Design Log Part 4: Let's Design Some Attacks
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Lab Zero Games and this project is a fan project and is not endorsed by Lab Zero Games or any of its developers and employees.
Also to address the elephant in the room, at the time of writing several employees at Lab Zero Games had quit the company over allegations of inappropriate behaviours and bullying done onto them for long periods of time and there are fears that Lab Zero Games is essentially done. I am on a "wait and see" approach on this project and will continue development of it until I see what the future holds for the Indivisible IP. My greatest fear is that with what's going on, Indivisible is dead in the water and there will be no more contents for the IP, which means I won't be able to compile and write the background section of the RPG document. Fingers crossed for the Indivisible TV show!
Welcome to the fourth design log for the Indivisible TTRPG. For today, we're taking a dive into the system that you had seen in the actual play from Part 3, but not fully explained, and that is the Attacks.
Before heading in, I will again lay out a play description/design statement for this part, namely character advancement in regards to equipment such as weapons and armour.
Given that Indivisible is largely inspired by Southeast Asian aesthetics, I would also like to bring an Asian philosophy into the RPG when it comes to equipment. In many traditional RPGs like Dungeon and Dragons, acquiring new and better equipment such as weapons and armour, especially magical ones, is an important part of character progression. The importance of material gains fits more on the Western (especially American) philosophy of betterment. In contrast in Eastern philosophy, especially when Buddhism and Hinduism is involved, betterment is often focused on one’s personal intrinsic ability rather than their equipment or trappings. The equipment system in this game reflects that. Characters improve their ability to use their body, mind or tools/weapons, and not the weapons themselves.
Players will spend resource, most likely XP, either during character creation or when "leveling up" so that they have access to new Attack Abilities with which to design their Attacks. At higher levels, players will be able to design more complex Attacks where combinations of Abilities result in interesting tactical capabilities.
Making An Attack
To joggle your memory, let's take a look at Zebei's Stats and Attacks:
You will see that an attack is made up of three aspects: the weapon used, the range, and its abilities.
During Character Creation or when PCs are given the chance to spend XPs to improve themselves, they can create Attacks for their three given slots. At this point, I hadn't figured out the logistics of the design, such as "does creating a new attack require expenditure of XP?". That will come later as I think about, and tweak, XP and other resources of character progression.
To create an Attack, the player must first start with the weapon they're using for the attack. In combat, to use this Attack, this must be the weapon they have readied in their hands. Let's take a look at the current version of the stats for the Bow.
Bow - Range 3 - (2) (1) (1) - Expendable Ammunition
The stats for a weapon has four parts: its name, its range (which is arbitrary at the moment), its Mastery Point (MP) slots (name is WIP) and its special rules it may have. The special rule here only indicates that once the archer shoots the arrow, it is gone and not recoverable.
For designing an Attack, we will look at the Mastery Point of a weapon. For the Bow, you can see that it says (2) (1) (1), which means it has the first Attack Slot with 2 MP, and second and third Attack Slot with 1 MP each. When making an Attack, the combined MP of the Abilities must not exceed the allowed MP on the weapon.
Players can spend XP to improve their mastery of the weapon and add addition MP to the weapon, which allow them to choose more costly Abilities with higher MP or allow them to combine different Abilities. But for now, we'll use the default stats as the example.
Let's say Zebei wants to create an Attack on the slot that gives him 2 MP. He can either choose an Ability that costs 2 MP or two Abilities that cost 1 MP each. He decides to choose Accurate, which costs 1 MP and Combo 1, which cost 1 MP. By the time he's done, he ends up with the following Attack:
NAME: Bow - Ranged 3 - Accurate, Combo 1
(Do note that this is different from his stats as seen earlier, as I didn't have the Attack creation system ready when running the combat.)
With the Abilities done, now it's time for the important part: giving the Attack a cool name and a narrative description of the attack!
He decides that this attack is a high-precision shot with two arrows simultaneously. He names it "Eagle's Eyes". ("Because it's really precise and there's two of them, geddit?")
So in the final form, this is his Attack:
Eagle's Eyes: Bow - Ranged 3 - Accurate , Combo 1
And that's it! The attack is now ready to be used on the next foe he comes across.
A List of Some Abilities
Here's a part of my list of Attack Abilities that I have. I am giving the most basic as many will need tuning. Also, many names will be changed in future iterations to reduce confusion of terms.
Abilities have different 'tiers', but as long as players have access to the main ability, they can choose any tier they want for their Attack as long as they can afford the MP. For example, if the player have access to the Heavy Ability, they can choose either the 1 MP Heavy or 3 TP Improved Heavy for their Attacks.
Some Abilities refer to some keywords. The keywords are listed below. Wording of the rules is subject to change.
Heavy damage: After a successful Attack Roll, you may choose two dice for damage instead of one.
Light damage: After a successful Attack Roll, discard the highest scoring die before choosing die for damage.
Accurate: After rolling an Attack Roll, you may choose an additional die to add to your Score.
Inaccurate: After rolling an Attack Roll, remove the lowest-scoring die from the dice pool.
Heavy: Attack deals Heavy damage. The attack also gains Inaccurate at no extra TP.
Heavy: 1 MP
Improved Heavy: 3 MP – Attack no longer has Inaccurate.
Accurate: Attack Roll is Accurate. The attack also gains Light Damage at no extra TP.
Accurate: 1 MP
Improved Accurate: 3 MP – Attack no longer has Light Damage.
Combo X: Adds X Combo tokens to the target if it hits. Each Combo counter adds 1 damage to attacks done by friendly characters, including you. All combo tokens area cleared at the beginning of affected character’s turn.
Combo 1: 1 MP
Combo 2: 2 MP
Combo 3: 3 MP
Launch: If the attack hits,
the affected target becomes Airborne. Clear at the beginning of affected
character’s turn.
Launch: 1 MP
AoE/Wide Area: Attack hits all enemies engaged in melee with the character. Use one Attack Roll, then compare to all engaged enemies’ Defense.
Wide Area: 2 MP
Stun: If this attack hits, the target loses its Minor Action for its next turn.
Stun: 2 MP
Coordinated Attack: If this attack hits, the next character who attacks the same target gains a bonus d6 to their Attack Pool (i.e. dice they roll for the Attack).
Set Up: 1 TP
Improved Set Up:
2 TP – Bonus die is d8 instead
Advanced Set Up:
3 TP – Bonus die is d10 instead
As a general policy, Abilities that set up bonuses for teammates (namely, Combo, Launch and Coordinated Attack in this list) tend to be quite cheap MP-wise. This is, of course, to encourage use of these Abilities. I predict some very coordinated player parties to stack up Combo like crazy and dealing an insane amount of damage, but that's exactly how I want it. I just need to adjust the future monsters' Health and Soak to be able to give them a challenge and not get too easily steamrolled.
That's it for this time! Next, we will discuss Iddhi and its role in this RPG.
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