combat" with your standard setup of green, blue, red, and yellow resources. The problem is that as soon as you are playing a genuine role playing game rather than a roleplaying themed puzzle game, people can just be "in"combat when their opponents aren't. If you need to sit there and glow and chant for several seconds to get "powered up" to do your super moves with the Soul Edge, it's just unreasonable to expect people to role play not doing that before they kick the door in and start fighting orcs.

When people are moving actual people round a conceptual world rather than playing through scripted puzzles in a rigid computerized story, people can and will just do stuff to power up when no one is fighting them in any meaningful fashion. Not only is it a five moves of doom scenario, it's a one move of doom scenario because the first four moves were taken before you even walked in off the street.

When you're in a world instead of a puzzle there's nothing preventing you from masturbatorily taking a bunch of turns on your own lookout. If that breaks the proposed system, that system won't work.

-Username17

In my proposed system, though, you always start out combat fully powered up as far as using your powers go--there's no tactical advantage in strangling chickens or doing a charge-up dance because you don't get anything from it.

Once you start combat, though, your resources go steadily downwards. The only way to recharge your gems then is to take a short rest after winning combat or get a portion of it back by using certain moves.

[Username17]

In my proposed system, though, you always start out combat fully powered up as far as using your powers go--there's no tactical advantage in strangling chickens or doing a charge-up dance because you don't get anything from it.

Once you start combat, though, your resources go steadily downwards. The only way to recharge your gems then is to take a short rest after winning combat or get a portion of it back by using certain moves.

That's just the 4e resource management scheme. Everyone spams the same ultra moves at the start of every combat and everyone spends five minutes scratching their balls before doing anything once they've won a fight.

Meh.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

That's just the 4e resource management scheme. Everyone spams the same ultra moves at the start of every combat and everyone spends five minutes scratching their balls before doing anything once they've won a fight.

Meh.

-Username17

What if other peoples' attacks moved around your own gems, too?

For example, if you get hit by the dragon's flame, it takes away a lot of your blue gems and you can't use your favorite move, Ice Slash, which costs a lot of blue gems. However, it makes your Flame Slash move a lot easier to use.

Alternatively, people avoid using certain attacks on enemies even if it's their favorite move or opener. Using Green gem-giving moves on the tree enemies just makes them charge their Cherry Bomb move (their strongest one) a lot faster so players have to take care which moves they use on the enemy.

[Crissa]

I'd like everyone to have a list of specials.

Each special would have some sort of requirement... Something easy to track 'get hit by dude three times' or 'hit three different dudes'. Something that requires several turns to complete, and fades off really fast so you can't hit the guards at the door, calmly open the door, then whoop ass inside.

Something so you have an option how to spend your combo points - if they're going to be wasted, maybe you can get a short-term buff instead, so you can kick in the door instead.

In WoW combo points only accumulate on one target at a time; then you have choices how you use them. A table game could have less choices how you use them - the totally unoptimal options could be thrown out - but it still could apply.

For abilities that fire off after defeating an opponent, the opponent has to be the same challenge as you are (or higher); and all abilities which trap or charm an opponent for a long time heal them so you can't just keep a guy a one hitpoint around. (Though that might not be heroic, and appropriate for a badguy).

It's just an example of one method we could take.

Other things - like specials interacting with each other - are awesome, and should be intentional, but difficult to set up.

-Crissa

[Username17]

What if other peoples' attacks moved around your own gems, too?

...then you'd spam your biggest most expensive attack at the beginning f every battle because you could easily lose it anyway.

Basic economics applies to action economies as well. If people lack confidence in their ability to save actions, then they will endeavor to spend them.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Frank, what I don't like about the Winds of Fate is that it becomes impossible to plan your moves out ahead of time.

If Goku doesn't know whether he's going to get to use his Kamehameha, then he's just going to spam moves at random with no strategy or reason--he doesn't know whether he's going to be able to use it in an attempt to interrupt Frieza's transformation move or if he's going to get it after the alien is already surrendered.

Worse, he can't coordinate his attacks with the rest of his team because neither he nor his buddies know what he's going to get.

[RandomCasualty2]

You'd need long combats, or at least some elite/solo monsters to really use this mechanic. If you're going with fast and deadly combat, then chances are your enemy will be dead before you even care about manipulating his gem placement.

The other problem with gem manipulation is that the system needs to somehow be intuitive as to what gems help what monsters/classes, otherwise it's just a guessing game.

I'm thinking you'd be better off having gems be based by team, not individual. And the gems would be sliders, not individual values. So only one team can have any given type of gem. And the gem position is relative to the other team, not an absolute value.

