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.