Questions, Complaints, Concerns, and Suggestions

[Ahana Varma]

Question
Is it possible to make an Alternate Form Ability which costs 2 Focus to activate instead of 1, but has no Focus cost for reverting to the Base Form?

Mechanically, this wouldn't make any difference at all, it just matters from an IC perspective, as my idea is for the Alt Form to work like a power-up... so narratively speaking, it wouldn't make sense for it to require effort/concentration to turn off.


Suggestion
While thinking about making power-ups, I've come to the conclusion that personally, I feel like using Alternate Form for this is pretty much always going to be a better investment than Boost.

Boost is actually really underwhelming once you realise that a) you're unlikely to have more than one Ability with any given Effect other than Damage... and maybe Debuff (technically, you can have a whole bunch of Adaptation or Summon Effects, but as they can't be increased in rank anyway, Boost won't affect them) and b) it costs 1 Focus per stat increase, meaning you'll burn through Focus like crazy.

So Boost costs more Essence than AF (as well as more Focus, if you'd like to use it to give an Effect a +3 or greater bonus), and yet doesn't give anywhere near the level of narrative opportunity.
You could pay 500 Essence and 2 Focus to give yourself +2 Damage...
Or spend 200 Essence and 2 Focus (assuming we include the cost of switching out of the Alt Form later) to completely change your character's entire Ability set...

My suggestion here is that Boost needs a rework. I think it costs too much Focus to be worth its Essence price tag (not everyone has as much of that stuff as I do; for some people, 500 is a big investment), and I think it's pointless having it apply to every iteration of an Effect a character has, since duplicate Effects don't stack, so there's no real reason for someone to have, for example, two Speed Effects, or two Protection Effects.
My advice would be to remove the requirement to choose an Effect when purchasing a rank of Boost, and just make it that spending 1 Focus would give you a number of ranks equal to your Boost rank to split up between your Effects* however you desired, ignoring normal level-based rank limits. If done this way, activating Boost multiple times would have to simply allow the user to redistribute the points, rather than stacking them, as it currently does, since that would obviously be far too powerful.

And yes, this would mean that it'd be entirely possible for someone with Boost 3 to get +3 to something for a whole Fight while someone without Boost would only get that bonus for a single action by spending the same amount of Focus... but assuming they had equal amounts of Essence, that'd mean the other person would have an extra 1.5k worth of ranks in their other Abilities... and given that there are very few other Abilities that cost as much as Boost, I personally don't think Boost would give too big a narrative advantage if done this way.


*And your allies' Effects too, if you had the correct Modifiers on your Boost Ability.

 

[Omelette Robotnik]

We're currently discussing a new direction to take Focus in, so hold that thought.

 

[Sosina]

so for the mob modifier, if I go from the X2 to the X3 cost one does that mean I only pay the difference? one minion costs 1,850, x2 multiplier makes it 3700, x 3 makes it 5,550 (before minion discount) so do I only have to pay the difference between 3,700 and 5,550? (before discount from master skill and trait) and get 3 more minions (for the total of 5) or do I get 5 more minions?

or does it go off the total cost of the current amount of minions? and then I 5 more? so in this case I have to take 3,700 and multiply it by 3 for 11,100 total before discounts?

 

[Omelette Robotnik]

You pay the difference.

 

[Sosina]

okay so for the second part, do i pay compared to the original cost? or the current cost?

cost of one minion is 1850, or for the two I have which is 3700?

asking cause which ever is multiplied makes a difference in pricing ^^;;

 

[Omelette Robotnik]

If you buy a Minion that only has a Damage 1 Punch, it'll cost ya 400 Essence. If you get 2, it'll be 800. 5 is 1200. Etc. If you have 2, and you want to upgrade to 5, you'll pay 400 Essence.

 

[Sosina]

so I have a question regarding my ability Formrian Strength for Nola

I was told that to have "Super strength" all the time I was forced to have "Ongoing" be on the ability

however this is not said it needs to be done in the rules for abilities, "move object" simply says that if you want "Super strength" then you need to have "damage" and "move object" in equal measure.

Adding "Ongoing" to that forces my damage to have a "Damage over time" Effect as specified in the damage modifier meaning that all my characters punches using "super strength" for some reason cause an on going damage affect

this makes no sense and increased the cost of the ability for no reason. can I remove ongoing as it doesn't seem to be needed at all for the "super strength" effect according to the wording of the "move object" effect and still keep my constantly always active "super strength" or am I basically forced to have an ongoing damage over time effect for my characters basic punches?

