Ideas for Character Abilities --

FaustianDeal

I haven't seen a thread like this anywhere in a while, so I thought I would pour out a few of the random ideas I had been kicking around (someone referenced M:tG - and a lot of these will seem familiar):

A variation of AoE that focuses/gathers the effect. So rather than doing 1,000 to each the power would be worded more in the vein of "does 3,000 damage divided equally among all opponents" - so if 2 are standing it does 1,500 to each.. and if only 1 remains they eat the full 3,000. Most of our existing AoE is an explosion metaphor, but there are powers that *can* target multiple enemies, but don't necessarily *have* to. A power like Magneto's isn't explosive; its a question of how many discrete items he can hold in his memory, or Doc Ock's mechanical arms - each arm can hit *something*, or they can all hit *the same thing*
'Rampage'. A power that has an accelerator based on the number of surviving attackers remain on the enemy team. So it has bigger benefits to getting it off early (similar to DP's aLotT). +400 damage for each enemy that is not downed. (Covers can raise the per-enemy bonus)
'Trample'. As of now any attack that would down a character has its damage reduced to the remaining health of the attacked character. What if there was an ability where some percentage of the 'overkill' was carried forward to the next character in the stack? This seems like something that would be great for a gamma-powered character, or a lazy juggs. Covers would increase the percentage of the overkill that spilled onto the next opponent.
Unkillable. The power would drop a special tile (probably a countdown to prevent insanity) that would render the character effectively immortal. Any attack that would reduce their health to 0 instead leaves the character with 1 health left. You have to take out the tile to take our the character. (Destroying the special tile could even do 1 damage to the casting character... possibly downing them even if they aren't in front to take the tile damage). Covers could reduce cost or ultimately allow you to select placement.
'Dampening Field'. This power would render other special attacks either unusable, or increase their cost by an escalating value with covers. (Think the morlock Leech - who became a horseman of Apocalypse). This could have variants that target mutant v. mechanical abilities, or just be generic. Covers increase duration or increase the power of the field (+3 AP instead of +2). Could also render passive powers inactive.
'Camouflage/Infiltration'. (This would have been good for mystique, but we missed the window... maybe someone else) The idea of this ability: places a countdown - while the countdown is in place the hero gets any benefits conferred by enemy special tiles. While mystique looks like a member of your team she gets the benefits of your strike/protect/and attack tiles. Covers could increase countdown duration, or add additional tile types to the ones you get the benefit from.
an anti-falcon passive. 'Each black match reduces the strength of an enemy special tile by N', for example.
a skill that gives immunity to special tile effects. attacks on this character aren't buffed by strike tiles for example.
a 'piercing' ability - for the archers or artillery users - a power that ignores enemy protect tiles
mimicry: like taskmaster where they can emulate an enemy ability, or a rogue's ability which stuns while stealing their abilities to use their powers.
Why do we not have a resurrect/revive ability? stand up a fallen comrade with some minimal health (500 health). covers would increase the amount of restored health or reduce the cost.
A confusion power that changes the colors of AP pools. Rather than draining a color, what if it just swapped colors (red AP turns blue, blue turns green, green turns black, etc.). probably best against goons
a 'blaze of glory' style power that granted a temporary boost to the team. Say, it creates a 10 turn countdown tile and gives all allies +2,000 health. when the countdown expires all allies lose 2,000 health. additional covers could create strike, protect, or attack tiles that are also destroyed or lost when the countdown expires or is destroyed.

Pwuz_

FaustianDeal wrote:

'Dampening Field'. This power would render other special attacks either unusable, or increase their cost by an escalating value with covers. (Think the morlock Leech - who became a horseman of Apocalypse). This could have variants that target mutant v. mechanical abilities, or just be generic. Covers increase duration or increase the power of the field (+3 AP instead of +2). Could also render passive powers inactive.

Leech creates 6 countdown tiles (one on each color.) As long as these tiles are active, ANY enemy ability of that color requires 1AP more than normal.

Additional covers could keep the tiles out longer, or raise that AP cost further. It should stack against it's own countdown tiles, so IF you can get it off 2-3 times, ability costs for the opponent could get quite high.

Certain characters (Ares) wouldn't be as affected by this. It would also be a great argument for more moves that can INCREASE Friendly count-down tiles as we are getting more and more tiles you want to keep out longer.

FaustianDeal

Pwuz_ wrote:

It would also be a great argument for more moves that can INCREASE Friendly count-down tiles as we are getting more and more tiles you want to keep out longer.

Something better than bag-man anyway.

Pwuz_

While reading some of the comments about the impending Sentry/Hood nerf, I just thought of this idea.

What about a move that starts out FREE, but every turn gets more and more expensive (to a limit). Perhaps make it a turn ending move if used 1st round.

On the other side:

What about a move that starts out SUPER EXPENSIVE, but gets cheaper every round (again to a limit, never getting to free).

I'm not sure what kind of headache I just suggested from a programing standpoint, nor do I know what kind of abilities would be appropriate for such a skill either.

Just a fun little concept I wanted to throw out there.