Basic Action Super Heroes!

this is coming from City of Heroes where every super power has a secondary effect, also available in Necessary Evil, and 4th edition D&D. Basically instead of attacks just doing damage they also temporarily weaken the foe, knock them back, heal you, etc.

While I like BASH a lot, I was disappointed that attacks are just damage and knockback. There is no real flavor to damage attacks.

So I am thinking of having knockback be a secondary effect, and you can replace it with another. Secondary effects should have an effect but not be very powerful.

So I am thinking these effects - the name is the existing power, the effect listed is weaker than the listed power since it is a secondary effect.

Deflect: +2 dice modifier to your defense until the start of your next turn. Or +4 dice modifier to your defense against the target you hit only until the start of your next turn.

Immobilization: 10 difficulty immobilization on the target until the start of your next turn.

Slow: the target's move is halved until the start of your next turn.

Weaken: the target suffers a -1 dice penalty to one attribute until the end of your next turn (so you get to attack them while they are weakened)

Daze: target is dazed unless they make a 10 difficulty mind check on their next panel. Automatically ends after 1 panel

Telekinesis: you can move the target 1 square of your choice

Boost: you get a 1 point boost effect until the end of your next turn.

Healing: you heal 1d6 hit points

I think Linked (p38) covers what you're trying to do.

it doesn't

linked is a 2pt enhancement and you have to buy the other power entirely - with range and everything

so adding daze with range would end up costing 5 or more points
and it adds the full daze effect - so it should cost more points

the overhead cost of a linked power is such that it is not worth it for minor effects

So basically you just want the secondary effect to not cost anything? That really changes how powerful a character is going to be, and makes Special Attack far more useful (imho), than any other power. I mean, why buy Immobilize, why I can just get SA, and add it onto it for free?

the secondary effect version has to be significantly weaker

so it may not work with things like immobilize

urbwar wrote:So basically you just want the secondary effect to not cost anything? That really changes how powerful a character is going to be, and makes Special Attack far more useful (imho), than any other power. I mean, why buy Immobilize, why I can just get SA, and add it onto it for free?

I think the OP wants it to cost something. The secondary effect is INSTEAD OF Knock-Back- which isn't anything insignificant.

At first I thought "Linked can handle this" but LINKED is more powerful than what the OP wants. (However, the cost for a LINKED power should only be 2pts (the cheaper of the two powers is no cost). So if I have Special Attack 4 (Mid Range) LINED with Immobilize 3 (Mid Range) the cost would only be 8pts for the whole thing, vs. 6pts for the Special Attack 4 (Mid Range) by itself.

To the OP I would recommend the following:
I have considered an adjustment to the description of the "Extra Effect" enhancement to allow it to be used for additional minor mechanical effects other than a +2 multiplier vs. a certain thing. I think that the OP's idea is a perfect use for this- and would make a great BAM! Article (if you're so inclined).

I would pair down the list a bit. The 10 Immobilize, for instance, is a bit much, since that is the same as an actual power (Immobilize 1).

I'm not sure I understand how linked works then.

But I will look at defining minor special effects that could be added for flavor.

Let's pretend you are Cannonball of the new mutants you have flight, let's for sake of argument say 3, this costs you 3 points, since your plan is to ram people while flying and this will potentially hurt you want some way to also protect yourself so you Link your Flight with Forcefield, up to Forcefield 3 for the cost of 2 points for the link giving you Flight 3 and Forcefield 3 that can only ever be used together for five points rather than 6 points. If you wanted to instead link your Flight 3 to Forcefield 4 you would then base the cost of the more expensive power which is now Forcefield costing you 6 points (4 for Forcefield and 2 for the Link) and giving you flight 3 and forcefield 4 that can only ever be used together.

So linking does look like it basically does what I want. Not exactly how I want to do it, but fussing with it at this point doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

I might add a 1pt version of linking called Secondary Effect that gives you a 1pt effect of a second power, instead of Linked that gives you basically up to the cost of the main power.

So a 4pt special attack with Linking would let you add a 4pt power to it for 2pts. With Secondary Effect you could add a 1pt power to it for 1pt.

I'm not sure if you saw this, so I'll repeat it:

To the OP I would recommend the following:
There will be an adjustment to the description of the "Extra Effect" enhancement to allow it to be used for additional minor mechanical effects other than a +2 multiplier vs. a certain thing. I think that the OP's idea is a perfect use for this- and would make a great BAM! Article (if you're so inclined).

So far, you have a number of useful secondary effects already.

Right, what I am saying is that there already 1 point effects available in powers to use. It might be possible to create lesser versions of daze and others but probably not - if you could they would already scale.

So I would not invent additional special effects at this point, I would just use the existing 1 point power effects

dugfromthearth wrote:Right, what I am saying is that there already 1 point effects available in powers to use. It might be possible to create lesser versions of daze and others but probably not - if you could they would already scale.

So I would not invent additional special effects at this point, I would just use the existing 1 point power effects

Sort of like a "LINKED lite?" That sounds doable. And thinking about it again- your Daze for 1 page, or Immobilize (10 Escape) for 1 page- those actually are weaker than just Daze or Immobilize 1, because of the time limit (1 page) put on them.