Wise Turtle Publishing

Some folks have expressed concern that Agile/Combat Expert overlap... and that Agile is innately the better choice.

I think this might happen with Quick/Evasiveness as well.

Is this a bug, a feature or is there something that I'm missing?

I believe that is a feature.

Combat Expert you can use to all kinds of situations, even those where Agile would not be possible - like, for example, when you are piloting a mech and it's the mech's agility that counts, not yours.

Combat could be used to all sorts of attack, while agility needs you to be able to move. The same goes for the other two.

In my case, I like the idea of Combat being both attack and defense as it was for some time. But that is just for me, though.

Problem is, clever players would rationalize the use of Agile in every situation.

And yeah, it is weird that Combat Expert only covers Attack and not defense. Seems like it could have been Offense Expert and Defense Expert or CE covers both. Messes with my need for symmetry! :p

What I might do... is say that Abilities that exist solely as combat stats are passive while any Ability that might also assist with a combat stat can do so at the cost of (Ability Level x 2) Endurance.

Something I realized about OVA is the built-in overlap is purposeful. Clay comes right out and says it at a couple points, noticeably as concerns gear, focus, weapon, et al.

Basically, there are MANY ways to accomplish a character build in order to fine tune and tailor to concept. That does mean, however, that less-than-honorable players who are apt to abuse rules can find loop-holes, and thereby ruin the fun for everyone.

thwaak wrote:Something I realized about OVA is the built-in overlap is purposeful. Clay comes right out and says it at a couple points, noticeably as concerns gear, focus, weapon, et al.

Basically, there are MANY ways to accomplish a character build in order to fine tune and tailor to concept. That does mean, however, that less-than-honorable players who are apt to abuse rules can find loop-holes, and thereby ruin the fun for everyone.

A GM that can say "no" to those munchkisms are a good person, even if they don't feel that when they say that magical word.

Hey everyone, glad to see rules debates happening already!

At first blush, it can seem that Agile is more useful than Combat Expert (and Quick than Evasive), but there are a few things to keep in mind:

1) Abilities have another, invisible cost, and that’s the plausibility with your character’s story. It’s perfectly reasonable for Arasuni to have Combat Expert, but as a slow, lumbering, and very large robot, it’s not appropriate to buy Agile. So sometimes the “worse” Combat Expert is your character’s best option. The same goes for Evasive. A slow character can still be trained to use weaponry, shields, or other defenses to block attacks, instead of just getting out of the way.

2) Combat Expert can be applied to some situations Agile can’t. A person with Combat Expert might can include the dice for giving a martial arts demonstrating, identifying a combat style, or as mentioned previously, interacting with a piloted object that doesn’t take your own Agile into account.

3) Abilities stack. While a character rarely has better than +3 in any Ability, by having Combat Expert and Agile, the character can get a +5, or higher, bonus. This also allows a character that has a Clumsy or Slow Penalty to offset some of that during combat. Obviously a character couldn’t have both Clumsy and Agile or Quick and Slow!

Hope that explains it a bit, and that you continue having fun with OVA!

Does knowledge boost attack and defense? I seen a character build on here for Alucard and his defense went up when he picked up a sword as well as his attack.

Does knowledge boost attack and defense? I seen a character build on here for Alucard and his defense went up when he picked up a sword as well as his attack.

No. From what I've read of the rules, there is no ability that specifically applies to multiple combat pools at the same time. In other words, picture as if there were a wall separating what applies to your Attack Roll, Defense Roll, and Damage Multiplier. There are several abilities that can apply to the same pool, but none that apply to multiple pools at the same time.

I actually like this aspect of the OVA system, whereas with things like BESM the Soul stat was seen as overpowered since for the same price you could raise two derived stats versus just one.

Aronpolemic has it right. As far as OVA is in the book, no Ability should add to two major combat elements at the same time. It either adds to your Damage Multiplier OR your Attack Roll OR your Defense Roll.

Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from changing this! There’s several boxes in OVA’s text that suggest ways to “change the focus of the game,” and making an Ability that adds to several different combat elements can work when combat isn't the focus of the story.