Saturday, November 5, 2016

Powers: (Based on) Meowth

I eat, Jon. That's what I do.
The cat that makes the money.

Pickup

If an item is consumed, Meowth can somehow reuse it. The easiest way to stat this is with Gizmo.
Gizmo(Only to get the same item immediately after one of it is consumed, -10%)[4.5]
This rounds up to be 5 points still, but you get a price break for every two levels. This ability also lets you catch weapons thrown at you. The other part of this ability lets Meowth catch things thrown at her. This is an application of the Parry Missile Weapons skill from the basic set,  the Iron Hands perk (take two levels) from Martial Arts, and the Hand Catch (Parry Missile Weapons) technique (take it maxed out), also from Martial Arts.

Technician

This strengthens weak attacks. Basically, this comes in two abilities in GURPS. The easier half is
Striking ST 4 (Only when attack would do less than 3d damage, -10%)[18]
Striking ST 2 (Only when attack would do less than 3d damage, -10%; Thrust only, -20%)[14]
So for 32 points you get a +4 damage bonus if your attack would normally do less than 3d damage.
The other half is an Unusual Background for innate attacks.
Unusual Background (Technician)[5]
This allows you to exceed the recommended level limits of Innate Attacks that usually do less than 3d damage, and upgrade them to 3d. This is leveled. No attack may exceed 3d, but each level allows an additional 1d of damage. so at level 1, an attack that can only do 1d can be bought to 2d, and at level 2 it can be bought to 3d. An attack that could originally only do 2d can go to 3d at level 1, and no further.

Unnerve

This ability makes an opponent unable to use oral medication. I hemmed and hawed on this one a lot, but decided that this is an affliction of:
Unhealing(Total; Only Oral treatment, -95%)[-6]
This ability lets the target heal by any means available except orally, by taking medicine or eating food.
This is afflicted in an aura with an area effect.
Affliction 1(Will, Area Effect, 8 yards, +150%; Aura, +80%; Disadvantage, Can't use oral treatment, +6%; Fixed Duration, 3 minutes, +0%; Malediction 1, +100%; Melee Attack, Range C, -30%)[41]
When the aura is switched on, everyone in range rolls will in a malediction contest, failure means no healing items can be used for 3 minutes.

Fake Out

This is an attack that causes an opponent to flinch automatically if it hits, and always goes before an opponent. This is a complex application of wait, stop-hit, and a follow-up stun affliction, that simultaneously applies the rules for acquiring a bad reputation for one-trick ponies in Martial Arts. A slightly simplified version might have a limitation of one use a day or require a recharge so the surprise element isn't lost.
Affliction 1 (Accessibility, only after a Stop-Hit, -20%; Cosmic, after Any Attack, +50%; Follow-Up, +0%; Takes Recharge, one hour, -30%)[10]
 This lets one do a stop-hit once an hour (game time) with any move that leaves the opponent stunned. Limited to one's favorite melee attack instead of favorite move, it becomes 5 points instead.

Fury Swipes

This is the same as Fury Attack, except with a melee cutting attack, like a sword or claws.

Feint Attack

In Pokemon, this is an attack with perfect accuracy. In GURPS, the simple solution is an All-Out Feint and Attack or an Extra Attack to Feint then attack. In any case, consider this justification to buy up feint techniques.

Taunt

This "taunt" is more mechanically similar to Berserk. It makes it so an opponent must use only straight attack maneuvers, and may not use any supporting maneuvers, but full-on berserk doesn't sit right with me, so I'll go with the Enraged modified version from p.14 of Dungeon Fantasy Denizens Barbarians. This needs to be a no self control roll version and the magic modifier for [-9] altogether.

Taunt

Keywords: Leveled

Full Cost: 26.4 points/level.
Casting Roll: None, roll innate attack to aim.
Range: 100 yards
Duration: 3 minutes
The "caster" riles up the target to a point beyond reason, so they have little control over their actions. They do not necessarily attack the caster, but while enraged, the only maneuvers they may make are Committed Attack and All-Out Attack. If none of the other options are available, a move maneuver may be taken instead to enable the other two. As a feature, unfazeable targets are immune, and the effects end immediately after the 3 minute time limit. During the time, there is no self control roll to calm down even if the target is the victor in combat.
Statistics: Affliction 1 (Will; Disadvantage, Taunt Debuff, +9%; Fixed Duration, 3 minutes, +0%; Malediction 2, +150%; No Signature, +20%; Sorcery, -15%) [27]

Pay Day

This ability tromps and romps through sacred cow territory without a care in the world, and basically amounts to the player receiving free money after a battle. This could be Create Gold with a vow limitation instead of a creation pool limitation, or potentially, a recharging pool. Other options I consider are Serendipity for a free roll on a loot table after any successful encounter, or Independent Income. I kinda like Independant Income the most, but here's a different take using Create Gold with a recharging creation pool. "money made of precious metals" seems to be a small category, so this is the 10 point version. This ability is probably not ok for all campaigns.

