Component - a new Ability for complex combatants

[StarRaven]

EDIT: I initially thought I was just gonna post a whole bunch of ideas in one thread but this got a lot more attention and discussion than I thought it would, so I've changed the thread title (at least, I hope it changes the thread title...) and I'll post subsequent ideas in their own threads. Thanks a lot! Anyway, here's the finished Ability, with any clarifications necessary, I hope.

Component
You're so big that you count as more than one combatant! For each level in this Ability, you have a secondary Component that can act as another character in a fight. Your Components' Abilities (and Weaknesses) are identical to your character's, but they can have extra Abilities (and Weaknesses) totaling up to your level in Component. While each of your Components has its own pool of 10 base Health and its own attacks and defenses, they share your initiative and Endurance. When a Component’s Health is depleted, it is destroyed (or otherwise disabled) and its Abilities and attacks can no longer be used. However, your Components' Heath totals aren't vital to you -- if your core Health and Endurance are reduced to zero, you're still defeated, even if your Components are otherwise healthy!

(My intent was originally to call it Gestalt, as suggested, but other OVA Abilities that give characters things -- Companion, Gear, Minions, Endurance Reserve, etc -- are named after those things, so Abilities don't introduce additional terminology, and I thought that would be a good example to follow.)

------------------ Original Post ------------------

A number of my players are Monster Hunter fans and I like running those kinds of monsters, so we end up with a lot of called shots aiming at specific parts of monsters. Additionally, this is the way I ran extra attacks for those monsters before Extra Actions became an official boss feature in Revised. It's also a little bit similar to how big D&D monsters are run, with specific attacks per turn. (Er. Last time I checked, anyway. I'm actually only familiar with like super old D&D rules, heh.) So to that end, here's a new Ability!

New Ability: Multipart

• For each level of Multipart, the monster has a secondary part which can act and be acted on separately. These parts have 10 Health and may have an Ability total of up to the monster's level in Multipart.
• A monster’s parts share the monster’s core Abilities and Weaknesses. A monster's parts can have increased or decreased levels of those Abilities (similar to Gear or Transformation.)
• Each of a monster’s parts has its own pool of health, attacks, and defenses, but shares the monster’s initiative and Endurance.
• When a part’s Health is depleted, that part is destroyed or disabled and its Abilities and attacks can no longer be used.

OBLIGATORY EXAMPLE!

Greater Wyvern (Boss) TV: 38 (14+11+13)

• [40/40] [Defense Roll: 1] [Armor: 3] [Initiative: 1]
  Attack +3, Armored +3, Strong +2, Agile +2, Resistance: Fire +3, Multipart +2, Awkward Size -2, Slow -1, Vulnerability: Ice -1, Vulnerability: Water -2
• Chomp! [Roll: 4] [DX: 6]
  The wyvern snaps at one of its enemies with its sharp teeth.
• Fireball [Roll: 4] [DX: 4] [End: 10] Area Effect, Continued Effect, Ranged, Delayed, Unwieldy
  The wyvern takes a deep breath, then hurls a fireball at a group of enemies. Affinity: Fire
• Furious Charge [Roll: 4] [DX: 10] [End: 10] Area Effect x2, Effective x4, Stunning, Assisted (Wings), Open to Attack
  The wyvern smashes its whole body through a group of enemies.

(Wyvern Wings)

• [10] [Defense Roll: 3] [Armor: 1]
  Flight +4, Evasive +2, Armored -2, Weak -2
• Talon Swipe [Roll: 4] [DX: 4]
  The wyvern takes a swipe at an enemy with one of its wing talons.
• Aerial Prowess [Roll: 8] [End: 5] Defensive x5, Cancel: Indoors (-5), No Damage
  The wyvern flies into the air, making it much more difficult to hit. (Note: Because this "attack" does no damage and its only effect works even if it misses, there is no need to roll. However, if a roll is necessary for some reason, the wyvern adds its Flight level to its roll.)
• Buffeting Wind [Roll: 4] Area Effect, Stunning, No Damage
  The wyvern uses its wings to blow over its enemies. Affinity: Air

(Wyvern Tail)

