A new Resource Scheme

[Thymos]

I've been lurking for a while, and when I read all of "a modest in-combat resource management scheme" I noticed that I knew of a resource that encouraged variability without simply being a random enforcer (like rolling a die to pick your abilities).

In Magic the Gathering Mana is the most common resource. Occasionally though you'll come across cards that use land or creatures as a resource and require you to sac them to the cast the cards (or even let you sac them as an alternate cost).

Now these kinds of abilities are different in that they aren't just grabbing from a pool dedicated to them that's doing nothing if you aren't using it (mana in the MTG case). They're taking resources away that are already working and doing something. Using those cards have a real cost associated to them immediately, not just an opportunity cost.

So along those lines, why not make your pool that you use your powers from give you a bonus until you use your power. This way your encouraged to wait until the end game to fire off your ultimate, because if you use it at the beginning you'll be under performing afterwards (while your opponent is working at full until they use it). If you use it too late, well you won't be there to use it.

You can do this a few ways. One would way would be to attach specific bonuses to powers that go away once they're used (Super fire attack could give +x fire damage until it's used).

Another way would be to give generic bonuses out to some things (maybe defense, I don't really care to specify at this point) and having used powers start taking away these bonuses.

This way the reason that the characters wait till the end to break out their super moves is because they won't be very good after they use them, but they can work at full until they do.

[IGTN]

I think I heard coupling passive to active abilities suggested earlier, to solve a different problem (specifically, that if you have points that you can spend on passive or active abilities, and you can use all the passives at once, then the optimum balance is to have a few active and a whole mess of passive abilities). So, this is promising.

The problem with it is scheduling your resources. Per-encounter scheduling doesn't work unless you have more per-encounter abilities than you will have combat rounds. Daily encourages a 5-minute workday inherently. I could see a recharge system working with this, where once you use an ability, you lose its passive until you roll to recharge it.

This also runs into a problem where, eventually, you run out of places to stick bonuses that don't run up the RNG. If, for instance, you have a system of swordfighting with a bunch of special maneuvers that each grant +1 to hit for being ready, and are using a d20, then the guy with 10 special maneuvers (enough for 5 rounds if you use one every turn and one in between every turn; if, for instance, immediate and swift actions, to use D&D terms, are decoupled, this covers three rounds) hits on a 2 what the guy who's out of ammo hits on a 12, and hits on a 10 what the guy who's out needs a natural 20 to hit.

This means that if your battles outlast your ammo, the autoattack slog is made even longer.

Also you need to have autoattacks for everything. The mage needs something that his spell reserves give him a bonus to, that he can do all the time. Not inherently a problem (except that autoattacking is boring); you just need to design them in.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The main problem I see with such a system is that bonus recalculation is a bitch, and you'd be doing a lot of it as combat progressed. Other than that, it's a fine system. That probably means that it's more ideally suited to a computer game than a pen and paper game. With a good bonus management system, limited bonus stacking, or few abilities to worry about, however, it might be quite workable at the gaming table.

[JonSetanta]

I've been lurking for a while, and when I read all of "a modest in-combat resource management scheme" I noticed that I knew of a resource that encouraged variability without simply being a random enforcer (like rolling a die to pick your abilities).

... a superior lurker...

Smart move, making a new thread on your concept. It would have been mostly ignored otherwise.

As a fellow Magic player I see where you're coming from, if I understand your proposal well enough.
The ability you refer to in Magic might be like Forecast or Amplify, rewarding players for holding back resources.

In RPG terms it would work but only with the Super Attacks (dailies, as 4rries call them)

The downside is that this creates hesitation among players as they debate.
They'd better have a strategy ready (use it or save it? what next with either choice? is it the right moment?) or else the indecision will lag combat.

The bonus for reserved attacks should be small and non-stacking (even though ideally they'll have a limited number anyway), but most importantly the bonus to apply will have tags attached that match up and enhance other powers of the same tag(s).
... as you mention with the Fire damage.
Tags could be element, status effect, mobility type, etc.