So for instance, you might have one gem that represents "positioning" and it goes in favor of one team or the other. And if your positioning is high enough, you can shoot off a fireball. Some moves may let you use them without the prereq, but it may have consequences, like fireball could fry some of your allies.

And basically when your turn comes up it you may want to use your action to try to solidify your team's gem position or you may want to use it to try to kill monsters. Sometimes it might be more important to deny the enemy group use of their power abilities more so than simply killing them. In some fights, getting gemstones may be everything. In a battle of jet fighters, having a positional advantage would be very important. In a sword fight between two people, probably less so.

But because gems are a slider that applies to teams, you can't accumulate them until you actually have opponents, so the idea of just declaring combat outside a room won't work anymore, because the slider is relative to each group of opponents. In some cases, you could set it up where the enemy or PCs begin a fight with an advantage based on their set up. An enemy group waiting behind cover may start with 3 defensive gemstones, or something like that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Do go on, RC. Like what kinds of sliders should we have and how should you be able to manipulate them?

I think part of the problem with that might be simulating a combat where there are two minotaurs guarding the entrance to the mummy's tomb but there's also an invisible lurker hiding underneath the bridge, too. Obviously you don't want the minotaurs to grab positioning bonuses since they're just standing in front of the doorway out in the open, but you also don't want to punish the lurker because his buddies are out in the open.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I don't mind randomness in power replenishment, it makes things exciting.

But what I do want is some guarantee or plan of how to get a move I or my buddies want when we need it. I don't mind getting back Boxing Glove Arrow in this combat on the third round instead of round one like I'm accustomed to. I don't mind thinking that I'm going to get Boxing Glove Arrow but something thwarting my planning and forcing me to use a backup.

What I do mind is not knowing when or how I'm going to get Boxing Glove Arrow until the situation comes up. Something like a random die roll every round or how many times an enemy hits me (which is just more complicated randomness) makes strategy impossible and I don't want it.

OTOH, during a random die roll every combat and learning that I get to use Net Arrow in the first round, Grappling Hook Arrow the second round, and Boxing Glove Arrow the third round works. Not knowing what arrow I'm going to get until my turn comes up is unacceptable.

[RandomCasualty2]

Do go on, RC. Like what kinds of sliders should we have and how should you be able to manipulate them?

Well, I'm not really sure yet. I didn't think that far ahead, and it's something that you'd have to fine tune. I'm thinking the optimal number is probably 3-4 sliders. I'm thinking positioning is a good one, and maybe something like defense, offense and maybe distance for the other one (though distance would not really be a slider quality, so it may be something we have to handle differently).

Everything is still in a basic stage, so I'm not quite sure what sliders would be good. I'd like one to represent basic battlefield positioning, like flanking, and getting someone surrounded, and otherwise making it tough for them to maneuver. Another one could represent something like cover or defensive positions. And another slider maybe for something offensively oriented. Other things I've considered is possibly a magic slider, which determines such things as counterspells and which side has a magical edge. If you spend time pushing the magic slider in your direction then you take away a lot of the foe's magical options (and possibly open some of your own mass devastation spells).

As far as manipulating the sliders, some may be easy to manipulate, others more difficult. A bull rush style maneuver is the basic position slider manipulation ability. You could reduce a cover based slider, by either creating cover with a wall of stone for instance, or destroying cover with something offensive.

Basically, the sliders replace the tactical battlemap. So instead of determining flanking by position of miniatures, its determined by the position slider.

The idea though is to have the sliders be fairly abstract so you can use them for a variety of purposes. Position in a melee may be things like flanking, or staying the right distance away from your foe to make proper use of your weapons. In a battle between jet fighters, having position means that you're on the other guy's tail. Position in a gun fight may simply be higher ground, or setting your opponents in a crossfire ambush. And how valuable each slider is will basically vary by combat and what abilities you may have. If you've got an ability like sneak attack, then upping the position slider may be very important to you. If you're a wizard with an area enchantment that hits only enemies, then the fact that you're surrounded probably doesn't mean much to you.

I think part of the problem with that might be simulating a combat where there are two minotaurs guarding the entrance to the mummy's tomb but there's also an invisible lurker hiding underneath the bridge, too. Obviously you don't want the minotaurs to grab positioning bonuses since they're just standing in front of the doorway out in the open, but you also don't want to punish the lurker because his buddies are out in the open.

