Talk:Scratch

term for actions that can only be used once per battle

Characters can intimidate and surprise once per battle. What key phrase should we use to indicate an action can only be used once per battle?

"prepared" action - we were using this in the skill system. It's meaning is not obvious.

"one time" action - sounds like it can only be used once ever.

"single use" action

"limited use" action

"trick"

"feat"

"stunt"

hitting or shooting an enemy should not keep them from escaping

Only catch and hold should stop an enemy from escaping.

Pros:

• simplifies the escape rule
• increases the value of movement abilities
• more like grid rules (where you can escape by leaving the map even if you got hit.)

Cons:

• it's already easy enough to escape if only one PC needs to escape.
• hacking or blasting someone should slow them down
• if the enemies do not have wrestling, catch is still usually inferior to hold, because the fleeing characters will just evade again, and hold targets strength rather than agility.

We could make a successful catch action delay the target until the end of it's next turn as well as taking away the evade bonus. This would make catch superior to hold in many cases (it targets agility instead of strength and it takes away the evade bonus.) However it would also make it easy for a character with lots of movement abilities to delay a very large character. (We could limit that by saying you can only catch someone who is evading.)

We could make catch a bonus action.

stuff to do when delayed

Delayed characters cannot move or perform actions. Perhaps knockout, shooting and blasting should not prevent you from moving, only from performing actions.

imbalance between abilities

Here's how I estimate the approximate value of each ability. This scale is adjusted so that 1 level of an attack ability is worth 1. It's not exactly the same as the CP scale.

TOUGHNESS (more valuable at low levels, normal human toughness is 3)
-15  1 toughness
 -5  2 toughness
  0  3 toughness
  3  4 toughness
  5  5 toughness
  7  6 toughness
  9  7 toughness
 11  8 toughness
 12  9 toughness
 13 10 toughness
ABILITIES (in addition to the value of each level)
 -5  no attack ability
  5  flying + blasting or shooting ability
  5  heal (healing ability)
  3  each command ability minion
  2  intimidate (command ability)
  2  surprise (stealth or detection ability)
LEVELS
  1  each level of attack ability, stealth, command or craftsmanship
  ½  each level of quickness, acrobatics, flying or detection
  ¼  each level of swimming or healing

• Toughness is so valuable because none of the other abilities are useful when you are incapacitated, and attack abilities are less useful when you are injured. Toughness is especially valuable at low levels when you have a high risk of getting injured or incapacitated by each attack.
• Most characters have an attack ability, so I listed not having an attack ability as a -5. If you do not have an attack ability, you basically have half as many attacks or half as much attack power when you are healthy.
• With flying and long rang attacks you can avoid close range attacks.
• Having 1 level of healing ability gives you a 60% chance to heal allies. Each additional level increases the chance of success by 5% or in other words by about 1/12 of the value of 1 level of healing ability.
• If you have 2 minions, you can do 3 command attacks (each minion plus intimidate) on your first turn (in addition to a normal action.) So having command and two minions is about as valuable as 8 attack ability levels.
• Stealth is the most popular ability that gives agility because players feel like the big up-front initiative bonus is very useful.
• Quickness, acrobatics and flying ability levels are less valuable than attack ability levels because they only increase your agility, evade and catch bonuses. Agility does not protect you against all attacks, evade is only used in tight spots, and catch is a weak alternative to hold.
• Detection has that popular initiative bonus, but intelligence is the least used defense.
• While you are in the water, swimming levels are the most useful (except for low levels of toughness and command) because they can contribute to both (close range) attack and (agility) defense. Unfortunately, swimming is not useful in most battles.

strong swimmers

Swimming should give you strength.

Pro:

• Swimming is by far the least useful ability.
• Even small human swimmers are pretty strong.

Con:

• Some small swimming creatures are not strong.

distraction abilities

You should be able to add ANY ability level except for toughness to a distract roll (close range delay attack vs. intelligence)

Pro:

• distract does not currently have an ability bonus
• toughness is by far the most useful ability

Con:

• vague narrative

This "attack by role-playing" can be framed in a positive or negative way. For example it does allow a player to throw a random ability at an enemy and delay him, leaving other players scratching their heads about what happened. On the other hand it allows players to have fun inventing their own tricks for distracting enemies.