Alternate Core Documents

[TyrannisUmbra]

You could make Paralyzing Hoof allow a special attack that costs extra AP, and deals less damage than a normal attack. It's meant to symbolize an attack used to incapacitate an opponent, so it should work more like stun damage.

... In fact, why not make Paralyzing Hoof be a special attack that deals a lot of Stun damage?

[Viewing_Glass]

Well how much is 'a lot'? Cause... we don't want to make it too good. I, looking at the perk, think that it works well enough as is. Unless you sink a lot of points into Agility, you don't get that much bang for your buck.

[f1r3w4rr10r]

I just had a thought: Has anyone ever considered to let the criticals for SPECIALs also be influenced by the critical skill values? Say you have one of those crit build characters, that has a critical hit chance of 20%, the chance to get a crit with a SPECIAL should be raised to 2, instead of just one.

[SilverlightPony]

I just had a thought: Has anyone ever considered to let the criticals for SPECIALs also be influenced by the critical skill values? Say you have one of those crit build characters, that has a critical hit chance of 20%, the chance to get a crit with a SPECIAL should be raised to 2, instead of just one.

This is why I have been promoting the idea of making SPECIAL checks as Stat*10 vs. d100 rather than the usual Stat vs. d10. It allows finer-grained results for SPECIAL rolls and lets them use the same crit-chance ranges as Skill rolls.

[Ghostpony]

This is why I have been promoting the idea of making SPECIAL checks as Stat*10 vs. d100 rather than the usual Stat vs. d10. It allows finer-grained results for SPECIAL rolls and lets them use the same crit-chance ranges as Skill rolls.

I like the idea. Cuts down on the number of special crits that goon ponies will get.

[Kkat]

Some time earlier, Heal was revised to not take multiple turns to apply it's effects. However, the Advanced and Expert versions still take multiple turns. I believe this is a typo.

Thank you. Heal has been fixed. Restoration still takes a long time, but Heal is now instantaneous at all levels.


Paralyzing Hoof
I will definitely add that "does not work against Red Threats".

Well how much is 'a lot'? Cause... we don't want to make it too good. I, looking at the perk, think that it works well enough as is. Unless you sink a lot of points into Agility, you don't get that much bang for your buck.

With the current rules, a character with high Agility has upwards of a 30% chance per hit and, at that level, upwards of 9 attacks with which to pull off that 30%. As such, by the level it is acquired, it is effectively a "will always succeed" ability. Consider your character facing a bad guy with this ability -- for his 18th level perk, what is an appropriate chance for him to utterly remove you from combat with a flurry of attacks, regardless of your armor or HP, and leave you helplessly at his mercy? I agree it shouldn't be too low, but it shouldn't be certain either. And when assigning a percentage chance, you have to consider how many rolls to get that percentage that the character is getting each turn.

Reducing the perk to a 5% chance still means that the character will have nine chances to get off that 5% chance in a turn, which is still making it fairly likely. Increasing the AP cost would reduce the number of chances. I'm inclined to either reduce the chance to a flat 5%, or to reduce the chance to 5 + Agility % and add +5 AP to the attacks.


Flash Bangs

Giving Flash Bangs a -30 would result in them being too lethal at low levels and extremely not lethal at high levels. Note that Flash Bangs only halve the weapon skill: Bonuses from Stealth and aiming aren't halved.

Excellent point. Perhaps Flash Bangs aren't as overpowered as they have been portrayed, but instead is suffering from a math application issue. Maybe all that is needed is to clarify that Flash Bangs halve weapon skills after all other bonuses and penalties are calculated? This way, someone with a 25 Firearms facing a -15 penalty for range and Flash Bangs is seeing Flash Bangs reduce their chance of hitting from 10 to 5 (rather than seeing their range penalty reduce their chance from 13 to -2).

This way, there is no way Flash Bangs can result in skill chances below 1.

[Dance_Explosion]

How about making it a 35 AP attack for para hoof? That way it can't be spammed as much unless the pony takes a lot of AP up perks and/or powerful drugs, and make robots [no reason it should work on them] and red encounters immune [should still work on power armored ponies since it dose in the story] so it cant just one round win boss fights?

[Dimestream]

I just took a look at Flashbangs since I hadn't noticed them before. I don't think they're unbalanced as-is, since all it does is reduce your skill. It doesn't reduce bonuses you'd get from magic or aiming, so someone has just spent caps to reduce your aim a bit. Say you have 100 in a skill, and a flashbang drops you to fifty. You can aim to compensate for upward of 20 of that, or a unicorn could cast Spirit of Light to provide +16 or more to compensate. I don't see a need to change them.

Paralyzing hoof is, in my opinion, one of those things that works great in a single player game but is terrible in a multiplayer. Especially if used against players. IMO I would rather see it discarded, despite how neat it is, than see it either remain as a god-perk or get nerfed into uselessness.

[Dimestream]

So I've been doing a little more research into finally offering non-cybernetics-based reasons to play an Earth Pony. Unless you're going heavy inventing/crafting or cybernetics, there's really nothing to recommend even an EP specialist over a specialist of another race.