• [20] [Defense Roll: 1] [Armor: 3]
  Agile +2, Tough +1, Weak -1
• Tail Bash [Roll: 6] [DX: 5]
  The wyvern lashes its tail at an enemy.
• Flail [Roll: 6] [DX: 2] [End: 5] Area Effect x2, Ineffective x3
  The wyvern flails its tail about wildly.
• Poison Sting [Roll: 7] [DX 4] [End: 5] Accurate, Continued Effect, Ineffective x2
  The wyvern jabs an enemy with the poisonous barb on its tail. Affinity: Poison

Concluding thoughts:

• Because a monster and its parts are connected, they are always considered to be adjacent -- so an attack with the Area Effect Perk can affect multiple parts simultaneously.
• If a part needs its own Endurance pool, it can be given the Endurance Reserve Ability.
• If a monster gets any bonuses or penalties to rolls, those penalties apply to all the monster's parts -- unless it has the Self-Only Flaw, perhaps?
• A monster with the Multipart ability can make use of the Assisted Flaw for devastating attacks. But of course, the assisting part will still lose its action, and can't assist if it's been destroyed.

This might also be useful for giant mecha or spaceships or other such things, but it's inherently geared toward being an enemy ability. I essentially hacked together the parts I needed from Minions and Gear. It might need balance tweaks to make it usable for players. Maybe each level of Multipart should take 10 off the character's max Health? Adding levels of Tough (not to mention Health Reserves) isn't a problem for Bosses but might be a balancing factor for player characters?

A better name might be Composite? Primary and secondary parts need formal names, as well. I have typed the word "part" so much that it has ceased to be a word.

Just typing this up here has forced me to look it over and streamline it some more, so already this has been useful~

Thanks for any feedback!

[Blobathehutt]

This is looking pretty cool.

[Sabersonic]

Pretty sure Mal'll at least find someway to utilize his custom Monstrous Ruleset.

Still, I can't help but think that there should be at least the choice to increase the HP reserve of that particular target limb if only to show that certain parts of that limb would be harder to take out than othrrs, though obviously not be more than the Core HP.

As for the Ability name, Gestalt Part might be more appropriate, the total being greater than the sum of its parts and all. Still, something to consider for those larger foes that take just a bit more strategy to take out such as taking out a spacecraft's engines to immobilize it for example.

[StarRaven]

This is looking pretty cool.

Thanks!

Pretty sure Mal'll at least find someway to utilize his custom Monstrous Ruleset.

I read through that. I don't think I'm a big fan. I'd rather add difficulty to a boss fight by adding (intuitive, hopefully) complexity than by just inflating numbers. I'd comment there but I've probably missed the bus at this point.*

Still, I can't help but think that there should be at least the choice to increase the HP reserve of that particular target limb if only to show that certain parts of that limb would be harder to take out than othrrs, though obviously not be more than the Core HP.

You mean like an Ability that increases Health? If only something like that existed! Why, I would have even added it as part of my example. (I'm kidding. What you're looking for is Tough.)

As for the Ability name, Gestalt Part might be more appropriate, the total being greater than the sum of its parts and all. Still, something to consider for those larger foes that take just a bit more strategy to take out such as taking out a spacecraft's engines to immobilize it for example.

Maybe just "Gestalt" -- I was gonna say maybe it's a bit obscure, as terms go, but on second thought I guess there's nothing wrong with that.


*But I can't stop myself from Having Opinions so here we go.

Adding huge amounts of health and huge amounts of damage provide a number of different potential problems without a lot of benefit (unless you just like really big numbers, which I guess is fair but I'm partial to smaller ones.)

Boss has a ton of health = fight gets boring and repetitive unless characters have proportionally more damage, in which case, why bother with either? If players are doing the same percentage of a boss's Health with every hit that they'd be doing if neither had an upgrade, then the extra numbers are meaningless.

Boss can do huge amounts of damage = characters get one- or two-shotted. This means players have to either run because the fight is impossible (in which case this was never a real fight and probably shouldn't have been treated like one,) or anybody who gets hit has to sit out the rest of the fight (which isn't a problem if the fight's not going to be long, but is still frustrating if the characters who got hit didn't get to do much.)

