OgreBattle wrote:GâtFromKI wrote:
During his turn, a character can make as many action as he wants. Every action past the third one increases the defense of the opponents. So the optimal number of action is 3, but you're never blocked because "with one more action, I could do this awesome combo and it would be awesome": just take one more action (and reduce your success chance).
Second most clever mechanics: Luchadores, resolving action.
When you do a combo, you roll only the first move of your combo - and the whole combo is a success depending on this roll. If you're looking for realism it doesn't work - but if you're looking for a wrestling game where the small, mobile guy can punch a bear, it works - mobile guy initiate his combo with a move, and during his combo he include a punch.
So how is movement handled in Luchadores, and what are some examples of interesting 3+ action strings?
How does it fit with the one roll combo's you mentioned? Like would I be saying "I do a 5 action combo, the target's defense increases twice, I roll one die" ?
First, the game is about magical lucha libre wrestlers fighting monster of the week.
if this premisse is too stupid for you, then... You won't like the system. x)
So obviously, you want to do wrestling combo. Like "since he's on the ground, I jump on the ropes of the ring, I raise my arms to incite the public to applause - and make them wait for my next jump with anticipation. Finally I jump on the back of the monster with all my weight, trying to immobilize him!".
Before you ask:
- Usually you don't fight vampires or werewolves or chtuluh on a ring. But you find some stuffs to jump on nonetheless.
- Yes, there may be a public - the innocent people you're trying to help.
- Showing off makes you gain magic points. Because this is a wrestling RPG, so obviously there's a mechanic to show off during fights.
- Yes this is silly. This is a game about divine wrestlers fighting Chtuluh, what do you expect?
In the combo I described, my first action is an aerial move (a sub-category of move), then a showman action, and an immobilization (you could argue there's another jump action in-between, but since my combo already contains an aerial move...). I roll move, and if I succeed, since my combo contains a show off action, I regain magic, and since I finish with an immobilization, then the monster is immobilized. If I fail, I get nothing, and the MC decides where I fail (I may fail my first jump, or the second one, or the immobilization).
There are 6 abilities (strength, move, technical, endurance (which is used to use weapon and some other big objects), dirty, showman), each divided in two sub-ability (eg showman contains the show off stuff, I don't remember its name, and "taunt" to make enemies lose magic points). There are other elements of balance - eg, with high showman you regain/remove more magic point per action, or breaking free from an immobilization is always a roll against the immobilization stat of the opponent. In other words, in the combo I described, my character only need move to succeed (and deal damages) (since damages are tied to your degree of success), and can do it while being very weak at showman and immobilization, but:
- if he's weak at showman, he won't gain a lot of magic points.
- if he's weak at immobilization, the monster will easily break free (... and remember, breaking free doesn't use the opponent's round. Like you, he gets as many action as he wants each round...).
So it's not the best idea ever to use an action that doesn't fit your stats... Anyway, if I feel, at any point, that a projection would be awesome, I'm not limited by my lack of strength: I just need to initiate with another ability (and for more awesomeness, I describe how my move gives me inertia, and how I use this inertia to throw the monster) and I can do my awesome projection.
The distance you can move using a move action depends on your move stat. I guess this answer your question about move. There's a last mechanic to prevent people to always use the same stat to initiate combo, but yes, a mobile wrestler should begin most of his turn by a move or a jump or something (not always a
useful jump... remember, it's a game about wrestling about showing off, etc: a cool jump is justified by its coolness). And a strong opponent should immobilize him to prevent a move as the first element of the combo.
I forgot another good mechanics: since this is obviously a game about fight, the characters are defined by their fighting abilities. What they can do outside of combat is almost an afterthough - dirty is the intelligence of the character, showman is obviously his charisma, technical is his dexterity with small object... This isn't the best mechanic ever, but at least this game knows what it want to do: combat first, so characters are designed and balanced around combat.
In D&D, the character have charisma because they need a social stat, and charisma is useless in fight because why would the social stat be usefull?
In luchadores, they want a taunt/show off mechanic, so there's a showman stats defined by what it does in combat. Then, they define what it does out of combat.
Since both game are about combat and should be balanced around combat, luchadores has a better approach. Obviously, this wouldn't be a good approach if the main focus wasn't combat.
Note: our MC made some modifications on the base system of Luchadores. So I don't really know what comes from the system and what comes from him. According to him, the base system is OK and contains good ideas - but has obvious flaws as well.
hope you understand my explanations despite my awful English skill... :/
