How long should it take to get off your Ultimate?

[Crissa]

How long should it take to get off your Ultimate?

In D&D, people fire off their encounter powers right away. This is thematic for some, anticlimactic for others.

How many rounds of combat should it take before your 1/Encounter ability? Or your 1/day ability? Or your 1/Level?

How long does it take before rainbow streamers take out the badguy with Moon Taria Action?

-Crissa

[Psychic Robot]

Depends. I'd give casters slower but more powerful "ultimates." I'd give fighters quicker but weaker "ultimates."

[ubernoob]

I'd say ultimates shouldn't take long to use, but they have a huge drawback after using them so you only use them when they -really- matter. Negative levels are a decent baseline if we're talking 3.5. Basically, I'd like to see ultimates work like Rock Lee's taking off the weights when he fights (and gets beaten by) gara.

[Maxus]

I'd say ultimates shouldn't take long to use, but they have a huge drawback after using them so you only use them when they -really- matter. Negative levels are a decent baseline if we're talking 3.5. Basically, I'd like to see ultimates work like Rock Lee's taking off the weights when he fights (and gets beaten by) gara.

I'd think you mean more like when he does all the "unlocking the gates" crap, but your point stands.

[ubernoob]

I'd say ultimates shouldn't take long to use, but they have a huge drawback after using them so you only use them when they -really- matter. Negative levels are a decent baseline if we're talking 3.5. Basically, I'd like to see ultimates work like Rock Lee's taking off the weights when he fights (and gets beaten by) gara.

I'd think you mean more like when he does all the "unlocking the gates" crap, but your point stands.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Thank you for clarifying.

[Kazastankas]

I think ultimate should be less of a 'chargin' mah lazurs' deal and more of a 'blowing my load' deal, yes. It's a rather anticlimatic ultimate if you can't actually use it whenever you want, so I favor the 'dire consequences after using it' bit instead. However, in games where you have perfect information, this unfortunately makes ultimates less of a dramatic tool and more of a winning tool; you'd know the exact probabilities of beating the encounter using it and whether or not it's worth the negative effects after using it.

The nice part about the concept of ultimate attacks, I think, is the fact that you know it's really powerful (more so than most of your other tricks), but not whether it's powerful to beat the difficult obstacle in front of you at any time - which introduces an element of planning, since both pros and cons actually exist.

[Psychic Robot]

Ultimates should be measured in d6s. All ultimates should do 1d6 more damage than your encounter powers, and 2d6 more damage than your at-will powers.

[Roy]

Ultimates should be measured in d6s. All ultimates should do 1d6 more damage than your encounter powers, and 2d6 more damage than your at-will powers.

I crashed my ROFLcopter.

[zeruslord]

And be usable once per six-hour rest that may be initiated at any time. Strikers get a +1 to damage on their ultimates, of course, to make up for the way defenders get a +2 on theirs.

[RandomCasualty2]

I sorta like the combo setup approach to ultimates, where you have to use some other abilities to charge up your ultimate, similar to the Chrono Cross ability system. You can't just fire out level 7 magic without using a few basic attacks first.

[Psychic Robot]

Methinks such a system might be too complicated/frustrating for pen-and-paper gaming. Keeping track of things round-by-round can be tedious, and it really sucks to spend an entire battle using "normal" attacks just so you can use your hyperspecial...only to have the encounter end right before your turn comes up.

[ckafrica]

Have some situational preconditions might be good. 50% HP or stunned status or something of the the like. Making the ultima attack a potential finisher

[RandomCasualty2]

Methinks such a system might be too complicated/frustrating for pen-and-paper gaming. Keeping track of things round-by-round can be tedious, and it really sucks to spend an entire battle using "normal" attacks just so you can use your hyperspecial...only to have the encounter end right before your turn comes up.

Well I'd like battles to last long enough where you can build up to the ultimate, as opposed to the current D&D style (4E and 3E), where you just blow your wad right away.