Worst-case scenario for a fight like this is that some characters in the party have an appropriate tier of damage/defense and some do not, meaning only some players get to participate. I can't find polite words for how that infuriates me.

Blah blah Rifts blah blah mega-damage blah blah power creep blah blah unbalanced blah blah probably people have heard that rant before haha.

TL;DR: Using Scale and just saying "you guys will have to be in your giant mechs to do any meaningful damage to that kaiju" is just a more elegant solution overall, imo.

[Sabersonic]

Still, I can't help but think that there should be at least the choice to increase the HP reserve of that particular target limb if only to show that certain parts of that limb would be harder to take out than othrrs, though obviously not be more than the Core HP.

You mean like an Ability that increases Health? If only something like that existed! Why, I would have even added it as part of my example. (I'm kidding. What you're looking for is Tough.)

I was actually thinking in terms of Perks and flaws for the attribute itself, but that seems reasonable as well I guess. Still, now that I've taken another look at it, there doesn't seem to be any rules on how many parts a being with Gestalt/Multipart is allowed to have at maximum apart of the unspoken Level=Quantity suggestion.

As for Rifts, I was more into the illustrations and settings than the rules. Especially when I finally gotten around to reading the actual rules I've skipped accidentally Cthullhu knows how many times iny youth and found that not only was it complex but also too reliant on luck in terms of character creation.

Not a bad of a reaction I had compared to my "F**k this s**t!" With the Hero system, but pretty up there.

Still, not easy to do conversions with the Palladium property without threat of DMCA and such.

[StarRaven]

I was actually thinking in terms of Perks and flaws for the attribute itself, but that seems reasonable as well I guess. Still, now that I've taken another look at it, there doesn't seem to be any rules on how many parts a being with Gestalt/Multipart is allowed to have at maximum apart of the unspoken Level=Quantity suggestion.

There are essentially two kinds of customizable Abilities in OVA. "Activated" Abilities (like Barrier, Heal, or Magic) get more customization out of Perks and Flaws, because Perks and Flaws usually do things when the Ability is used. "Persistent" Abilities (Like Companion, Gear, or Transformation*) are usually containers for other Abilities and Weaknesses, and they don't get much use out of Perks and Flaws because they're "always on."

*(You do activate Transformation, but only once and then it's persistent. It's not used over and over like other Abilities. I'm not sure it'd be appropriate to modify it with Perks and Flaws unless you implement a Flaw or Weakness that makes it last a limited amount of time or cost Endurance or something.)

As for maximum, Abilities go up to +5 and you get one part per level of the Ability. That wasn't an unspoken suggestion, it was an explicit part of the Ability. If you're the GM and you think you need more, though, nothing can stop you from giving an NPC any Ability at +10 or whatever.

As for Rifts, I was more into the illustrations and settings than the rules. Especially when I finally gotten around to reading the actual rules I've skipped accidentally Cthullhu knows how many times iny youth and found that not only was it complex but also too reliant on luck in terms of character creation.

Not a bad of a reaction I had compared to my "F**k this s**t!" With the Hero system, but pretty up there.

Still, not easy to do conversions with the Palladium property without threat of DMCA and such.

I don't know if Rifts is a bad system (though it's certainly contentious, haha,) I just know that it wasn't any fun for me. My understanding of The Problem With Mega-Damage is that initially mega-damage was for giant mechs and similarly-scaled things only, and only snuck into regular stuff due to power creep, and then the giant mechs and similar weren't scaled further up to compensate. If you cut out MDC the only problem I have with Rifts is that it's class-based and I can't stand class-based systems.

I don't think any system will convert cleanly to OVA anyway, but if you know what things are supposed to do it's not hard to work straight from the lore alone. Converting from a cinematic source rather than a game is basically what OVA is built for!

Hero System was just too much math for me. When I played it, I just described my character to the GM and he made it for me, haha. The way the initiative system worked was just... it makes a lot of sense but it was a really bad player experience. It sort of tried to apply the whole "if you are faster you get more turns" aspect of tactical RPGs like Phantom Brave but failed to take into account just how much life sucks for players that only get to act like one out of every 4 rounds.

Which basically goes back to my whole point, I think, that no RPG really works if players don't get to play.

