Friday, August 9, 2013

Avatar World: The Airbender Moves, Other Moves Revisions


Bro made me a CD with a bunch of Vicetone stuff on it and it's pretty good. Especially for driving. This song is great for active listening too though! The original is surprisingly not very inspiring at all, despite Zedd generally being pretty good (he did the song I featured in the Now You See Me sunday songs update a while back).

So I've finally got the last playbook done! I was very not happy with The Airbender and now I'm not unhappy with it! I haven't quite gotten to "very awesome" about it but I feel decent and I've stagnated long enough  on it that I'm just going to show it.

So I've got six moves.
Airbending: When you begin moving and manipulating the air in battle, roll+Natural. On a 10+, you gain 2 Momentum. On a 7-9, you gain 1 Momentum. Spend Momentum 1-for-1 to:
     * Reposition the battlefield,
     * Reduce harm you take by 1,
     * Gain +1 Forward to a roll involving great speed or acrobatics.
If you stop moving you lose all Momentum.
I dropped the harm option! You can work the Forward into doing harm to stuff through Commit Open Violence, but doing harm isn't the primary use of Momentum. Also, the Forward option is now tied to fictional things which makes me 150% more comfortable. I also dropped the overall Momentum you get per move.
Acceleration: Whenever you have Momentum, you have +1 to further Airbending rolls.
This concept I still like, despite a complete lack of fiction-informing mechanisms.
Soundbending: You can manipulate sound as if it were air. When you do, roll+Keen. On a 10+, you can convincingly replicate any sound. On a 7-9, the sound is fairly convincing, and you are exposed to danger.
I'm...on the fence about whether this is the right way to handle this or not. I'm also on the fence about +Keen rather than +Fluid. But I'm not too unhappy about it, just hesitant.
Attuned: You have +1 Natural (max +3).
Dead simple. Rounds out the set.
Nomad: When you Meditate about some facet of the world (natural or Spirit), on a hit you may also ask the MC one question about the world that they must answer.
Basically the only way I could think of to amp up the Meditate move, but I think it's pretty appropriate. Heck, even minus the "Air Nomad" connection, "Nomads" go all over the world so they've seen a lot of stuff.
Redirection: When you would take Harm, ask how much Harm would be dealt. If you have at least that much Momentum, spend all of your Momentum to change the attack's target.
That includes "the attacker". This is a more powerful all-or-nothing variant on the -1 harm Momentum option, but has a lot more versatility. Slam enemy attack into other enemies, into the environment, into your friends >:). Heck, after two 10+ airbends you can redirect LIGHTNING. This is the last move to fall into place, and it's the perfect thing for the list I think.

So that's airbending. Oh, also:
Once you've trained with a master airbender, whenever you Move With Intention, you also get 1 Momentum on a hit.
That jumped out of my brain a couple hours ago.

I also revised a couple of other moves that troubled me. Or, more accurately, a revised a couple and noted what I'd need to do later for others.

Earthbender:
Defender: This move now provides 2-armor total, not additional. +2-armor anytime is pretty much crazy powerful, and I lose no fictional power from it.
Metalbending: This move needs some kind of mechanical weight attached, but I genuinely have no idea what to do with it.
Firebender:
Conductive: Same thing as Metalbending, it needs something, I dunno, more. It might actually need to be replaced entirely, which is sad, because other than this I'm really incredibly satisfied with the Firebender.
Monk:
Calm Stability: Possibly altered into something like "Pacifict's Aura," with the addition to the trigger "Until you first show aggression toward an opponent,..." which would allow you to be a pacifist character without being very vulnerable and let you do support stuff still.
Rivers of Energy: This will probably need work, but I won't really have a good feeling for what's broken until it gets played.
Ninja:
Like, a whole half of the moves need power reduction. Ambush, Dim Mak, maybe Environment Master.
Samurai:
Untouchable: This is crazy. And yet I think I'm going to keep it for now.
Peerless Swordmaster: I'm gonna go with Option 1 for now, but tuck Option 2 into the spare moves section.
Waterbender:
Stances: Option 1 for sure for now. Option 2 is being tucked away as a safety - if Op1 is too strong I have it in reserve.

And that sounds right.

My big questions are:
* What do you think of the Airbender's moves?
* Are there any other moves I've done that still need to be looked over? Before playtesting I mean, anything that obviously still needs work.
* Is there a need for a newly-designed playbook style? I don't want to reinvent just to be different if booklet-style or trifold-style would work just as good. If I had some style that reinforced the theme or tropes of the game I'd use that, but I don't have anything of the sort in mind.

Thanks folks!
End Recording,
Ego.

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