FreakyCheeseMan
2013-02-04, 09:16 PM
Another small part of a system I'm trying to build from scratch.
In the game I'm designing, I want to give characters action points of different flavors:
Physical Action Points cover anything that you do with your arms or upper body, such as attacking, blocking, casting spells with physical components, etc.
Movement Action Points cover anything you do with your legs or general posture, such as moving, dodging, feinting or kicking.
Thought Action Points cover anything you do with your head, such as talking or casting spells.
I'm associating the actions by body part so that they work in with the wound system- severe wounds to certain body parts with give you a penalty to your action points.
The number and type of actions you get depend on character build choices; for base line, expect level one characters to get one of each, with one extra they can assign at will.
Your action points describe what you can do in a single turn. You use them for all of the obvious, normal actions (like attacking, moving and casting spells) that you take during your turn. However, you can also use them for certain off-turn actions - primarily Active Defenses. Action Points renew at the end of your turn, not the beginning; this allows for two things. First, single-turn stun effects can happen by directly removing a character's actions points, as they won't regenerate until the end of their next turn. Secondly, it means that players are free to spend all of their remaining action points on their turn- rather than leaving some in reserve for off-turn actions they're not sure if they'll need to take.
Defenses in this system come in three forms- Active, Passive and Resistances. "Resistances" apply as straight damage reduction to all attacks- armor and most magical defenses apply there. "Passive" defenses give you a chance to entirely avoid (or avoid the worst of) all attacks of a certain type- however, Passive defenses are very difficult to get bonuses to.
Finally, Active Defenses allow you to spend action points off-turn, to get a better chance at avoiding certain attacks. Right now I have four Active Defenses planned- Dodge, Block, Parry and Counterspell.
Dodge allows you to spend a movement point to get out of the way of a ranged or melee attack, as well as certain spells.
Parry is only available with certain weapons; it allows you to spend a Physical Action Point to attempt to deflect a melee attack. You can add your own attack bonus to your Parry roll, and a sufficiently high success may give you a free counterattack.
Block allows you to spend a single physical action point to take an attack to the arm, rather than more vulnerable body parts. Unlike the other active defenses, Block is certain to succeed- but you still take the hit. However, you can get extra armor on the blocking arm in the form of a shield, and arms get a little bit of natural resilience.
Counterspell lets you spend a mental action point to attempt to disrupt the casting of an opponent's spell. By default, you can only counter spells targeted at you, but with additional investment, you may protect your party as well. As with Parry, sufficiently high successes may allow you to do more than simply negate your opponent's spell- you may be able to redirect it, or inflict some form of backlash on the enemy caster.
I'm hoping that this system will allow some more interesting patterns to emerge in combat. For instance, in a battle between two evenly matched fighters, one of them may be forced onto the defensive - repeatedly spending their Physical Action Points to block or parry opponent's attack, and being unable to make any of their own. This would continue until they found some way to break the pattern- risking a hit in order to get back on the offensive, getting support from an ally, using a feint to trick their opponent into resisting an attack they were never making, or turning the tides with some sort of free counterattack.
What does everyone think?
In the game I'm designing, I want to give characters action points of different flavors:
Physical Action Points cover anything that you do with your arms or upper body, such as attacking, blocking, casting spells with physical components, etc.
Movement Action Points cover anything you do with your legs or general posture, such as moving, dodging, feinting or kicking.
Thought Action Points cover anything you do with your head, such as talking or casting spells.
I'm associating the actions by body part so that they work in with the wound system- severe wounds to certain body parts with give you a penalty to your action points.
The number and type of actions you get depend on character build choices; for base line, expect level one characters to get one of each, with one extra they can assign at will.
Your action points describe what you can do in a single turn. You use them for all of the obvious, normal actions (like attacking, moving and casting spells) that you take during your turn. However, you can also use them for certain off-turn actions - primarily Active Defenses. Action Points renew at the end of your turn, not the beginning; this allows for two things. First, single-turn stun effects can happen by directly removing a character's actions points, as they won't regenerate until the end of their next turn. Secondly, it means that players are free to spend all of their remaining action points on their turn- rather than leaving some in reserve for off-turn actions they're not sure if they'll need to take.
Defenses in this system come in three forms- Active, Passive and Resistances. "Resistances" apply as straight damage reduction to all attacks- armor and most magical defenses apply there. "Passive" defenses give you a chance to entirely avoid (or avoid the worst of) all attacks of a certain type- however, Passive defenses are very difficult to get bonuses to.
Finally, Active Defenses allow you to spend action points off-turn, to get a better chance at avoiding certain attacks. Right now I have four Active Defenses planned- Dodge, Block, Parry and Counterspell.
Dodge allows you to spend a movement point to get out of the way of a ranged or melee attack, as well as certain spells.
Parry is only available with certain weapons; it allows you to spend a Physical Action Point to attempt to deflect a melee attack. You can add your own attack bonus to your Parry roll, and a sufficiently high success may give you a free counterattack.
Block allows you to spend a single physical action point to take an attack to the arm, rather than more vulnerable body parts. Unlike the other active defenses, Block is certain to succeed- but you still take the hit. However, you can get extra armor on the blocking arm in the form of a shield, and arms get a little bit of natural resilience.
Counterspell lets you spend a mental action point to attempt to disrupt the casting of an opponent's spell. By default, you can only counter spells targeted at you, but with additional investment, you may protect your party as well. As with Parry, sufficiently high successes may allow you to do more than simply negate your opponent's spell- you may be able to redirect it, or inflict some form of backlash on the enemy caster.
I'm hoping that this system will allow some more interesting patterns to emerge in combat. For instance, in a battle between two evenly matched fighters, one of them may be forced onto the defensive - repeatedly spending their Physical Action Points to block or parry opponent's attack, and being unable to make any of their own. This would continue until they found some way to break the pattern- risking a hit in order to get back on the offensive, getting support from an ally, using a feint to trick their opponent into resisting an attack they were never making, or turning the tides with some sort of free counterattack.
What does everyone think?