Gameplay Questions and Resources

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metabolicjosh
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Gameplay Questions and Resources

Post by metabolicjosh »

I've come to the realization that a lot of abilities work in tandem. Such abilities create a pool of resources. As an example, if Kana has Attack 1 and Combat Expertise 1, then Kana is capable of using perks and flaws to create both an attack that rolls +2 dice and that has a damage multiplier of 1, or an attack that rolls +0 dice and that has a damage multiplier of 3. This means that the ability Attack is inherently weaker than Combat Expertise, Agile and even Strong. A character in a realistic world would never take Attack, at least not until they have topped off on the other Abilities that do what attack does and more.

That said, I understand. However... Now, I have a few questions.

1) If I take Barrier 1 and I apply Defensive x2 and Inaccurate x2, would that mean that I roll +3 dice for passive defense and +6 dice for active defense, but I suffer -2 dice to all attack rolls that I might make?

2) If i take Heal 1 and I apply Unique (Endurance instead of Health) Effective x3, No Gestures x1, Break (Endurance) x1 and Ammunition x2, would that create an ability that lets characters regain endurance three times per combat when they run out? Kinda like DBZ...?

3) When we put activated on an ability such as Vigorous, are we able to raise our endurance during combat, after it's hit zero?

4) What happens when we use the Flaw: Limited Uses on the passive Abilities such as Vigorous and such?
Malancthon
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Re: Gameplay Questions and Resources

Post by Malancthon »

metabolicjosh wrote:I've come to the realization that a lot of abilities work in tandem. Such abilities create a pool of resources. As an example, if Kana has Attack 1 and Combat Expertise 1, then Kana is capable of using perks and flaws to create both an attack that rolls +2 dice and that has a damage multiplier of 1, or an attack that rolls +0 dice and that has a damage multiplier of 3. This means that the ability Attack is inherently weaker than Combat Expertise, Agile and even Strong. A character in a realistic world would never take Attack, at least not until they have topped off on the other Abilities that do what attack does and more.
First up, an easy mistake to make is regarding Attack. Attack increases your ability to deal damage. That's it. You start with a Damage Multiplier of 1, and Attack and Strong increases your Damage Multiplier (as does the Effective Perk). You do not need Attack in order to make attacks. You can still build attacks with Perks and Flaws with no levels of Attack or Strong, you just start at a Damage Multiplier of 1. Attack is good with any sort of attacks, whether it's a punch, a ki blast, a magic ray, a pistol, a rocket launcher, missiles fired, what have you. Strong is only good for attacks that you can put muscle into- mostly anything melee or with Ranged (Strength-Powered) Perks. So Strong is situationally better than Attack, but Attack will always allow you do to more damage regardless of the situation.

Combat Expert and Agile do not increase Damage Multipliers. Instead, they add dice to your attack rolls. Agile is a little stronger because it also applies bonuses to acrobatic rolls or other instances in which a character's nimbleness comes into play. Combat Expert is more of the skills one trains to use in combat- the samurai who studies the way of the sword versus a ninja's natural speed.

Your example character of Kana would have base attacks as Damage Multiplier x2 (base 1 plus Attack 1) and rolls 3 dice for combat (base 2 dice plus Combat Expert 1). You then can add Perks and Flaws to create more specific attacks.
metabolicjosh wrote:That said, I understand. However... Now, I have a few questions.

1) If I take Barrier 1 and I apply Defensive x2 and Inaccurate x2, would that mean that I roll +3 dice for passive defense and +6 dice for active defense, but I suffer -2 dice to all attack rolls that I might make?
Barrier has to be activated, regardless. If you activate Barrier 1 as a reaction in combat, you are correct you would roll 3 dice. You do not use the base 2 dice for defense, though; that's overridden by the Barrier Ability. If you prepared Barrier 1 before the attack in Combat (IE, using your turn to active Barrier instead of attacking or running), then you would have 2 dice in Barrier (1 x2). The Defensive bonus is not doubled, though, so your total defense dice would be 4 (Barrier 1x2 plus Defensive 2). To counterbalance that, though, Barrier is able to 'burn off' damage by spending Endurance, something Evasive doesn't do.

