The Gaming Den

So, Chrono Trigger has special team attacks called Techs, where you can do things like have the fire mage and ice mage do a simultaneous freeze/burn temperature shock attack, or you stab a guy then the lightning mage channels a thunderbolt into it.

video of techs here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMqY_pBKAlU

Are there any TRPG's which have Team Attacks as a special move to pull off? It's not just synergy like "I cast entagle and then we shoot arrows", it would be a specific move that requires two or more to pull off.

The closest I can think of would be warlord type guys in D&D3/4 where they hit a dude then get their buddy to also hit them, but that's not quite the same.

I think D&D3.x had some crappy tactical feats that gave bonuses for things, but in general D&D hasn't been better about it than "Mage, throw some fire on my sword so I can stab the ice elemental."

Which is unfortunate, because I love Chronotrigger.

About Chrono trigger specifically: double and triple techs delay your team from acting and exposes them to first strike from team monster. Should team monster lay on a status effect with their first strike, you're fucked, as you waste an action and a heal item and waste another turn for their active time battle gauge to fill, exposing you to more attacks...

Also, due to elemental resistance and absorptions, your triple attack could do "LOL NO" damage or heal them.

For multi attacks to be worthwhile, they must do more damage than the sum total of your side's damage, otherwise you could have just attacked when each character's ATB gauge filled and not exposed your party to interrupts.

For a tabletop mechanic, seriously consider having the sum of all the participant's damage multiplied by the number of participants, as you are basically giving your enemies the first strike.

That could be fun, especially from a team cohesion point if view.

If casters only:
Casters with a higher init would have to hold action and cast at the same time as the lowest init while someone else specifically acts as bodyguard.

Including melee:
You could go whole hog and really bring SWARD MAJIKZ to the forefront letting casters focus combo'd power through a melee while he does some kind of action-point cut scene jazz, resulting in area damage, blow backs and status effects for all!

Most team attacks in Crono Trigger are ass. I see guides that tell people to use techs that they should have abandoned levels ago. Antipode 3 is the only one that comes to mind as being useful late game.

For multi attacks to be worthwhile, they must do more damage than the sum total of your side's damage, otherwise you could have just attacked when each character's ATB gauge filled and not exposed your party to interrupts.

Unless you are fighting an enemy with riposte attacks, like almost every boss. Then taking less total attacks to drop the enemy is an end in and of itself, so a team attack that simply did more damage than a single character's attack would be worth considering even if the total damage for the turn was considerably less. So if you're up against a Beast or a Golem, then waiting up and doing team attacks is the obvious thing to do even if that isn't the best way to maximize your damage over time. Because it's still the way to minimize the damage over time from team monster.

-Username17

My issue: I don't actually care if there is a Barbarian/Paladin/Wizard triple tech because I've never actually been in a party with both a barbarian and a paladin.

I think that coupled with the work and space for writing up such things is going to keep them from gaining much traction on the table top.

Iirc, Lyric Thaumaturgist can burn bardic music uses to significantly power up sonic spells cast nearby. That's kind of like a tech. Everything the Marshal does is also similar, though usually petty.

FrankTrollman wrote:

For multi attacks to be worthwhile, they must do more damage than the sum total of your side's damage, otherwise you could have just attacked when each character's ATB gauge filled and not exposed your party to interrupts.

Unless you are fighting an enemy with riposte attacks, like almost every boss. Then taking less total attacks to drop the enemy is an end in and of itself, so a team attack that simply did more damage than a single character's attack would be worth considering even if the total damage for the turn was considerably less. So if you're up against a Beast or a Golem, then waiting up and doing team attacks is the obvious thing to do even if that isn't the best way to maximize your damage over time. Because it's still the way to minimize the damage over time from team monster.

-Username17

From a theoretical standpoint, that stands up. From a practical standpoint, you're massive underestimating how shitty double and triple techs actually were. It is entirely possible for Crono to be able to throw Luminaire around by the time you fight Golem, and Luminaire by itself does more damage than any single double or triple tech that Crono is involved in. You are better off having Crono use luminaire and have someone else heal the counterattack than use any double or triple tech.

There will be times when your advice works, and that time when your double techs deal more damage than what one character can do on their own. By mid-game, that's rarely the case (Antipode spells are awesome when the target isn't resistant to Dark, Frog Flare can do massive damage when Frog is low on HP, and I think there's one or two more worth using). Crono Cross actually got this right, the few double techs that exist are pretty awesome.

In the SNES game Sailor Moon: Another Story In Time, there were 37 combo-attacks. The fun part was discovering them all. Most of them were just "X+Y use a special attack, deals more damage than individual attacks" or "X+Y use a special attack, does normal damage but to all enemies and similar". There were a few different ones, like giving the party status protection. Also it never mattered because once you had Sailor Pluto, all enemies were paralysed (no save) forever. The point of this: discovering them was fun (not really something you can do when the rules are written down in front of you).