Well, there are two ways to handle a situation like this. If the lurker is just going to make a surprise attack and then join the fight, the easiest way may simply to give him a conditional where he's considered to have a +3 to his position slider for the first round of combat and thereafter he just acts as the minotaurs do, since presumably at some point he just joins the minotaur group after launching a single attack. In fact, the lurker joining the fight (assuming it's in some kind of flank tactic) may actually improve the overall positioning of his team, since the minotaurs and lurker now flank the PCs.

In some cases you may want to treat the two as separate groups, but these would be rare. Since even if you've got a situation like a force of orc archers and orc warriors, gaining position on the orc warriors should also make it harder for the archers to hit you, since you're using their allies as cover.

[Username17]

What I do mind is not knowing when or how I'm going to get Boxing Glove Arrow until the situation comes up. Something like a random die roll every round or how many times an enemy hits me (which is just more complicated randomness) makes strategy impossible and I don't want it.

No it doesn't. In the Winds of Fate example, you have several level 2 powers, several level 3s, and several level 4s. When you roll a 4, you could use any of them. Strategy is certainly possible, because each round you have many options available.

Saying that waiting for random openings to be able to use super moves makes planning impossible is like saying that rolling to hit makes planning impossible.

-Username17

[the_taken]

Golden Sun had an interesting concept with the djin. You had a pool of djin for the party, and after assigning them, you set their state to either set or loose. You shuffled set djin around to get stat bonuses and a better/different spell book, while loosed djin could be set to wait in any amount to summon a super awesome attack. So you could hoard set djin around and be really tanky, or you could have them loose and unleash them all RLT style. After being used to summon, the djin would then switch to being set, so over the course of boss fights the party would cycle thru being tanky and nuclear

[Lago PARANOIA]

No it doesn't. In the Winds of Fate example, you have several level 2 powers, several level 3s, and several level 4s. When you roll a 4, you could use any of them. Strategy is certainly possible, because each round you have many options available.

Saying that waiting for random openings to be able to use super moves makes planning impossible is like saying that rolling to hit makes planning impossible.

-Username17

People want to be able to use signature moves when they feel like it or at least know when they're going to be able to use it. It adds to the cool factor of being able to finish off the Big Bad by using a Rasengan or an explosive Batarang whenever they feel like it or the players deciding to use a Fastball Special to get across the bridge.

Telling people they don't get to use Super Fire Slash this round nor can you tell them when they will but you CAN use Air Blade, Flurry Sword, and Sword of Sodan this round isn't enough of a consolation prize.

Playing slots to find out when my character gets to use the technique planned to use to kill the six-fingered man ain't cutting the mustard.

[Lago PARANOIA]

What if instead of rolling to see what powers you got every round you rolled to see which powers of yours got bonuses?

For example, if a player had ten powers to choose from then she might favor her Magnet Beam and Rocket Punch powers. However, if she rolled in such a way that ahead of time she knew that if she picked Machine Gun Fingers or Laser Eyes this round instead they'd get a massive bonus to attack/damage or bonus secondary effects or whatever. She could still use Rocket Punch if she felt like, it just would work like it always would.

Her party could still use attack pattern alpha or she could use EMP whenever she felt like when facing the robots. However, the character would often have a major incentive to use other powers as well. She and her friends could still form an exacting strategy like the party switching to flame attacks when the wizard uses Ice Cape but one or two of the other party members might use Disintegrate O-Vision or Arrow Flurry instead because it'll still do more damage than Heat Vision and Flame Arrow.

[Username17]

People want to be able to use signature moves when they feel like it or at least know when they're going to be able to use it.

People like to have their super moves hit. They like to take down powerful enemies with a rocket punch to the face right at the beginning of combat. They really really like that stuff.

The first time.

But you know what? Fuck that. Because it gets really fucking boring really fucking fast if you just get to do your big signature move and win D&D right at the start of every battle. If Voltron just used the sword first thing each fight the show would be damn boring. If Sailor Moon just opened up with the Healing Blast every time there'd be no combat to speak of.

Yeah, in any combat system worth playing, you won't always get what you want. If there's no chance of you not pulling out the super ultra blast and saving the day, then there's no sense of accomplishment when you do. You want to always get everything your way all at once whenever you want? Well, I'm a medic, let me call you a waambulance:



-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

But you know what? Fuck that. Because it gets really fucking boring really fucking fast if you just get to do your big signature move and win D&D right at the start of every battle. If Voltron just used the sword first thing each fight the show would be damn boring. If Sailor Moon just opened up with the Healing Blast every time there'd be no combat to speak of.

