Wise Turtle Publishing

I've noticed that in a lot of anime, the protagonist will get their ass kicked over and over throughout some fights. But just as they're about to lose, the hero music kicks in, the eyes open wide with the killer instinct and they let loose their full awesome power.

What would be the best way to handle something like this in OVA, the idea that a character can't unleash their full power until their about to defeated or they get consumed by righteous fury?

Well that is easy. The energy reserve ability! For example your generic healing potion.

Healing 2
Endurance Reserve 1
Focus-1 (Bottle)

Boom there is a 20hp healing potion that works on anybody and does not drain your endurance. The catch is once it's 20 EP is used up you must wait an entire day to use it.

Energy Drink
Energy Reserve +1
Focus- (Can)
Like the healing potion but lets you recover 20 endurance points flat once a day.


Add a trigger it can only be used at X amount of hp or less for second wind effect. Or at X amount HP surpressed ability flaw disappears.
You can do pretty much any power up like this.

Well you can see some other thoughts on the idea in these two threads, Oni's Dramatic Combat System and general comments oddly placed in the Revised Blog Announcement. At the current time, I'm leaving it up to the Players to come up with how to handle this, since I haven't been personally satisfied with any ideas to hard code it. But since it keeps coming up...maybe I should revisit the idea.

In the mean time, these threads have tons of ideas you can try out on your own.

If you look at a lot of Anime (or any other kind of movie where our hero has to confront a Big Bad) there is that moment where the hero asks himself: "Do I have what it takes to win this fight?" And that element of doubt creeps in way before the first punch is even thrown.

In a game I ran recently we introduced a passive skill for the Big Bad called 'Doubt'. Just before the hero and his nemesis start trading blows, roll a number of dice equal to the villains 'Doubt' skill. The result is how many rounds the hero is stymied for.
During this time the pc is at a -1d penalty on all combat rolls and cannot use Drama Dice.
However, when the effect is ended, cue the heroic music, blurt out the cheesy come-back statement and open up the can of whoopass! For not only does the hero drop any negative effects but they also get a number of bonus dice equal to the number of rounds they were under the effects of 'Doubt'.

In the game we played our hero was under the effects of 'Doubt' for 6 rounds, and I have to say she took a pounding during the time. However, at the end of the 6th round, when she shook of the effects and was given 6 extra dice to pound the Big Bad with she gave a whole new meaning to the word righteous fury. To boot it made for an exciting fight.

That's a damn good idea.

blaster219 wrote:That's a damn good idea.

I agree.

Cheers guys. I hope it works well in the game you run. Let me know.

Quite an interesting ideal how effective is it in a group though? Also would overconfident reduce the amount of doubt?

Sorry for the delay in responding. Thursday is game night so had to wait for that to roll around before giving you an answer to your questions.

We staged two fights last night using the 'Doubt' rule. I gave the Big Bads the same conditions as per the previous session so said that the effects of Doubt would last 6 rounds.

On the first fight, after the effects of Doubt wore, off I gave each player (4 of them) 6 dice each. And I have to be honest it did not have the same effect as the 1 on 1 fight. The result was that they all ganked the Big Bad and pummelled him into the ground that same round. Additionally the threat was lower to begin with anyway because they outnumbered him 4 to 1.

On the second fight I put the 6 bonus dice in a pool that was shared by the group. This worked out slightly better and the fight did have more of an edge to it. So I would recommend this as the better option.

As for Overconfidence, logic would dictate that this can be used to counter the effects of 'Doubt' (Doubt result minus number of rounds equal to Overconfidence).

That being said one might also argue that an overconfident character trying to supress feelings of doubt might become more rash and haphazard during a fight. Thus still subject to the same penalties as everyone else (albeit for differenct reasons). I know my group prefers the nail-biter ending, so they would rather not use Overconfidence in that way. It is your call at the end of day.

When the gods wanted to punish man, they gave him what he wished for.