Rules discussion

[Prime32]

Questions and answers and more questions and hey the name of the system sounds like those sugar-coated chocolates

[Agita]

None of the questions below are for Kagura, just general questions for characters I may or may not stat up in the future.

Any thoughts on how to stat up something similar to D&D Mindsight? Spatial Awareness (accurately sense environment, mental sense) is a good start, but Mindsight only lets you detect, well, minds. Perhaps Detect (Sentient creatures), Radius, Acute or Accurate, Ranged mental sense?

How best to represent a Danmaku barrage? According to Ultimate Power, you can have an Area attack require an attack roll and apply Autofire to that. Seems like a good start. Then, perhaps add variant attacks targetting each save as alternate powers. What happens if you Link multiple attack powers, as sort of a final overkill attack?
I want to stat up a goth-ish Danmaku chick with attacks/powers inspired by Tarot cards. The lesser arcana might be regular attacks (there's four colors, so one for each saving throw and different numbers are just different strengths), the greater arcana cards might be different effects. Might merit a thread of its own in d20 Games...

[veekie]

For most danmaku barrages, a simple high attack bonus Area attack with autofire should do it. Most of them are fairly clear cut variants on Blast, so theres that. The tricky bit is that many barrages also have homing, in that they continue firing even if the caster had moved elsewhere to fire a second one, while the harder patterns make use of Indirect attacks(lasers originating from other angles, 'zero point manifestation' attacks which give you a hair's breadth to leap out of the way before they spawn right on you). A number are Blasts with Sustained durations, making them a beam energy barrier, which fade out over time. A couple more are 'trick' patterns, which mix Blasts with Illusion to give the seeming of a more thorough attack than they really are.

For that, Predefined Spell Card arrays which internally contain variable alternate powers(varieties of blasts) which are sequenced through can be arranged. If I got some spare time I could disassemble particular spell cards into their Power components.
Master Spark, would amusingly enough, be one of the easier ones to define.

[Agita]

The "zero point manifestations" could be just regular Explosion area blasts.

Also, perhaps have alternate areas for different alternate powers of the Danmaku blast. Can you somehow get a Targeted area attack that hits Ref instead of Toughness? Toughness is the default and Fort and Will can both be done with the Alternate Save extra, but Reflex isn't allowed by Alternate Save.

Is it just me, or would the attack bonus for DC bonus tradeoff be really good here? Your chance of hitting the enemy is that much higher, and if the attack roll is high enough, you get the damage you invested back.

[veekie]

Yeah, autofire lets you make more use of precision over damage, though from what I see, mostly in danmaku they don't use Force Field and Protection(particularly the Impervious sorts) much except as bosses, while the bulk of the blasts are really low DC.
One way to gather extra points is to make use of Limited, pick Area(Shapable) and 'lock' the affected cubes into preset patterns. This lets you use dynamic alternate powers to allow multiple Sustained Blasts to be maintained while you fire other patterns.
One note is that the bombs, in addition to a powerful Blast, mostly use Slow Fade, Total Fade, Nullify and a powerful Blast in one package to clear the screen.

[Agita]

Yeah, autofire lets you make more use of precision over damage, though from what I see, mostly in danmaku they don't use Force Field and Protection(particularly the Impervious sorts) much except as bosses, while the bulk of the blasts are really low DC.

Fits with to-hit for DC and Autofire anyway, then - The attacks are less damaging... but there's a lot of them.
Unfortunately, though, Impervious may still become an issue for a Danmaku character in a 'regular' MnM game where stuff will have Impervious Force Field or whatever.

So, thoughts on the basic Blasts. Four alternate powers of each other, each themed fter one of the Tarot suites.
Swords Descriptors: Magic, Ballistic, Air; Extras: Autofire x2, Area, perhaps Penetrating. Targets Toughness. Makes swords and shoots them Gilgamesh-style, so probably a cone.
Pentacles Descriptors: Magic, [something], Earth; Extras: Autofire x2, Area, perhaps Penetrating. Targets Fortitude. Exploding penacles make shockwaves, so Explosion or Sphere? Or maybe some kind of particles to fit witht he whole toxic schtick they seem to advertise for Fort saves, so perhaps a cloud.
Wands Descriptors: Magic, Fire; Extras: Autofire x2, Area, perhaps Penetrating. I want this to target ref for damage (that is, make an attack roll and do damage based on their Ref save instead of Toughness save), but I have no idea how to accomplish that. Makes fire (duh), perhaps a Shapeable area.
Cups Descriptors: Magic, Mental, Water; Extras: Autofire x2, Area, perhaps Penetrating. Targets Will. Some kind of mental assault; maybe a sphere.

Damn, that's a lot of extras. Good thing I the ranks don't have to be as high if I do a to-hit for DC swap (though then the area also decreases). For more point-saving, I'll probably put all of it in a device (a deck) and perhaps use the same cheese Flay used to make his device cheaper.

Gonna have to actually pick up one of the PC games and check out spell cards and bombs for myself. For now, how's this for a sample spell card?
The Tower Blast (Durationx2 for Sustained, Cylinder area, Hellfire), Plus a Line electricity Blast every round. Needs some way to keep people inside. Full Power and Limited (fixed shape) flaws.
Speaking of long-duration area blasts, how do they work anyway? Do people need to make a save every round they're in one?

Also, in case it isn't obvious, my knowledge of Tarot basically consists of "what's on wikipedia".

[veekie]

Hmm, throw in Variable Alternate power, so you can 'fade out' a Duration Blast, looks decent in general, but you'd need to use that Combo flaw off Mecha and Manga to get proper mileage.

[Agita]

Any thoughts on making Reflex the damage save somehow? I'm sure there's some way to create a barrier around a cylinder-shaped blast to keep people in or have them take damage on the way out. Thoughts?

Also, Device has an action of None in Ultimate Power, so does this mean that Reaction->Free action cheese doesn't actually work?

[veekie]

Well, that seems to be a case of Snare-linked-Blast...

As for the cheddar, it's down to a lot of DM judgement, I believe that if theres any solid reason you might not have the Device active at all times, you could take the flaw, but not otherwise.
For example, a Device that gives you a subtle force field effect with a crapton of Immunity and sensory extras wouldn't be legit, but a lightsaber that needs to be turned on before you can use it's Strike is(so you couldn't quickdraw it to AoO/Deflect with ).

[Agita]

I thought Prime might appreciate it if I didn't clutter the thread with chatter that doesn't have to do witht he game, so I figured I'd make a thread.