Yeah, in any combat system worth playing, you won't always get what you want. If there's no chance of you not pulling out the super ultra blast and saving the day, then there's no sense of accomplishment when you do. You want to always get everything your way all at once whenever you want? Well, I'm a medic, let me call you a waambulance:

Voltron wouldn't have an incentive to always go for his sword if his other moves worked better.

Characters shouldn't have super moves that are generically better than ther rest of their arsenal anyway. We already have a system in place that randomly assigns large arbitrary bonuses if you get lucky enough--the critical hit.

While I agree that Goku's first move in combat (from a dramatic stanpoint) shouldn't always be to open with a Kamehameha, the solution to that is to make his Dragon Fist and Spirit Bomb moves better, not to randomly disallow Kamehameha. While Goku should be using his other moves rather than just killing time until he gets to use the one he wants to, Kamehameha should be available to him at some strategically or dramatically important moment.

[MartinHarper]

Yet another random idea.

There are five tokens in the center of the table, representing the availability of each type of magic power in TNE. To perform a Red special, you take a Red token. If there's no free Red token, you can't perform a Red special. You can't perform a special if you already have a token. At the end of your turn, if you haven't performed a special, and you have a token, you put your token back in the center.
Some characters (eg, orc grunts) aren't special and can't perform specials. Most characters can only perform specials for two of the colours. So there might be a Red token free, but if you only have specials for Green and Blue, then you'll need to do an at-will. Sometimes it may be worth delaying until after the Green token becomes available.

In certain high power environments, there may be extra Green tokens, while in certain low power environments, there may be no White tokens. You can bring things with you that provide a source of Red energy, adding a Red token, but they provide that to any Red user in the nearby area. This allows all-Red groups to work, at a cost.

Result: you use specials a little less than half the time. The characters that win initiative/surprise open with specials.
Benefits: non-random, promotes teamwork.
Costs: the initiative shuffling might get confusing.

[MfA]

Martyr Points sure advancing the rage bar by hurting enemies is broken by the bag of rats, but getting spell points by being damaged doesn't suffer from that kind of problem as long as healing takes the spell points away with it.

This just makes self inflicted damage before combat a risky form of buffing. Being able to open combat with an Everard's Black Tentacles while your opponents can only throw sticks and stones at you will likely be more than worth the decrease in your hitpoints.

[Lago PARANOIA]

But you know what? Fuck that. Because it gets really fucking boring really fucking fast if you just get to do your big signature move and win D&D right at the start of every battle. If Voltron just used the sword first thing each fight the show would be damn boring. If Sailor Moon just opened up with the Healing Blast every time there'd be no combat to speak of.

Voltron and Sailor Moon ending the fight with Healing Blast is fucking stupid, but not for the reason you describe.

When someone is writing a story, they get to decide when the super move goes off, which is usually at the climax of a battle. For obvious reasons,

But you know what else is stupid? Voltron and Sailor Moon not opening every fight with these moves. For people who have sets of super moves and not-so-super moves, you'll notice that the good authors take great pains to justify why they save their super move for that portion in the story. For example Naruto doesn't just immediately bust out with his Super Rasengan--first he has to judge all of the enemies' attacks and look for an opening so he doesn't get countered (using safer, less fight-ending attacks in the meantime) and he may have to weaken or capture his opponent first. Then Super Rasengan. Incidentally, while manuevering to this point he used a bunch of lesser moves, too to keep the fight interesting, which is what I think you're going for.

However, if Voltron could use his sword slash whenever he felt like it at no risk, the audience is going to question why he bothers to use the other moves at all. If the only reason why Voltron doesn't just end all of his fights with a sword is because the episode (combat) would be over too soon or the audience would get too bored of seeing that move to the exclusion of every other move then you need to invent reasons why he doesn't start and end every fight with that move.

And while there are a lot of methods you could use to make sure that Luffy uses other moves in his toolbox, here's why Winds of Fate does not work:

When Tony Stark and Hawkeye are fighting some unusually persistent bank robbers and a stray shot reveals that one of the robbers is a Snatcher, we expect them to immediately switch to their EMP blasts and Electric Arrows. We've seen them use that stuff before, we know it's there. It's very insulting when Superman doesn't use his Heat Vision on the Ultra Ice Robot--unless the author has Superman pick him up and drop him in a nearby volcano.

Having something like a die roll determine when you get to use your Femoral Artery Slash on the giant when we KNOW that it's in Jack's arsenal beyond lame. Why the hell is Legolas wasting time shooting arrows at the Oliphant's foot rather than going for the Colossus climb? We KNOW he can do it or at least try to do it--we've seen him do it before. Wolverine and Colossus throwing rocks at a flying martian because neither of them rolled a Fastball Special breaks suspension of disbelief and hurts the drama.