[Username17]

What you are talking about is what Incarnum should have been. I would argue that sacrificing land is not equivalent, because land in Magic is used up every round anyway, so the difference between spending mana and sacrificing a land is merely one of persistent cost. Spending one black mana removes a Swamp for one turn, while sacrificing a Swamp can be thought of as spending one Black Mana a turn for the rest of the game.

Regardless, an Incarnum system in which you can load your special blue mana into your currently active soul melds to improve yourself or where you can spend it off to shoot powerful blue lasers at people has promise.

-Username17

[Thymos]

alright, I didn't read all of that thread, I skimmed a lot of it towards the end. What I meant was that I skimmed it from the beginning to the end .

I agree this would be better for the super moves, but you could probably have tiers.

Maybe powers that are usable at wills, ones that give small bonuses, and a single one that gives a large bonus. I don't see a reason to limit this to supers, but it is obvious now that every power can't have this system.

That or you can go with the scheme that everyone gains generic bonuses to stats or something that is taken away from when you use the powers (instead of having every power have a specific passive ability).

As far as the mage goes, there is no good reason to treat him separately in combat from the fighter. Trying to balance out extreme power with only lasting a short while has been shown by 3.x to not work anyways.

As far as hesitation goes, I can see the problem, but honestly when we start making players make real tactical choices, this problem will show up. It's a pain, but what are you going to do about it besides start bringing in timers or something.

I do think sacrificing lands is an equivalent. Mostly because you pay more for the ability if you sacrifice a land on a second turn than if you sacrifice the land on your next to last turn. The ability has a variable cost, and the point of this system is to make the cost of using an ability different depending on when they use it (a huge loss if used initially, or no loss if the super finishes the opponent off).

I have no idea what kind of recharge system for abilities this would work best with.

Another thing to note tactic with this is when you start breaking it out of 1v1, where you can't simply grind the opponent till your super can finish them off, and hope your faster than your opponent about this. Some supers will be an area of effect, so you'll want to drop them before your opponents start dropping, and if people focus fire on one member and take him out before the rest of his group, he'll drop his super early on (or he should).

This might have some bad repercussions against the solo monster (if the entire parties supers can wipe him out in a single turn), but those have a ton of problems as it is anyways.

[Tsuzua]

Ah a fellow lurker exposed in the Modest Resource thread.

I do like the idea as it allows for grand moves and player choice. In addition to giving some bonuses, it could also give various options until used. For example, if you have Fire Magic, you can cast weak fireballs and burn it all for an awesome hellblast. Also people will generally use the big moves near the end of the fight which will encourage others to put in their last mega-shots in. This will spur important combats to end with a flurry of big moves which is always cool.

The big issue is how do you do recharge rates? Time based (such as daily) recharging causes the 15 minute day issue. Encounter (or really quick/easy out of combat regen) would likely cause alpha-strikes so your small bonuses wouldn't matter as much as their awesome effects. Adventure/Session could work but are metagamey. Done well, conditional recharging might work (you must do X or have X happen to get Fire Magic back), but that'll require lots of work and balancing. Heck, random recharge ala WoF might be good here, likely with something that can "trigger" a recharge roll.

[Gelare]

Sounds potentially promising to me as well, although I share IGTN's concerns about people getting pushed off the RNG. If the passive bonuses go to, say, damage instead of to-hit, the problem isn't as bad, but then you might not sufficiently care about those bonuses to hold off on using your mega abilities.

[Manxome]

Perilous has a mechanic like this. Performing an attack causes you to accumulate fatigue, bigger attacks cause more fatigue, and fatigue applies a cumulative penalty to your rolls.

One way to address the RNG problem is to apply penalties to both attack and defense. If both sides are exhausted, they cancel out, so you can still both hurt each other. If one side is exhausted and the other is not, then the exhausted side is at a disadvantage, but that's the point.

I also had a "desperation" move players could use that let them ignore the attack penalty due to fatigue at the cost of even more fatigue (thus driving their defenses into the ground if they keep doing it). Which may or may not be a good idea, but it does ensure that both sides are always able to hurt each other.

[JonSetanta]

alright, I didn't read all of that thread, I skimmed a lot of it towards the end. What I meant was that I skimmed it from the beginning to the end .