 

[Omelette Robotnik]

You can still lift heavy objects without Ongoing. Like a body builder or some other profession that lifts things and then immediately sets them down. Ongoing is for extending the duration that you can carry these heavy loads.

Modifiers like Ongoing adjust Effects, not Abilities. You can have Ongoing on your Move Object without it affecting your Damage. I just apped Bowser and he has an ability like that; Damage without Ongoing, and Protection and Move Object with it.

 

[Sosina]

I was told that all modifiers affect all effects on the same ability when I was making my character

 

[Omelette Robotnik]

All Effects "activate" when you use an Ability, but we're going common-sense on this. Abilities which are passive descriptions of your physical abilities, at the very least, can have separate Modifiers for each Effect. Cuz otherwise its dumb. We'll work on making this clearer in future edits to the Effecta page.

 

[Sosina]

okay thank you, its very confusing for someone like me to make abilities with the current rules as a lot is left out or left to "Common sense" or some such, the issue is what is "Common sense" is often different to different people due to differences in a lot of factors, and also "Unspoken rules" end up making nothing but confusion, so I hope any and all "Unspoken rules" get written so they can be understood

 

[Ahana Varma]

okay thank you, its very confusing for someone like me to make abilities with the current rules as a lot is left out or left to "Common sense" or some such, the issue is what is "Common sense" is often different to different people due to differences in a lot of factors, and also "Unspoken rules" end up making nothing but confusion, so I hope any and all "Unspoken rules" get written so they can be understood

What Jeff said was actually off slightly; it's nothing to do with common sense (or unspoken rules).
Nowhere in the rules does it ever say that the same Modifiers are required to apply to every Effect in an Ability. I don't know what you (and maybe Jeff?) have looked at that has given you that impression, but you've been misinformed.

Jeff (and perhaps you as well) seems to have been getting mixed up between Effect activations and Effect Modifiers.
All Effects that are part of the same Ability are required to activate at the same time. Modifiers for different Effects in an Ability, however, can be whatever you want.

For example, the following would be a perfectly legitimate Ability:

Spoiler

Funky Gun [650]
Damage 2 (200)
--Ranged (100)
--Removable (-100)
Healing 1 (200)
--Ongoing (100)
--Affects Multiple 3 (150)
--Ranged (50)
--Removable (-50)

The Funky Gun looks and functions like an ordinary Colt Mustang handgun, except that whenever one of its bullets strikes a target, every non-enemy within 30ft of the point of impact is granted a buff which slowly heals their wounds over the course of the next few minutes.

As you can see, though there are different Modifiers, the Ability still works fine. The important part is that everything activates at the same time. What you could not do, is describe the above Ability as working like an ordinary gun most of the time, but with a separate mode of fire which heals people, as that'd mean that both Effects would not both be activating each time it was fired.

To do that you'd want to get a separate Ability and simply state in the description that that Ability was an alternate mode of fire for an already existing weapon (Sigmund Vrell has done this with his Abilities, most of which require him to be carrying his spellbook in order to be used).

Hopefully this example clears things up for you.

 

[Yuuka Kazami]

I was told that all modifiers affect all effects on the same ability when I was making my character

Jeff (and perhaps you as well) seems to have been getting mixed up between Effect activations and Effect Modifiers. All Effects that are part of the same Ability are required to activate at the same time. Modifiers for different Effects in an Ability, however, can be whatever you want.

For example, the following would be a perfectly legitimate Ability:
[broken spoiler tags i can't read nor quote]

Since Reece broke his spoiler in a way that makes me unable to scroll and read that ability, I'll give a way simpler example.

When it comes to an ability that has some effects with ongoing and some without, think of a bow that shoots poison arrows that slow a character down. Of course, the firing of the arrow is all one action, hence the ability "activating" at the same time- but it might be written like this:

Poisoned Arrows
Damage 2
+Modifiers: Ranged
Debuff 3
+Modifiers: Ranged, Ongoing​

This crossbow comes equipped with a magically-refilling quiver of poisoned arrows. When an arrow hits its target, they will be injected with a form of slow-acting neurotoxin that slows their reaction speeds.​

​

This way, you can have abilities that have an initial effect (in this case, Damage) and also a longer lasting effect (in this case, Debuff) being applied at the same time. AKA, while all parts of an ability must inherently start at the same time, they do not have to resolve at the same time, nor do they need the same modifiers. You could do the same with an ability that has one effect for one target, then an effect for the entire area around that target, by adding or removing the "Affects Multiple" modifier for only part of it.