[Sabersonic]

I see it now. Guess that's what you get for trying to read a forum entry on an outdated smart phone model.

Converting Rift's Entries from Megaversal to OVA isn't the issue, the infamous legality of Palladium Book's lawyers are. Not the kind of attention you want in my opinion.

Let's not get into Hero System's Se-Se-Seventeen core Attributes, shall we. Though to be honest, I'm still trying to read book one of those rules, and all because I wanted to understand the rules for Star Hero. Figures....

[StarRaven]

Converting Rift's Entries from Megaversal to OVA isn't the issue, the infamous legality of Palladium Book's lawyers are. Not the kind of attention you want in my opinion.

I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Lawyer, sir. My Shifts campaign setting for OVA is entirely unrelated!

No brand infringement here.

[Malancthon]

My biggest question is regarding the Health Total. Does this mean the sample monster needs to take over 110 damage to take down? (40+40+10+20)? Or just the 80 from the main torso and if the players wants some extra challenge they can take down the wing and tail to "deactivate" those options? If it's the total of all the components, what's the logic that the wings and tail works but not the main torso if the main chunk is targeted first?

It's a promising idea, but there is some logic that is making Me scratch My head.

Pretty sure Mal'll at least find someway to utilize his custom Monstrous Ruleset.

I read through that. I don't think I'm a big fan. I'd rather add difficulty to a boss fight by adding (intuitive, hopefully) complexity than by just inflating numbers. I'd comment there but I've probably missed the bus at this point.*

I don't think many people are, honestly. As you say later, you are partial to smaller numbers. I'm not.

The intent was not to add difficulty or complexity to a boss fight, but to give a greater gravity to bigger threats. An example I go to is Godzilla. Per the book, the biggest 'threat' you can make Godzilla is at most 300 (max Tough 100, max Vigorous 100, Boss Health Reserve). And that might work for your game, with judicious use of Scale bonuses and general GM handwaving that stuff would have no effect, but it still felt underwhelming for Me. So, I bumped up the totals to give Godzilla are bigger gravitas. This carries over to the type of gaming encounters one sees in video games.

One can certainly illustrate an attack that inflicts 40 pts of damage as deadly as a city-wiping attack, but when that attack isn't enough to kill Heroic Student, it kind of undercuts the power it's supposed to be (or vice versa, when you cast Giant Meteor and it ends up doing 5 or 10 points of damage). Of course, that might work for your game, so YMMV.

*But I can't stop myself from Having Opinions so here we go.

Adding huge amounts of health and huge amounts of damage provide a number of different potential problems without a lot of benefit (unless you just like really big numbers, which I guess is fair but I'm partial to smaller ones.)

Boss has a ton of health = fight gets boring and repetitive unless characters have proportionally more damage, in which case, why bother with either? If players are doing the same percentage of a boss's Health with every hit that they'd be doing if neither had an upgrade, then the extra numbers are meaningless.

This is actually kind of the point. My Monstrous Scale stuff is a bit meaningless, because a group of players with MD+3 versus a boss with MD+3 is equal to a normal by the book game. This way it does not disrupt the base balance of OVA. Mechanically, the game is the same as long as everybody is using the same level of Monstrous abilities. But there is something of a raised stakes feeling if you are dealing and taking hundreds if not thousands of damage. It's not a whole lot different than the difference between Extras, Secondaries, and Heroic characters, as Heroic characters can take a lot more punishment than Secondaries or Extras (that's what makes them Heroic)- so this just extrapolates that as an Ability to go beyond Heroic.

Boss can do huge amounts of damage = characters get one- or two-shotted. This means players have to either run because the fight is impossible (in which case this was never a real fight and probably shouldn't have been treated like one,) or anybody who gets hit has to sit out the rest of the fight (which isn't a problem if the fight's not going to be long, but is still frustrating if the characters who got hit didn't get to do much.)

And that's why I broke down the Monstrous Abilities to be similar to Attack, Tough, and Vigorous. If a GM does want to use a bunch of Health for their Boss but not one-shot them, then don't use the Monstrous Destruction (or use a lower level of it). And by My tests, a group of characters should be able to challenge an opponent who has one level of Monstrous Abilities above them and have a chance of victory. More than that, the GM should either look at what the players are doing and help them up or lower what the GM is doing.