Pay Day

Keywords: Leveled (Special)

Full Cost: 16.5 points for level 1. Usually 13.5 points per extra level, but see notes for leveling details.
Casting Roll: IQ
Range: Touch
Duration: Temporary money lasts for 10 seconds. 
The "caster" generates a pile of coins of various precious metals, mints, and the like, all legal tender in the right country. This spell is composed of three advantages. Leveling the first increases the amount of money that is generated (weight = level squared times 10,) and leveling the other two increases the amount of money that can be permanently stabilized (Each level allows you to keep 10% of the average campaign starting wealth per session.)
Statistics: Create Coinage 1(Magical, -10%; Reduced FP, Costs 1 FP, +20%) [11] + 
Impulse Point Pool 1 (Magical, -10%)[5] +
Increased Refresh Rate 0 (Magical, -10%)[0]
Notes: Additional levels of The create Coinage piece of the advantage cost 11 points and allow creating more coinage per use of the ability. The refresh pool component costs 13.5 points per level and allows an extra 10% of starting wealth to be permanently kept per session.

Assuming a TL8 setting and American Currency. 10 lbs of pennies is just shy of $20.00. 10 lbs of Silver dollars is over $500. If you want a metric for determining how much money is generated in one use, say that each 10 lbs is worth $20 + (Margin of Success *$48), with $500 being the cap, and critical success being perfect as well. Even with 1 point of Impulse Point Pool, it'll take a few uses of Pay Day to exhaust the limit at TL8... but not so much at lower tech levels.

Nasty Plot

This increases the user's special attack sharply, which in pokemon language means a double bonus. I am thinking the best way to do this is, because using power to enhance power is a no-no, a special rule breaker perk.
Evaluate can be used to grant a bonus before executing a melee or ranged malediction[1]
Combined with a tortured version of Enhanced Tracking with a lot of rule breaking Cosmic Enhancements.
Enhanced Tracking(Accessibility, Can't Target multiple targets, -10%; Cosmic, Can Target Same Target twice, +100%; Cosmic, Can Target Twice with Same Weapon, +100%;) [15]
Which is like extra attack, but you can only use evaluate instead of a feint or attack.
Finally, we pair that with:
Special Exercises (Can Evaluate One Extra Turn) 3[3]
For a convoluted 19 point ability that lets one evaluate twice as good, and use this ability towards special attacks. If you decide it is a setting switch, and it might be, that characters in your setting can evaluate to +6, then you can get rid of the three points in special exercise perks. If you decide it is a setting switch for your campaign that anyone can evaluate to power up maledictions, you can save 1 additional point.

Assurance

This is an attack that does extra damage to anyone that has already been hurt this turn. I interpret this as anyone suffering from shock penalties.
Striking ST 1 (Only against targets suffering from shock penalties, -20%)[4]
Buy up to 6 levels.

Night Slash

This is the same thing as Slash, but with the feature of being a darkness element. Look at Focus Energy here for my preferred method of buffing critical hit rates. Air Cutter is another take on the concept.

Feint

In Pokemon, it defeats a few special defensive moves that usually have counter-attack repercussions. I think I'll still simply call this an application of the Feint maneuver in GURPS, or maybe even, more closely, a version of Deceptive Attack.

Other Thoughts and Conclusion

I didn't expect this to take so long, but I got into some philosophical discussions. Meowth touches a lot of weird golden calves in GURPS, and I mean, everyone has certain tolerances for breaking or making rules, but mostly, "Don't do it because no one said you can" is a really bothersome answer to me. I sometimes play fast and loose when a move goes so far out of bounds with the system it doesn't even make sense anymore in GURPS idioms, but then I think maybe there is a different way to represent this ability that captures the semantics rather than the mechanics.
Pokemon, with a few (very noteworthy!) exceptions is pretty mechanically simple, but has a lot of emergent gameplay by taking a few simple rules that mostly deal with fair, turn by turn, polite combat, and creating a bunch of moves with different combinations of parameters and working inside the system its given.
GURPS can do a fighting simulator + walking simulator + rng Santa handing out things if you wait long enough, but it can also do more than that, and now I forgot the point I'm trying to make. I think though, if I were to try to make a point, it's that if you want to play a fighting simulator + walking simulator + rng Santa game, that game already exists, and it is called Pokemon, and you can buy in pretty inexpensively for only the cost of a portable console and a cartridge. GURPS can do that too, but if you do that with GURPS, you're selling the system short, and missing out on all the cool other stuff it can do... and you're reinventing the wheel in any case, but that also doesn't mean that it's fine to say, "I've never seen it done before, therefore it can't and shouldn't be done."
Man... this whole blob of text is totally incoherent.

2 comments:

  1. One of the things that as slowed down my Pokemon post (well outside of life deciding to troll me every chance it has) is the long and hard tuning of what points of the game I would try to emulate and what points I would just drop outright.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, it's easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I hear some plans sometimes and, to paraphrase, sometimes I hear, "Let's take everything that doesn't work well in pokemon, and combine it with all the worst aspects of GURPS," instead of the other way around.

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