And you don't always want a character selecting fireball out of their moveset when they go on an Arctic Adventure then you should often make it so that Acid Arrow and Magic Missile are sometimes better choices--not just only allow fireball when something as arbitrary as a die roll comes up. The chance that the most dramatically or strategically important move in their arsenal will come up for the situation when you do that is near zero and it makes the audience question why the fuck people designed the game this way.

[Username17]

There is a reason Sailor Moon can't load up the moon healing on the frst round. She has to wait for an opening - the same excuse that Naruto gets. Same reason that Colossus doesn't always open with the fastball special on the first go, he needs to wait for an opening.

The thing is, even the most fiddly positional games don't keep track of where an enemy's shield is at all times. When an opening is available is an abstract, and dare I say: random concern.

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

I'm gonna side with Frank on this one.

Having random access to the Mega Big Bang Attack actually feels less, I don't know, static than always having the same choices available to you. Which is why I find the Crusader more entertaining to play than the Warblade, despite the latter's superiority. It's why when I play a Shadowcraft Mage I seriously roll to see what book I can choose a spell from each round. 'Cause otherwise it's going to be a maximized whirlwind of teeth every time.

[MfA]

How about a system where the limits on powers are area based rather than character based? Using a power or having a power active incrementally increases the level of powers which can be used in the vicinity (with subsequent decay). You can still power up on rats, but it takes you resources (assuming powers are rationed) and it gives your opponents many of the same advantages as it is giving you ... so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

A little like The Magic Goes Away in reverse.

[Lago PARANOIA]

There is a reason Sailor Moon can't load up the moon healing on the frst round. She has to wait for an opening - the same excuse that Naruto gets. Same reason that Colossus doesn't always open with the fastball special on the first go, he needs to wait for an opening.

The thing is, even the most fiddly positional games don't keep track of where an enemy's shield is at all times. When an opening is available is an abstract, and dare I say: random concern.

-Username17

Here's the problem, though. A post-hoc justification for why Colossus didn't use the Fastball Special on the racist, gun-toting mobs on the rooftop the first round of combat was that he was waiting for them to reload. So the third round comes and somehow something creates an opening in their defenses that where Colossus could safely throw Wolverine.

But from the perspective of the characters right actually in the scene there and now, why wouldn't you at least let the two players try anyway? Even if throwing them now would end up in Wolverine getting an anti-tank rifle shell in his throat, when it gets to the point where Wolverine goes 'fuck it, throw me anyway', what's stopping them? Nothing at all from an in-story perspective. Doing things that way breaks the simulation. Even if Iron Monger has his chaff up, what reason would you have for not letting Tony at least try to attempt firing a bunch of missiles at him anyway?

There isn't any. Cause and effect become screwy. In a round where you draw Shoulder Cannon but not Minigun Elbows, things work out so that the Shoulder Cannons not only don't work but can't work but the Minigun Elbows work just perfectly.

My solution for avoiding this problem while also making it so that Iron Man doesn't always have a reason to use Shoulder Cannon over and over? Instead of randomly disallowing attacks, make other attacks randomly super-effective.

Okay, so for an adventure you have Batman discovering the hideous secret behind Poison Ivy's latest plant monsters. The investigative phase is over, it's time to kick some ass at the warehouse she's hiding out. Since he's the goddamn Batman, he has a can of Bat-Pesticide in his utility belt. Why wouldn't be have it on him? He's the damn Batman.

But however, you don't want Batman to be repeatedly spamming Bat-Pesticide attacks. Otherwise it'll get boring. Your solution is to have rounds where the Bat-Pesticide attack is just not available. I say instead of Batman just not using his super move, his other moves should always be powered up to usually be better than his move-of-the-week. But the move that's powered up is random so he doesn't just end up using Ice Batarangs over and over.

So in one rounds, Batman gets a bonus to his Grappling Hook Kick attack, which when used this round lets him kick three of the mooks into a vat of chemicals instead of the one +5 attack he'd normally get with the Bat-Pesticide or the regular one mook push attack he'd get with it. In another round, he notices a few plant monsters trying to climb up the platform to where he is so he uses his Bat Flashbang to stun them and send them tumbling to the floor below.

In the end, the decision to use what attack and when is left in the hands of the player, not the RNG--it averted the boredom of using the same attack over and over while also avoiding the problem of not having the attack you want and why.