It's definitely a common source of confusion to apply modifiers to entire abilities instead of individual effects, I think that was my first question when reading the rules too. That being said, modifiers applying separately to each effect is in all caps on the rules page for them:

[IMG='width:582px;']https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/426940169548201995/523768569268273152/Screen_Shot_2018-12-16_at_1.49.05_AM.png?width=800&height=89[/IMG]

So I wouldn't exactly call that an unwritten rule. That being said, if you think a moderator is contradicting something in the rules, or you're confused what we mean, this is probably the place to ask, and I'm sure none of us would be upset at being "proven wrong" or anything- we probably just messed up, worded something badly, or plain ol' forgot.

 

[Sosina]

now I am confused so this does mean that my current character has super strength that for some reason leaves a Damage over time effect that makes no sense?

 

[Yuuka Kazami]

now I am confused so this does mean that my current character has super strength that for some reason leaves a Damage over time effect that makes no sense?

No, because you've only paid for the Ongoing modifier once anyway, and I'd assume your intention is that it applies only to Move Object. Fixing it is pretty simple- just rewrite its stat block proper to be like this.

Effect: Damage [Rank 1] + 100
Modifiers: None
Effect 2: Move object [rank 1] + 100
Modifiers 2: Ongoing [rank 1] +100
Total Cost: 300

 

[Ahana Varma]

Since Reece broke his spoiler in a way that makes me unable to scroll and read that ability, I'll give a way simpler example.

Odd. The spoiler works just fine when I look at it...

And yeah, Sosina, like Mima said, the reason your Ability is confusing is because you've written it incorrectly.
Not only have you not differentiated your Effects, but you've also listed Ongoing as an Effect, for some reason, rather than a Modifier, as it should be.

This is what you have:

Formrian Strength
Effect: Damage [Rank 1] + 100, Move object [rank 1] + 100, Ongoing [rank 1] +100
Modifiers:
Total Cost: 300
Description: the Power of a Formarian is quite formidable, despite their small size they are considerably stronger then your average human, usually surprising many by the amount of strength found in their relatively tiny bodies

It'd be much clearer if you wrote it the way Mima suggested, or (if you wanted it to look more concise) like this instead:

Formian Strength [300]
Damage 1 (100)
Move Object 1 (100)
--Ongoing (100)

The power of a Formian is quite formidable, despite their small size they are considerably stronger than your average human, usually surprising many by the amount of strength found in their relatively tiny bodies.

Note that with this variant of the layout (which Doug originally came up with, I believe), Modifiers are positioned directly beneath the Effect they apply to, and are indicated with a double hyphen (--). As Damage has no Modifiers beneath it, the Damage portion of the Ability is not Ongoing.

P.S. In my suggested layout of your Ability, I've corrected your spelling of the word "formian".

 

[Sosina]

actually I called them formrian cause they are not "centaur ants" they are bipedal and have four arms so I just changed the name a bit (also used Formica as well which is just Latin for ant XD)

and thank you for using one of my skills as the example It was very confusing to read the other skills used as an example ^^;;

and I think I see now, but does that mean I have to increase the cost of skills where all effects have the same modifier?

or decrease the the cost of skills where all effect have the same negative modifier?

 

[Yuuka Kazami]

and I think I see now, but does that mean I have to increase the cost of skills where all effects have the same modifier? or decrease the the cost of skills where all effect have the same negative modifier?

Yes, each effect in an overall ability is separate from one another beyond starting at the same time, so you may have to apply the same modifier multiple times within one ability, positive or negative. (See my above example with the poison arrow- not only does the arrow's damage have ranged, the poison also has ranged, because the poison is still effecting a ranged target.)

This is partially to try to keep the cost of each individual effect obvious with regards to the "an effect can never cost less than 50 essence per rank, modifiers included" rule, and partially to make sure people have the right number of modifier ranks in the cost.

 

[Sosina]

poison arrow?....

umm.....I guess that makes sense?...

sorry I get confused easily >.<
people keep using abilities I don't have as examples and it throws me off each time >.<

I think I get it....but not sure >.<
and now I am worried I have to redo all my abilities

 

[Yuuka Kazami]

poison arrow?....

umm.....I guess that makes sense?...

sorry I get confused easily >.<
people keep using abilities I don't have as examples and it throws me off each time >.<

I think I get it....but not sure >.<
and now I am worried I have to redo all my abilities

Other than the fix listed above to both her own version of the Strength ability and the one on your minions (which just clarifies that the Ongoing on it only applies to Move Object), the only thing I can see that needs to be fixed in your character proper's abilities is that her protection ability (Battle Carapace) should cost 250 essence, the same as what it costs in coin on her minions.