Your GM would probably frown at trying to add Inaccurate 2, especially if you're not doing any attacks that round. If you're doing it as normal reaction defense, then you'd probably be fine because you could still do attacks.
metabolicjosh wrote:2) If i take Heal 1 and I apply Unique (Endurance instead of Health) Effective x3, No Gestures x1, Break (Endurance) x1 and Ammunition x2, would that create an ability that lets characters regain endurance three times per combat when they run out? Kinda like DBZ...?
That's all probably negated because, per page 107, once per combat a character can spend a full turn to Recover, which immediately restores all Endurance. Likewise, Endurance is easier to regain after combat- just a short rest (about a half hour per the book on page 113) completely restores Endurance. Health requires a little more attention to recover, but a full night's rest would completely restore a character's health. That's why Healer does not affect Endurance.
metabolicjosh wrote:3) When we put activated on an ability such as Vigorous, are we able to raise our endurance during combat, after it's hit zero?
That one is a bit weird of a combo. Vigorous is a passive Ability, so I don't think it'd work well with Activation. But essentially it would be like DBZ, where you have a base amount of Endurance, and with a round of concentration, your Endurance would raise by your Vigorous level. However, once that Endurance is used up, you wouldn't be able to call upon it again until your Endurance recovers like normal. But you would be able to gain that bonus Endurance at any time you're still conscious, whether your Endurance is full or depleted. However, you would only be able to activate Vigorous once per combat scene this way, because once you've used up the bonus from Vigorous, that's it until you've recovered.

Transformation with Vigorous would probably be an easier way to represent that, though.
metabolicjosh wrote:4) What happens when we use the Flaw: Limited Uses on the passive Abilities such as Vigorous and such?
It's be about the same as the previous question. The difference is that you could only call upon that boosted Endurance only a few times per day immediately instead of requiring a round to concentrate. But you'd still have to Recover that Endurance before you can call it again. So you wouldn't be able to recharge your Endurance 5 times in a combat scene with Vigorous (Limited Uses level 1).

Again, Transformation with the Weaknesses and Flaws and having Vigorous would probably be a cleaner and more efficient way to represent your idea, since Transformation has an immediate effect instead of the more passive effect of Vigorous.

The short of it is, you've got options to raise and recover your Endurance, but it'd only be good once per combat scene, not more than once. Your other resource for extra Endurance would then be the Endurance Reserve Ability.
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Re: Gameplay Questions and Resources

Post by Clay »

metabolicjosh wrote:I've come to the realization that a lot of abilities work in tandem. Such abilities create a pool of resources. As an example, if Kana has Attack 1 and Combat Expertise 1, then Kana is capable of using perks and flaws to create both an attack that rolls +2 dice and that has a damage multiplier of 1, or an attack that rolls +0 dice and that has a damage multiplier of 3. This means that the ability Attack is inherently weaker than Combat Expertise, Agile and even Strong. A character in a realistic world would never take Attack, at least not until they have topped off on the other Abilities that do what attack does and more.

That said, I understand. However... Now, I have a few questions.
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. If you make use of Perks and Flaws, pretty much all the combat-related Abilities are interchangeable and of equal value. A character with +3 Attack and +1 Combat Expert can spend 10 Endurance to effectively have +3/+3 (That is, take Accurate twice.) Likewise, a character with +1 Attack and +3 Combat Expert can spend the same 10 Endurance to again make them an even +3/+3 (This time with Effective x2). One can shuffle this about in any fashion, with +1 in an Ability being worth about the same as +5 in Perks.

Strong debatably gets you the free narrative use, but it's going to be hard to justify your laser beam and fiery inferno attacks with Strong alone.

