Hey Genesys rules-wonks!

Seeking your input...

If you were to create a Unique Rule for a human Archetype that you wanted to be equal in power to the other Unique Rules for the default Archetypes (Aristocrat - Forceful Personality, Average Human - Ready for Anything, Intellectual - Brilliant!, and Laborer - Tough as Nails) in the core, AND you wanted that Unique Rule to give the Archetype a bonus of 1 to Melee and Ranged Defense for some amount of time, how long would you have that bonus last?

I want it to follow the model of "Spend a Story Point as a X action, and do Y."

And so while I looked immediately to the Elf unique rule from Terrinoth - Nimble. It's just not the right thing. It's base Defense, for one, and it's constant, so it's just not a good analogue...

1 turn didn't seem like enough, so I'm thinking 2 or 3?

Thoughts?

A couple possibilities (and hopefully others will chip in, too):

Maybe tie it to a characteristic? Like, if this is intended to be the Agility 3 Archetype, it could be "Once per session, spend a Story Point to gain +1 Defense for a number of turns equal to your Agility. If in unstructured play, the benefit lasts for a number of minutes equal to your Agility instead."

Most combats are assumed to be over in about four rounds, so you could also just say "for one encounter" and probably be fine.

Thanks Bob, I actually started with "turns = to AGI" then was like "no, 5 would be too much", and pondered the "remainder of the encounter" option, but figured that could even be more than 5 even if not usually ... as I looked at that vs. the other Uniques, it just felt like too much. They're all kind of one-off things.

But then I'm like, "well, it is essentially just one Setback die on however many attacks that come at them per round, which could be zero at times..."

I keep waffling.

Cuz really the default Uniques are... mostly not too spectacular.

Maybe "turns = to AGI" is the way? Yields probably 3 or 4 turns for "most" PCs that would take it, to start, eventually hitting 5.

...

What if it was "Upgrade the Difficulty of one incoming attack per turn, for X turns"?

What would you put X at there?

...

Or maybe, "Upgrade the Difficulty of the next attack on you X times"? But it's just a one-time thing.

What would that X have to be?

...

And which of those 3 options jives the best with the other defaults?

Quote

Know Its Weakness: Once per session, you may
spend a Story Point to have your loremaster character
increase the damage dealt by all allies’ combat checks
by the loremaster’s ranks in Knowledge (Supernatu-
ral) until the end of the loremaster’s next turn.

-- from the EPG (Loremaster Archetype).

from the top of my head i would rather add X setback for the rest of the encounter/scene.

with the X tied to some characteristic or skill, if its a skill it would make it more valuable.

OR

key it to a ranked talent with the talents rank giving X

17 hours ago, emsquared said:

...

Or maybe, "Upgrade the Difficulty of the next attack on you X times"? But it's just a one-time thing.

What would that X have to be?

I was thinking about this one. You could tie it to a skill, like Terefang suggests, to make it a bit more spectacular than the increased Defense. Maybe Coordination? Maybe it's something like, "This character may spend a Story Point, and until the end of their next turn, all attacks against them are opposed by the character's Coordination skill rather than the standard difficulty."

That makes the ability a bit more spectacular (even with no ranks in Coordination, this turns a PP Melee attack to PPP or worse for most Agility-focused characters). It also gives them a chance to buff it even more using earned XP (by investing in Coordination).

A variant might be "Spend a Story Point; until the end of your next turn, your character gains the Adversary Talent with a rank equal to your Agility."

I agree with Terefang that if you go the +X Defense route, it should probably be for an entire encounter rather than just a few rounds. Defense is helpful, but less spectacular than a one-off "I am untouchable" kind of ability.

3 hours ago, SavageBob said:

A variant might be "Spend a Story Point; until the end of your next turn, your character gains the Adversary Talent with a rank equal to your Agility."

I think I like this approach most of all as aligning most closely with the existing default Uniques.

Thanks for the input, both of you.

i need to add that i also like the "Adversary Talent" route

On 4/17/2020 at 9:11 AM, SavageBob said:

A variant might be "Spend a Story Point; until the end of your next turn, your character gains the Adversary Talent with a rank equal to your Agility."

Why bring in an adversary-only talent that goes up to rank 3 for a PC that can get it, with your wording, up to rank 5?

Instead, just spell out what it does. "Until the end of your character's next turn, upgrade the difficulty of all combat checks targeting them by a number equal to their ranks in Agility."

There seems to be zero reason to have your players search for the Adversary talent and get super frustrated that it's not in the talent chapter and decide on another archetype because they didn't think to look in the GM chapter for their player character ability 😛

3 hours ago, c__beck said:

Why bring in an adversary-only talent that goes up to rank 3 for a PC that can get it, with your wording, up to rank 5?

Instead, just spell out what it does. "Until the end of your character's next turn, upgrade the difficulty of all combat checks targeting them by a number equal to their ranks in Agility."

There seems to be zero reason to have your players search for the Adversary talent and get super frustrated that it's not in the talent chapter and decide on another archetype because they didn't think to look in the GM chapter for their player character ability 😛

Because my way is less verbose? 😜 It was just a shorthand way for me to convey the idea to Emsquared, GM to GM. For a published product (if that's what he's going for), your way should, of course, be followed.

22 hours ago, SavageBob said:

Because my way is less verbose? 😜 It was just a shorthand way for me to convey the idea to Emsquared, GM to GM. For a published product (if that's what he's going for), your way should, of course, be followed.

Don't mind me, I made the mistake of posting before having my morning ☕ ️. Apologizes!