Unexpectedly, Mad_Modd has provided what I believe to be a balanced and legitimate tweak. Normally Modd and I don't agree on rules, and I don't agree with most of his rules changes, but this is one of his gems (along with gauss weapons, but I digress).

Simply allow Earth Ponies to gain a few additional perks, AS FOLLOWS:

* For a bonus perk, an Earth Pony qualifies as a character 1/2 their current level, rounded down.
* Earth Ponies would gain these bonus perks at 6th level and every 5 levels thereafter (11, 16, 21, 26)(Counting as level 5, 8, 10, and 13)
* This nets them 5 lower-power shinies to contribute toward their specialty or diversity.

I believe this is a needed nudge into the running with the diversity of spells and pegasus tricks, isn't a huge change, and doesn't hurt the EP flavor or pigeonhole characters into one archetype. Thoughts?

[Viewing_Glass]

Paralyzing Hoof
I will definitely add that "does not work against Red Threats".

Well how much is 'a lot'? Cause... we don't want to make it too good. I, looking at the perk, think that it works well enough as is. Unless you sink a lot of points into Agility, you don't get that much bang for your buck.

With the current rules, a character with high Agility has upwards of a 30% chance per hit and, at that level, upwards of 9 attacks with which to pull off that 30%. As such, by the level it is acquired, it is effectively a "will always succeed" ability. Consider your character facing a bad guy with this ability -- for his 18th level perk, what is an appropriate chance for him to utterly remove you from combat with a flurry of attacks, regardless of your armor or HP, and leave you helplessly at his mercy? I agree it shouldn't be too low, but it shouldn't be certain either. And when assigning a percentage chance, you have to consider how many rolls to get that percentage that the character is getting each turn.

Reducing the perk to a 5% chance still means that the character will have nine chances to get off that 5% chance in a turn, which is still making it fairly likely. Increasing the AP cost would reduce the number of chances. I'm inclined to either reduce the chance to a flat 5%, or to reduce the chance to 5 + Agility % and add +5 AP to the attacks.

Do keep in mind that to get that 30% chance to stun, you need to have a 10 agility. Making it a 5% chance to succeed still feels too low, but I do like Dance Explosion's idea. In the story, we see Xenith make on attack that paralyzes a steel ranger, through her power armor (Buckland Cross, I think). Thus, I suggest the following change:

Make it a 35 AP attack at a -20 to hit that keeps the current percentage chance. Then, the target rolls an AGI check to not become paralyzed. This check is made at a penalty depending on the degrees of success of the unarmed combatant (maximum -3, minimum 1). Should the attacker roll equal to or below the percentage chance, the penalty is increased by 2 (to a minimum of 0).

This keeps the perk feeling powerful, while giving the target a chance to not be effected.

Flash Bangs

Giving Flash Bangs a -30 would result in them being too lethal at low levels and extremely not lethal at high levels. Note that Flash Bangs only halve the weapon skill: Bonuses from Stealth and aiming aren't halved.

Excellent point. Perhaps Flash Bangs aren't as overpowered as they have been portrayed, but instead is suffering from a math application issue. Maybe all that is needed is to clarify that Flash Bangs halve weapon skills after all other bonuses and penalties are calculated? This way, someone with a 25 Firearms facing a -15 penalty for range and Flash Bangs is seeing Flash Bangs reduce their chance of hitting from 10 to 5 (rather than seeing their range penalty reduce their chance from 13 to -2).

This way, there is no way Flash Bangs can result in skill chances below 1.

I like it! Just keep in mind that a skill can not be reduced below a character's luck (which I think is noted somewhere).

In addition, it should be noted that a Flash Bang only effects targets within the initial radius, and targets at the edge of the radius (or with Hit The Deck), cover permitting, should get an AGI check to get behind cover and avoid the effects of the Flash Bang.

Quick question: What is the AOE of a Knockout Gas Grenade? It isn't listed (I was thinking the same as a smoke bomb, with targets only getting affected if they are in the initial AoE).

Simply allow Earth Ponies to gain a few additional perks, AS FOLLOWS:

* For a bonus perk, an Earth Pony qualifies as a character 1/2 their current level, rounded down.
* Earth Ponies would gain these bonus perks at 6th level and every 5 levels thereafter (11, 16, 21, 26)(Counting as level 5, 8, 10, and 13)
* This nets them 5 lower-power shinies to contribute toward their specialty or diversity.

I believe this is a needed nudge into the running with the diversity of spells and pegasus tricks, isn't a huge change, and doesn't hurt the EP flavor or pigeonhole characters into one archetype. Thoughts?

Hrm... I like it. Noteably, I think this will bring some balance to Unicorns and Earth Ponies (with a change or two necessary to Unicorns yet to go) that will make the system more fun for all involved. Pegasi, though... they need a serious look at. I still don't feel a comfortable throwing a group of pegasus against a party, and that feeling only gets worse as the pegasi get higher in level. This also applies, to a lesser extant, to griffins.