Worst-case scenario for a fight like this is that some characters in the party have an appropriate tier of damage/defense and some do not, meaning only some players get to participate. I can't find polite words for how that infuriates me.

Unfortunately, that's a situation that can come up in any normal game, regardless of abilities. So, using the Monstrous Abilities would require a fair bit of consideration by the GM on how much of it is allowed (if any), and make sure it's fairly spread across the party. Which is something a GM should be looking at regardless, especially with a game like OVA. It's sort of the "Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards" problem with d20.

TL;DR: Using Scale and just saying "you guys will have to be in your giant mechs to do any meaningful damage to that kaiju" is just a more elegant solution overall, imo.

Perhaps, an elegant if lackluster solution.

Regardless, I still like My rules, but they are not for every situation, nor are they for everyone.

[Blobathehutt]

I like both rules and will most likely use them both in my games

[Sabersonic]

I like both rules and will most likely use them both in my games

If you are, might I offer a suggestion and not make it immediately available to players?
Nothing really screams tension and suspense such as a foe with that high of an HP and that one's prudent and rational reaction should be thus:

[Blobathehutt]

I like both rules and will most likely use them both in my games

If you are, might I offer a suggestion and not make it immediately available to players?
Nothing really screams tension and suspense such as a foe with that high of an HP and that one's prudent and rational reaction should be thus:

Don't worry I have been thinking about how to do this for a while.

[StarRaven]

My biggest question is regarding the Health Total. Does this mean the sample monster needs to take over 110 damage to take down? (40+40+10+20)? Or just the 80 from the main torso and if the players wants some extra challenge they can take down the wing and tail to "deactivate" those options? If it's the total of all the components, what's the logic that the wings and tail works but not the main torso if the main chunk is targeted first?

It's a promising idea, but there is some logic that is making Me scratch My head.

You could run it either way, I suppose (if the core part is defeated first, you could run the other two as another level of backup like Endurance, with cumulative penalties as parts are defeated), but I imagined it as only the core being necessary to defeat. With that in mind, monsters with this Ability should be designed so that secondary parts make the core significantly harder to defeat.

Some notes on how I designed this fight, feel free to skip:

Code: Select all

This particular enemy was designed as an early-game boss for a group of about four characters with power levels just under where the sample characters are at, so probably an average defensive roll of 4. With that in mind, the wyvern has pretty underwhelming rolls but decent DX, so the players will be able to soak them without a ton of worry unless they roll badly on defense. The exception is its tail -- all of those attacks are above our PCs' expected defenses.

The wyvern doesn't have a ton of health -- only 40 on the core, 20 on the tail, and 10 on the wings (don't worry about the endurance, honestly, it's built to use it not keep it as an extra health pool) -- and quite terrible defensive rolls, but it has a whopping +3 Armored, reducing any non-armor-piercing attacks against it with a DX lower than 4 to a DX of 1/2. Its wings also give it a big boost to evasion for the cost of 5 Endurance and the Flight they provide means if it wants to, the wyvern can only be attacked at range.

To get it to land, PCs will have to either take out its wings (only 10 health and reduced armor) or wear out its Endurance. (It can technically fly without spending Endurance, and might if it flees, but its free attacks are all on the ground.)

While players might be able to brute-force a quick win by targeting the core with lots of armor-piercing damage at range, if they don't have the ability to deal that kind of damage and they need to survive a fight long-term, taking out the extra parts will probably be necessary to defeating it.

If they are able to deal that kind of damage that fast, then the wyvern isn't a boss monster, and defeating the parts would be optional and might result in some bonus loot or EXP or something. For more challenge, Combat Expert and Vigorous can be added at various levels to make the wyvern's attacks more deadly and increase the number of strong attacks it can use, respectively.

I read through that. I don't think I'm a big fan. I'd rather add difficulty to a boss fight by adding (intuitive, hopefully) complexity than by just inflating numbers. I'd comment there but I've probably missed the bus at this point.*

I don't think many people are, honestly. As you say later, you are partial to smaller numbers. I'm not.