Yet still better than I did.
After the discussion got stunlocked as usual I made a Will save and ejected.
However I do stop by and archive new pages every now and then.


Deciding the trigger condition for building charge is IMO the most difficult portion.
Not how much charge is gained, not the maximum, not where it can be used, not how often charge builds, but WHAT CHARGES.

In playing DBZ: TB3 today with brothers (your Z-Warrior flies around and you look from behind them like a flight sim) I've noticed that the same "Chi" charge concept is used.
... yet again.
While I'm no expert or historian or Spark or Dimps developments, I have noticed the similarities between incarnations.
It's literally the same Chi concept in EVERY Dragonball game; either powerup by forcing an embolism on your character, or hit the enemy with your body.

Either way, the option to build charge is pretty much a guarantee; the character is going to try their best to hit the bar maximum and Super Stupendous Fabulous Final Final Wupass Form their way to victory.
The drawback is that opponents can cause Chi to decline with successful injuries and (in the case of Budokai series) taunting.
.. and making any kind of supernatural maneuver costs that very same energy.

RPG options could be more diverse, but the success of DBZ Chi charges essentially shows me one thing: more than one method of building charge is given.
It's both Time (build charge by own volition) and Encounter based (build charge by causing harm to a worthy foe), and it works well.

---

While there are no alpha strikes in the franchise, it's mostly due to the lack of option for ambush rather than the game engine not supporting it.
Chi does drain away but not quickly enough to stop characters from building charge, rushing in, and shooting the fuck out of their enemy.

If given the option to build charge HOURS in advance, lie in ambush, then nova a battalion's forces to dust when the time comes, I'll bet people would do that. Constantly.

Building charge for a fairly non-combat foe-less (or rather, unopposed... due to enemy being beaten in to submission or paralysis) encounter happens in the shows regularly, mostly on the villains' parts (early Nappa and Vegeta bombing cities, Frieza making a gambit to plow Namek through, Buu's genocide) but there are exceptions:

Whatever the source of frequency for such "world wrecker" attacks, it's definitely something both part of the charge concept and partially outside of it.
There is some limitation to it. Perhaps stamina, perhaps some kind of temporary mental wound, but it most definitely still takes time to build for even the bare minimum level of competency.

[Grek]

Stuff Frank posted in the Gaijin Activities thread:

Dueling

So you're staring at somebody with a sword and you want to cut their head off. They want to cut your head off as well.


Hack: Characters can attempt to unravel the protections of their opponents. By reverse engineering the shield's genetic codes they can undermine and eventually bypass them.
Press: Shields repel each other, and with proper timing a character can creep their shielded area into their opponent's personal space by counter shifting to the oscillations of their opponent.
Position: Characters can attempt to maneuver themselves physically to herd their opponent into a disadvantage.
Strike: By swinging an Ancestor Blade into an enemy shield, one can allow the blade's key set to attune itself partially or completely to an enemy shield. And if the shield has been bypassed (or the enemy has no shield in the first place, the blade can be thrust into an opponent's body.
Taunt: Dueling is a much psychological as it is physical. A character can attempt to play on their opponent's weaknesses to gain advantage.

Shugendo

In order to perform an action of Shugendo, the first thing a character needs to do is to call it out of the Pattern. This is performed by the act of Focus. First, during a character's Action phase they declare the power that they want the Pattern to make available to them and spend the requisite ki to Focus it (this can be before or after they actually take their action for the round, and they may Focus on multiple Patterns if they wish). A character's ki refreshes with meditation and usage log editing a process that also clears any currently called Patterns. During a character's Focus Phase, they check to see if their Patterns have come online (generally for use in the next turn, but in the case of Reactions, over the coming turn). Any Patterns that were successfully focused on previous turns check to see if they time out.

The Focus Roll.

Each Pattern is associated with one of the Elements, and has a Focus number needed to activate it. During the Focus phase, a character may assign any number of dice up to their requisite Element attribute to attempt to focus a Pattern. They keep a number of dice equal to their Level, and if the dice total equal to the focus value of the Pattern, it comes online. If a Pattern does not come online, it may be focused next round at no further cost. If multiple Patterns of the same Element are being called simultaneously, the character may split their Element pool up any way that they want.

