Basic Action Super Heroes!

I recently had an idea that I think might work to re-create Stuns, trips, and various other special effects in combat.

When you roll damage and the dice explode, you can forgo throwing more dice, in exchange for adding a special effect to the attack. This special effect takes place regardless of whether all the damage was soaked or not.

These might include:

Stun: The target is essentially under a "Daze" effect that lasts until the end of the next Page (or until the target is attacked).

Trip: The target is knocked prone.

Disoriented/Handicapped: Something impedes the character's ability, perhaps deafening, obscuring vision, throwing off balance, etc. The target has a Minor Hindrance for all rolls the next 2 Pages.

Tethered: The target's mobility is reduced; maybe you tied them to a beam or something. They cannot move more than 1 square from their current location for the next 2 pages. They can attempt to break free sooner by making a 20 Escapology or Brawn check, which works similar to the Immobilization power.

What other possible effects can we add to this list?

Btw: note that Attack Weak Point is pretty cool combo with this ability, because it lets you count an attack roll as your damage roll. So you could roll "12" that explodes to become 16 on your hit roll, but only keep the 12 on damage. This would allow you to apply the Stun/Trip/etc effects more frequently because you've got more chances to roll doubles.

Another idea: you get to keep rolling exploding dice, but each one you choose to "ignore" lets you add one special effect to the attack. So you could Stun, Trip, and Tether an opponent if you rolled 3 exploders!

I like these. Similar to making a Called Shot

Yes, but done after the fact. Gives you some narrative control.

Yeah, this is cool. You should put this in BAM #6 as an official new rule. This should make its way into BASH Legends of Steel (if not too late) and BASH Fantasy - that is providing playtests don't show up any glitches.

Thanks. Anybody else have some ideas for other "status effects" that could be added to this list?

An idea that I was considering was for the player to decide to take the extra dice and apply any or all of them toward Hero Points on a 1 Die = 1 Hero Point basis instead of special effects. That way they can save the karma of that rolled bonus earned at this moment and use it another time, when they might really need it.

I really like the idea of continuing to roll "exploding dice" and then deciding on how many of them you wish to use for improving your roll and how many you want to apply for special effects.

Maybe disarmed as a status? Or pinned to a wall, like the Called Shot examples.

I love these ideas. You could call it the "Add Insult to Injury" rule. We've been using Called Shots to activate these sorts of effects, but tagging effects on as a coincidence of damage rolls is cool too.

I'm thinking that the Tethered effect would be better as a Called Shot, because it seems to imply a bit of forethought was involved on the attacker's part.

Stun and Trip effects make more sense because they seem like natural extensions of damage. Disoriented/Handicapped effects invite the players/narrator to use the environment in a more tangible way. That's a good thing.

Adding bonus effects per exploder die is also cool when mixed with Called Shots. Then you could have situations where you get your planned effect but also get a bonus effect for a an exploding damage roll.

Can't wait to try these in our next game session.

Saker wrote:Maybe disarmed as a status? Or pinned to a wall, like the Called Shot examples.

Well the "Tethered" effect is close enough to that- but like the Disarmed idea.

Disarming an opponent shouldn't be automatic, though. Maybe you could un-explode a die to get a chance to disarm (the opponent gets to make a Brawn roll against the damage to keep their weapon).

This also allows "Disarm Expert" to remain useful (you don't have to un-explode a die, indeed you get a bonus to the roll, and thus your chances of a successful disarm are higher).