Now if you wanted to debate something, you could likely make a statistical analysis of which part of the damage formula is more effective (more DX or more dice rolled), but the truth is you need both halves to ramp up the damage in any effective way, so it's sort of splitting hairs.
1) If I take Barrier 1 and I apply Defensive x2 and Inaccurate x2, would that mean that I roll +3 dice for passive defense and +6 dice for active defense, but I suffer -2 dice to all attack rolls that I might make?
Technically, you can't apply Defensive to Barrier because it is not an Attack, but even if you bend the rules a bit, it's kind of silly to make a Defense Roll that increases future Defense Rolls but not the initial Defense Roll (which is what Defensive would do.) Inaccurate is also not doing what you think it does here—it only affects the roll of the current action, not an ongoing penalty. Even if it did work that way, because Defense Rolls are free actions, it would become difficult (if not impossible) to even decide when that Penalty begins and ends.

Better to just take +3 Barrier and use its “Skip an action to double your roll” exception to handle impaired offense.
2) If i take Heal 1 and I apply Unique (Endurance instead of Health) Effective x3, No Gestures x1, Break (Endurance) x1 and Ammunition x2, would that create an ability that lets characters regain endurance three times per combat when they run out? Kinda like DBZ…?
Yes, technically, but you could just use the "Recover" move and houserule it a bit to behave more like DBZ.
3) When we put activated on an ability such as Vigorous, are we able to raise our endurance during combat, after it's hit zero?
Vigorous does not have an action associated with it, so there is nothing to ever trigger the Activation flaw.
4) What happens when we use the Flaw: Limited Uses on the passive Abilities such as Vigorous and such?
Again, since these Abilities are not “used,” nothing happens.
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Re: Gameplay Questions and Resources

Post by Clay »

Whoops! Looks like Malancthon ninja’d a reply while I was writing that. Let me take a look at your response too, Mal. :)
Malancthon wrote:
metabolicjosh wrote:I've come to the realization that a lot of abilities work in tandem. Such abilities create a pool of resources. As an example, if Kana has Attack 1 and Combat Expertise 1, then Kana is capable of using perks and flaws to create both an attack that rolls +2 dice and that has a damage multiplier of 1, or an attack that rolls +0 dice and that has a damage multiplier of 3. This means that the ability Attack is inherently weaker than Combat Expertise, Agile and even Strong. A character in a realistic world would never take Attack, at least not until they have topped off on the other Abilities that do what attack does and more.
First up, an easy mistake to make is regarding Attack. Attack increases your ability to deal damage. That's it. You start with a Damage Multiplier of 1, and Attack and Strong increases your Damage Multiplier (as does the Effective Perk). You do not need Attack in order to make attacks. You can still build attacks with Perks and Flaws with no levels of Attack or Strong, you just start at a Damage Multiplier of 1. Attack is good with any sort of attacks, whether it's a punch, a ki blast, a magic ray, a pistol, a rocket launcher, missiles fired, what have you. Strong is only good for attacks that you can put muscle into- mostly anything melee or with Ranged (Strength-Powered) Perks. So Strong is situationally better than Attack, but Attack will always allow you do to more damage regardless of the situation.

Combat Expert and Agile do not increase Damage Multipliers. Instead, they add dice to your attack rolls. Agile is a little stronger because it also applies bonuses to acrobatic rolls or other instances in which a character's nimbleness comes into play. Combat Expert is more of the skills one trains to use in combat- the samurai who studies the way of the sword versus a ninja's natural speed.

Your example character of Kana would have base attacks as Damage Multiplier x2 (base 1 plus Attack 1) and rolls 3 dice for combat (base 2 dice plus Combat Expert 1). You then can add Perks and Flaws to create more specific attacks.
A very nice overview, thanks!
Barrier has to be activated, regardless. If you activate Barrier 1 as a reaction in combat, you are correct you would roll 3 dice. You do not use the base 2 dice for defense, though; that's overridden by the Barrier Ability. If you prepared Barrier 1 before the attack in Combat (IE, using your turn to active Barrier instead of attacking or running), then you would have 2 dice in Barrier (1 x2). The Defensive bonus is not doubled, though, so your total defense dice would be 4 (Barrier 1x2 plus Defensive 2). To counterbalance that, though, Barrier is able to 'burn off' damage by spending Endurance, something Evasive doesn't do.