Similarly, the Suikoden games always had the fun of discovering which character combinations had various attacks (such as the three bald guys having a light-reflection attack that blinds the enemies, or Hero + Nanami (S2) having a combo that either deals massive damage but stuns Nanami, or deals normal damage and Nanami heals (she sits out of the "combo" and eats a snack)). The point of this: again, discovering them is cool, also you want them to be weird and unique and not "X attack BUT BIGGER".

The award for "most boring combo attacks" actually goes to Disgaea 3. Which is fucking bizarre, given the single attacks split the planet open, summon five-headed smog-breathing cobras and so on. In that one, all that happens is you both attack at the same time (one attack animation starts, then pauses halfway for the other attack animation to occur, then it finishes), and they both get the bonus damage for being the second of the two attacks in the chain. The point of this: just a damage boost is boring.

So in a tabletop, where you can't really play around discovering new combos normally, your options are:
[*]MTP it: this isn't actually a system
[*]Make a list of specific abilities (in D&D that'd be Feat-enabled actions, Spells, Class Features etc, in WoD that'd be Disciplines, in BESM that'd be basically any ability at all) to do fancy things when combined, accepting that 90% of them won't apply to any given party.

Count, Frank is talking about using double and triple tech in DnD not how they are used in Chrono Trigger.

Legends of Anglerre (the FATE implementation of an obscure british comic from the Eighties) knows the Group Combo stunt/feat. It's probably copy-pasted from other instances of FATE 3.0, but I'm not familiar with those.

Without the stunt, you can use maneuvres on enemies, attacks that do not deal damage, but give your next attack (or other interaction roll) a +2 bonus under specific circumstances if successful. For example, the classic “sand in the eyes” might yield a “whenever sight is usually needed by target” bonus.

With the stunt/feat, you can pass that bonus to an ally to use in his next attack instead, in case his attack matches the circumstances specified (and the circumstances haven't been negated in the meantime). You need to designate that ally (called the finisher) before making the roll. Additionally, for every three points your successful attack exceeds enemy defense, the finisher gets an additional +1 on his roll.

The most basic use of the Group Combo lies in simply overcoming ridiculously high enemy (boss) defenses.
It gains additional traction considering that stunts in FATE (the actually useful ones, at least) benefit from high bonuses, too; preparing an enemy for your melee specialist that deals devastating damage to an enemy with a high enough roll regardless of enemy armor and immunities is actually a valid strategy.
Also Group Combo works on any skill. You may use it in regular combat as well as social rolls or assisting the group gnome to build a submarine prototype.

On the downside, FATE is a rules light system, and Group Combo works on any skill. I suppose I don't have to elaborate further on the problems that that might bring to a rookie MC or an MC with an argumentative group.
Also, there is the feat tax associated with Group Combo. Which feels weird, considering that in the system you usually create a group in which every character knows at least two others in the group well.

Previn wrote:My issue: I don't actually care if there is a Barbarian/Paladin/Wizard triple tech because I've never actually been in a party with both a barbarian and a paladin.

I think that coupled with the work and space for writing up such things is going to keep them from gaining much traction on the table top.

Writers wishing to keep their sanity wouldn't even try, but instead would create rules that allow spontaneous comboing. This is totally doable if you're willing to work it into the system from the ground up. It's much less useful in with D&D's ad-hock spell creation system.

As suggested, what would it be tied to, so to minimize the sheer amount of combinations that would be made? If it was tied to Classes, then that can easily equate to hundreds of combinations, with 12 classes (maybe even 8? though seems be half that,but how all calculating this is probably off). After all, the more combinations you make, the more likely they are going to end up being boring and similar, much like the rap of 4th edition powers.

hyzmarca, how do you think it would be worked into a system successfully, like the FATE example, but made more concrete and clear?

Aryxbez wrote: hyzmarca, how do you think it would be worked into a system successfully, like the FATE example, but made more concrete and clear?

In order to have a system for creating double techs, you first need to have a system for creating single techs. It needs to be clear, complete, and it needs to scale.

Once you have that then building a multitech is basically the same as building a single tech but with more participants.

I would seem to me that such a system would work better where the amount of success is markedly higher based on the range of success. Like warp cults injuries where 1 success is 1 wound, but 2 is 3, 3 is 6 and so on. That way the working in concert to add to the number of success to one person (by either adding successes or reducing defenses) is much more effective than each person hitting with few successes.

In the D&D abilities that increased the likelihood and extent of a crit from another in your party might make it worthwhile