Example: Kani Kenichi is a very adept Water Master, and has a Water of 6. He has a Clearance Level of 2, and during his action he decided to call on Dormancy (Focus 10), and Darken (Focus 6). He's more concerned about getting Dormancy off, so he assigns 4 dice to it, laving just 2 dice for Darken. He rolls the dice for Dormancy getting 1, 3, 4, 6 - he takes the four and six and activates dormancy successfully. He rolls 2 dice for Darken and gets just a 2 and 3 - not enough. He now has Dormancy available, and if he doesn't use it by the next Focus phase, he'll have to roll to see if it expires. As he has already spent the ki to Focus on Darken, he can try to activate it again without spending any more.

And since these attributes are frankly bizarre and steeped in an unholy union of mysticism and super science; it is perfectly OK for them to have strange associations.

So for example you can attempt to inflict fear with water manipulations, but you create anger with wood, despair with metal, worry with earth, and impatience with fire. These are all psychological games that you can do with Kenjutsu. So you can try to take advantage of someone having a lot of Earth by trying to get them to worry about things behind them, causing them to lose focus. You can try to take advantage of someone with a lot of Fire by trying to get them to act impulsively, drawing them off guard.

But your stats aren't just exploitable character flaws, they are also sources of skills to affect the World, and methods of interacting with the Rings and the Pattern. Water is passivity, and is the power of storage, which for the purposes of Pattern use is actually the method of blasting things out of existence with Shugendo. Yes, seriously, you get black beams of nonexistence in this setting by training in passivity (which also makes you easier to scare out of position).

Since it's all part of the Zaibatsu, the whole weirdo end of business feng shui can be used. Which means that yes, Fire gives you the power of Customer Service. It also governs Pattern uses of growth that are used to expand forcefields into things - which basically means Telekinesis with your Shugendo. Also the fact that in Xingyi the Fire element represents counterattacking should be dwelled upon in the Kenjutsu (works very well with the fact that Fire's character flaw is impatience).

This system provides a fairly good chance to implement this thread's suggestion. What you do is have each dice you do not use for focus provide various bonuses and weaknesses. We have 5 elements, each gives a weakness and resistance:

Fire - Weakness to impatience taunts, helps resist despair taunts.
Metal - Weakness to despair taunts, helps resist anger taunts.
Wood - Weakness to anger taunts, helps resist worry taunts.
Earth - Weakness to worry taunts, helps resist fear taunts.
Water - Weakness to fear taunts, helps resist impatience taunts.

You can use your dice to get bonuses/maluses to the taunt aspect of combat or distribute your dice between attempts to use different sorts of special moves. Because it is a resistance to only 1 type of taunting out of 5, it does not push you off the RNG in any important way.

[Draco_Argentum]

Sounds rather like the old proposal for TNE where big moves would give you a CAN penalty thereby making you easier to kill. While this would push you off the defensive RNG that was the whole point of the CAN system so its totally fine.

[Thymos]

What if there's only one super power, and few minor powers. This would keep the amount of recalculation needed down, and also help make it so we don't run out of places to pile on the bonuses.

As far as recharge goes, I imagine a period of rest being able to recharge the powers would work. We'd need a fluff rationalization for this, but that shouldn't really be the hard part (hell, just needing to focus could be enough to justify why it doesn't work mid combat).

As far as range's go, I like the mention of two ranges, one for people loaded up and another for people who are out of powers. Of course these probably shouldn't be too far apart, but at least far enough apart to justify holding off on using the supers.

I notice a big conditional for these kinds of powers is that combat cannot be a one round thing. This cannot work for rocket launcher tag. Many round combat helps reduce the encounter based power design from turning it into said rocket tag.

[Crissa]

I'd suggest a system which allowed fleeing or surrender once all powers have been consumed.

Really, the fact that once your encounter powers are used up and you need to reload is no different than the six-shooter and the duel... Once you've fired away, why are you still standing there?

-Crissa