[Hicks]

I'm gonna throw my vote with ckafrica: Ultimates should be 1/encounter super special moves that not only do a tone of damage, but also always do a special effect, such as set an area on fire or make the affected area difficult terrain, or stun or something even when they miss half the time, and should only be activated after you are bloodied. And the fact that understood what I wrote means that I hate 4th edition only slightly less than I hate myself right now .

[virgil]

I want all Ultimates to be on par with storm of vengeance, be at will, and the only reason you ever use the lesser ones is to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. >.<

[violence in the media]

Hello everyone. Long-time lurker, first-time poster here.

What if you could have Ultimates result from luck and planning, rather than elective useage? Also, what about having them perform as interrupts once their conditions are met?

Allow me to provide an example. Let's say you have a character that has the special ability Ultimate to hulk out and toss everyone off of him when he gets ganged up on. You could set a trigger condition where whenever this guy is completely surrounded OR in melee with every opponent on the battlefield (so it's useable on less than 8 enemies) he gets to perform his Ultimate move on them. Whatever that would be would depend on the game rules, but it would probably involve moving all of them away from him and dealing some damage.

In this type of set-up the player doesn't get to simply say, "Ok, I'm going to zap that dude with my Death-o-matic" but can take an active part in setting up the circumstances that will give them a bonus attack of awesome. That seems more interactive to me.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I like the way Frank set things up for TNE: you have limited-use 'ultimates' that are most effective after the enemy has taken a beating: in effect, finishing moves that can be used at any time.


An alternative way of doing it is to have actual finishing moves that only have higher-tier effects. This encourages using the finishing moves on any weaker targets (whether they be injured or mooks). You can use them on powerful uninjured enemies, but it's quite a gamble.

[ckafrica]

I want all Ultimates to be on par with storm of vengeance, be at will, and the only reason you ever use the lesser ones is to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. >.<

I'd be quite okay with no ultimates which is essentially the same to saying I've got ultimates all the time. All my actions should rock the casbah to some extent, and if they are all equally cool (and actually cool) we don't actually need an ultimates. I would like to know that I've got multiple cool moves that would be good in a certain situation because spamming even cool actions is boring.

Violent Media: I think situational abilities are cool, but they can't really be your supreme move as you shouldn't only have your coolest move in a limited circumstance (if my super move requires water and we're in the desert, I'm fucked).

Catharz: My recollection was that that was the way that TNE was going (wow 3 wases and 3 thats in one sentence!). It would also be cool to have an ultimate be good enough that it will be a guarantee takedown a mook but need to be saved for the right moment against bosses and other serious threats. If I can suplex a solitary guard and drop at once that is cool, but it shouldn't take done the boss encounter or his lieutenants.

[violence in the media]

Violent Media: I think situational abilities are cool, but they can't really be your supreme move as you shouldn't only have your coolest move in a limited circumstance (if my super move requires water and we're in the desert, I'm fucked).

I can totally agree with that. Maybe calling them super moves is the wrong term, because I was thinking along the lines of something like Limit Breaks and how to implement them in a more interactive manner than a round/action timer. I wouldn't envision these really being "battle-enders" in the way that Finger of Death or Timestop is. Mostly, these would give characters an extra round of somewhat-unique* predetermined actions and effects. I don't think many people would really be happy checking off rounds and waiting until they get to use such a move, but if it happens for free whenever the conditions are met then hooray. You could probably have both Limit Breaks and Ultimate moves in the same game without ending the world too.

As far as the triggering conditions, you'd probably want to create ones that are somewhat universally possible. Things like being surrounded by enemies, struck by three ranged attacks, flanked, having opponents arranged in a zig-zag formation, whatever. The power of the move could potentially correspond to the ease of setting it up as a balance concern. A move that triggers when flanked is less powerful than one that triggers when you have 4 enemies exactly 15' (or 3 squares) away from you. You can also just not care about the visual effects. You can use your Kamehameha wave attack in the Desert of Desolation and no one cares where the water comes from beforehand or goes to afterwards.


*By "somewhat-unique" I mean that other people can know the Ten-Hands Technique, but there isn't a spell or magic item or feat that exactly replicates what it does.

