Editing Amok

Editing continues at a decent clip. Here's today's update...

1. I am cleaning up the trait (i.e. power) descriptions quite a bit. I am cutting maybe 25% of the language and tightening up concepts considerably. I'm simplifying operations and streamlining the numbers across the game. There is a LOT more cleaning up than I expected to be doing. I keep asking myself where the extra number crunching delivers any extra bang - do you really need to add two or three modifiers when you could just add one, and simplify that one to a cleaner number? That's where Feats came from and that's where several of the changes I'm toying with are going. Cleaner and simpler all around.

2. I think I want to go with 100 traits (powers) for the core rules. Instead of several rolls (by type, then by individual trait) I can have all 100 on a single percentile roll. It is forcing me to combine some powers (what is the real difference between charm, mind control, and hypnotism - can't these all be three flavors of the same power? I think so...) The basic rules for mind control work one way, but you can take limitations (hypnotism plants subtle suggestions; charm allows the target to maintain self control but to favor you). I like this. It's simpler and cleaner, but doesn't take away anything. Another example is plant animation; it's basically just summoning huge plants. Combine the powers and allow you to 'summon' pretty much anything that fits your character's theme.

3. This is the big one - I did this with Army Ants, and I almost did it with Tales of the Splintered Realm; you get a number of actions per round equal to your level. This is shark jumping territory, I know. But, the source material supports it. Batman doesn't leap and then wait for Riddler to act. He leaps, kicks Riddler, fires a grapple gun, and zips away. That's solid. Hulk grabs Loki, smacks him on the ground four times, and drops him. The cooler a hero is, the more stuff he or she gets to do on his or her time to shine. This is mitigated by a few things: A) the game only goes to level 6; B) most characters will end up being level 3 or 4 I would think. Level 5 is very high level, and 6 is the most powerful characters in the world.

Hyperspeed ends up being CRAZY fast then. Let's take Quicksilver. He's level 3 (so 3 actions) and has hyperspeed with PWR 18 (+4). This gives him 7 actions each round. DAAANG. But (and this is a big but), he is not really dealing that much damage. Yeah, he can run up, punch a dude five times, and run away... but each punch is only doing like 1d4+2 damage or so... I mean, yeah he might hit five times, but he's still only dealing 15 damage. The other thing is that this really aligns with the source material; when Spiderman was fighting the bank robbers in Homecoming, he's attacking three or four times before one of them gets to go. Then they each take an action, then he goes four or five more times. Realistically, you don't stand around while your foe makes a whole bunch of attacks; dramatically, this happens ALL. THE. TIME. Since the game is emulating the source material and not the real world, this is logical.

Looking forward to play testing some of this. Oh, and here's a sketch because pages with images tend to get more interactions. Just sayin'.