To each their own, but I have to disagree -- you seem like you're getting plenty of support. I've got my own personal beef with these kinds of rules (my experience with Rifts was incredibly frustrating) and I have no intention of ever using them, so I have no interest in finding ways to integrate them. (Other people are welcome to though, if they want to use them together.)

The intent was not to add difficulty or complexity to a boss fight, but to give a greater gravity to bigger threats. An example I go to is Godzilla. Per the book, the biggest 'threat' you can make Godzilla is at most 300 (max Tough 100, max Vigorous 100, Boss Health Reserve). And that might work for your game, with judicious use of Scale bonuses and general GM handwaving that stuff would have no effect, but it still felt underwhelming for Me. So, I bumped up the totals to give Godzilla are bigger gravitas. This carries over to the type of gaming encounters one sees in video games.

One can certainly illustrate an attack that inflicts 40 pts of damage as deadly as a city-wiping attack, but when that attack isn't enough to kill Heroic Student, it kind of undercuts the power it's supposed to be (or vice versa, when you cast Giant Meteor and it ends up doing 5 or 10 points of damage). Of course, that might work for your game, so YMMV.

Yeah, I get it, I just see all pitfalls and no benefits. If you prefer really big numbers to get the point across, that's fair. My group has always had what one of our GMs called "the Chunky Salsa Rule" -- if a situation would realistically reduce a character to the consistency of chunky salsa (for example, a regular dude taking a beam from Godzilla) then the numbers are irrelevant and we don't bother rolling damage.

So, I have to disagree that that's the strongest Godzilla can be using vanilla OVA rules. "Sorry, guys, it's just unfightable" fits just fine with OVA's usual roleplay-based approach to things. (And in fact, it's recommended in certain cases, under the description of Armored.) It's not a video game, the damage doesn't have to be mechanically justified -- Godzilla doesn't have to have stats any more than a hurricane does if that's not the scale at which your characters are playing.

But there is something of a raised stakes feeling if you are dealing and taking hundreds if not thousands of damage.

I have to disagree, but again, that's up to personal preference. Role-playing vs. roll-playing, I guess?

TL;DR: Using Scale and just saying "you guys will have to be in your giant mechs to do any meaningful damage to that kaiju" is just a more elegant solution overall, imo.

Perhaps, an elegant if lackluster solution.

If my fights ever lack luster, it's not the fault of the numbers, it's because I failed to engage my players. A fundamentally different approach to GMing, but again, personal preference.

[Malancthon]

Eh. I could see the same effect being done with using Affinities for attacks and also applying Affinities for Abilities without needing this Ability as something separate. For example, the Wyvern could be built using Tough instead of Component, and using Affinities to describe the Flight and Tail Smash attacks (so if a party attacks the wings or tail, you'd know to 'de-activate' those Abilities and Attacks). Your Component idea is similar in a way to My Monstrous Abilities- a way to translate anime and video game ideas into a tabletop rpg.

So if the distinction works for your game, then more power to you, but I don't think it's a 'necessary' addition; just as My Monstrous Abilities are not a necessary addition.

I do not wish to subvert or hijack your thread regarding My Monstrous Abilities, so I'll continue that discussion in that thread.

[StarRaven]

Eh. I could see the same effect being done with using Affinities for attacks and also applying Affinities for Abilities without needing this Ability as something separate. For example, the Wyvern could be built using Tough instead of Component, and using Affinities to describe the Flight and Tail Smash attacks (so if a party attacks the wings or tail, you'd know to 'de-activate' those Abilities and Attacks). Your Component idea is similar in a way to My Monstrous Abilities- a way to translate anime and video game ideas into a tabletop rpg.

That's a cool idea -- to give attacks a certain "subtype" and then disable them when a condition is met! I don't think I'd use Affinities for that, though. I always thought of Affinities as more like the attack's "element" or "type" which would then be used in Resistances and Vulnerabilities. (Speaking of emulating video-game-style mechanics.) That's definitely something I try to do more often than we see in the core OVA book -- give my monsters elemental vulnerabilities.

Component still does more than that, though. It gives monsters more attacks (but in a more structured way than the Extra Attacks boss feature) and puts a hard number on the amount of damage needed to deactivate those features.

RPG video games are a descendant of the tabletop RPG, so there's no reason not to share cool features back and forth.