Your GM would probably frown at trying to add Inaccurate 2, especially if you're not doing any attacks that round. If you're doing it as normal reaction defense, then you'd probably be fine because you could still do attacks.
To clarify, Barrier does get the two default dice, you just don’t get to add Quick, Evasive, etc.
metabolicjosh wrote:2) If i take Heal 1 and I apply Unique (Endurance instead of Health) Effective x3, No Gestures x1, Break (Endurance) x1 and Ammunition x2, would that create an ability that lets characters regain endurance three times per combat when they run out? Kinda like DBZ...?
That's all probably negated because, per page 107, once per combat a character can spend a full turn to Recover, which immediately restores all Endurance. Likewise, Endurance is easier to regain after combat- just a short rest (about a half hour per the book on page 113) completely restores Endurance. Health requires a little more attention to recover, but a full night's rest would completely restore a character's health. That's why Healer does not affect Endurance.
Ninja’d.
Again, Transformation with the Weaknesses and Flaws and having Vigorous would probably be a cleaner and more efficient way to represent your idea, since Transformation has an immediate effect instead of the more passive effect of Vigorous.
You could also use a combination of Endurance Reserve and Trigger.
Malancthon
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Re: Gameplay Questions and Resources

Post by Malancthon »

Clay wrote:To clarify, Barrier does get the two default dice, you just don’t get to add Quick, Evasive, etc.
My mistake, I thought I had read in one of the other question threads that Barrier supersedes all the dice for it's own, including the default two dice.

Thanks for the clarification.
metabolicjosh
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Re: Gameplay Questions and Resources

Post by metabolicjosh »

When I analized Attack, Combat Expertise, Strong and Agile, what i meant was... If your total abilities would give you bonus dice, but no damage multiplier, you can use the perks and flaws of Effective and Inaccurate to effectively reallocate the bonus dice as damage multiplier, and vice a versa. That makes Attack a less valuable ability compared to these other abilities.

Can you explain endurance reserve? It confuses me.
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Re: Gameplay Questions and Resources

Post by Sabersonic »

metabolicjosh wrote:Can you explain endurance reserve? It confuses me.
Well from what I can figure, Endurance Reserve can't be used for Stamina-related dice checks nor used as Drama Dice, it needs a lengthy period of time (typically twenty-four hours) before one can recover it at full length, and doesn't count towards "knocked out" if a character's Endurance and Health is depleted.

Not something you'd add to a character. More like something you put on an item to give a little boost.
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Malancthon
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Re: Gameplay Questions and Resources

Post by Malancthon »

metabolicjosh wrote:When I analized Attack, Combat Expertise, Strong and Agile, what i meant was... If your total abilities would give you bonus dice, but no damage multiplier, you can use the perks and flaws of Effective and Inaccurate to effectively reallocate the bonus dice as damage multiplier, and vice a versa. That makes Attack a less valuable ability compared to these other abilities.
I think you're missing something here. Attack and Strong do give you higher Damage Multiplier. That's what those Abilities do. You have three resources to make make your attacks more deadly. You got Attack, which increases your base Damage Multiplier; Strong, which increases your Damage Multiplier with any physical attack; and Effective, which increases your Damage Multiplier with a specific attack.

Yes, you could ignore Attack and use Strong and Effective to do equivalent damage. You could ignore Strong and use Attack and Effective to do the same. Or use Attack and Strong. The options are there for you to make an attack the way it fits best your character.

But each option has it's own downside. Attack gives you versatility. Any attack you make is guaranteed to do more damage, but that's all it does. Strong not only lets you do more damage, but you get bonuses for doing anything with your strength. However, all the strength in the world is not going to help you use a gun better. And Effective makes a specific attack do more damage, but if you don't have that technique or resource available, then it doesn't work; also if you don't have a Flaw to balance out the Effective Perk, then you have to spend Endurance.

All are valid options. That doesn't mean Attack is less useful than Strong or Effective.
metabolicjosh wrote:Can you explain endurance reserve? It confuses me.
Endurance Reserve is an item of some sort that holds extra Endurance. It could be like a car battery, or a magic flask that lets you use that Endurance instead of your own on Endurance Costs, such as for Attacks or Spells. The downside is that it won't Recover as quickly as the character's person Endurance would.
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