[Psychic Robot]

I'd be quite okay with no ultimates which is essentially the same to saying I've got ultimates all the time. All my actions should rock the casbah to some extent, and if they are all equally cool (and actually cool) we don't actually need an ultimates. I would like to know that I've got multiple cool moves that would be good in a certain situation because spamming even cool actions is boring.

Sounds like spells in 3e. But I think that non-casters should have a different system so that they a) feel different, and b) suck less.

[Josh_Kablack]

I really think that arcade fighting games covered most of the options for Ultimates:

Street-Fighter II (original): Nobody gets "ultimate" moves. You get specials and combos that go off when you move the joystick in whatever tricky way is required.

Mortal Kombat series: You get your fatality/friendly/etc off when you have already won the fight and you move the joystick in whatever extra-tricky way is required.

Killer Instinct: In addition to the Sf2 and MK systems, you also unlocked the ability to do shadow moves for the rest of the round after you performed a c-c-combo breaker. This required the opponent to begin a combo against you and an insane amount of practice with the game to do reliably, and the advantages gained by shadow moves were fairly minimal. But it's notable in that you didn't lose access to shadow moves after you used them - there was no meter to deplete.

Samurai Showdown: Your Rage Gage charges as you take damage. Once it fills up you can use a supermove, but doing so depletes your rage gage. This helps to favor comebacks in matches.

Later Capcom Fighting Games: You charge your super meter by doing a number of special moves or combos beforehand. This helps to favor profciency in the game and rewards offensive strategies. In some cases you are able to reach multiple levels of super and you can execute level 1, level 2 or level 3 specific supermoves depending how full your meter is. Each move depletes your meter by the relevant amount.

Soul Caliber: You charge your Soul meter by holding down three buttons and glowing - this leaves you open to getting stabbed in the face while you're charging.. Some regular moves have special properties after you are fully soul charged, and some don't. Once you hit with a soul charged attack, your charge is gone.

Powerstone: When you grab the third gem you go into a powered-up form and do extra damage and special attacks for a short period. You can also throw one big super move in this form, but doing so ends your time in the powered up form immediately thereafter.

1942 and other shooters: Okay this is not a fighting game, but you get three Loops (or bombs) per life - these can be used to escape tight situations. Once used, they are gone. This is included because it's the model that most D&D magic has worked on.

Time Killers: This obscure and second-rate fighting game included moves which removed weapons and sometimes limbs from your opponent mid-round. These weren't "super moves" in any way, but once performed they limited your opponent's options for the rest of the round, thereby giving you an advantage.

[Josh_Kablack]

In most editions of D&D, the game includes the SF2 Original scheme (basic weapon attacks, 3e fighter feats, 3e monster grab and swallow routines, backstab, 4e at-will powers) where moves go off whenever you can set them up and the 1942 setup (spells, per day abilities, 4e encounter powers, healing potions and other limited use magic items) where some moves have limited ammo.

With the introduction of abilities that only work when the user is bloodied and others that only work when the target is bloodied - 4e actually takes a couple baby steps towards the Samurai Showdown and Later Capcom models. However the differences tend to be small enough that a lot of folks wouldn't count these as "ultimates".

3e True Strike (and arguably 4e second wind) worked a lot like the soul calibur model. Waste a round now for a bigger bonus later in the combat. This model is potentially problematic in any RPG where there is no mechanical distinction between in-combat and out-of-combat time, as characters can gain substantial combat bonuses by sacrificing meaningless rounds in complete safety. And as 4e had shown, differentiating combat and non-combat time strictly in a tabletop RPG strains suspension of disbelief for a lot of folks.

A number of non-damaging attacks and buffs in all versions of D&D and many other RPGs work similar to the Time Killers model. From disarm to forcecage to grapple to Divine Challenge, there are a plethora of ways to restrict opponents' attack options within the game.

The MK "fatality" idea, where you get a visual reward for knowing a secret handshake doesn't really fit into tabletop RPGs, at least not in any way that I can see.

So far as I can tell, no tabletop RPG has really implemented the Powerstone or KI setup.

[the_taken]

*stuff*

That's very useful. I'm saving it for later.