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[BFEL]

So those who follow the anime or gaming block threads might have seen me trying to rework Zanzetkuken's Dragonball system into something that I can work with.

This thread is to work out the balance issues and such of the mechanics I have in mind, as well as open discussion for interested parties.
Note this is NOT the game I'm planning to run, this is at best a group of tests between premade characters.

Currently the mechanics I have in mind for the fights themselves are thus:
'Combat takes place on a 18 square grid, 9 for each side. This allows a simple modeling of range, as well as flight dimensions. Range dimensions are "close" "mid" and "far", while elevation dimensions are "ground" "low" and "high"
'Melee combat takes place when both parties are in their respective "close" square, and the same elevation square. All other combat is ranged, with greater distance on both planes making for longer range. (perhaps basic ki blasts, and some full techniques will have decreased damage with range?)
'Moving from one square to another is an action, as is attacking. Since different characters can end up with different speeds, thus having more actions, this opens up a strategic depth.

'There should be no dice rolls in combat. Combat is based around Power Level, derived from ki.
'Attacks follow a basic rule of Attacker Power Level minus Defender Power Level equals damage inflicted. Fully negated attacks still deal one damage.
'However, most techniques have modifiers to said power levels. Basic attacks have a modified power level of .1x, while a technique such as Kamehameha starts at a 1x, with opportunity to reach much higher multipliers.
'Defensive modifers exist as well. The most basic ones are Aura, which is passive, and Dodge, which expends an action.
'Aura, at first level doubles effective Defense level for the turn, the next level is 3x, then 4x, etc. This passively defends against all attacks in a turn, but expends stamina each turn, with higher levels draining more per turn. (I'm thinking 2 stamina drain per "level" of aura, per turn)
'Dodge fully negates an enemy attack action, and take no damage. However, this expends more stamina then Aura, and only affects one attack. It can be used multiple times in a round. (5 stamina per dodge to start with, we'll see how that balances)

'All attacks drain stamina as well, basic attacks use only 1 stamina each, while techniques drain a base of 10, with more powerful techniques with more modifiers draining more.
'Starting characters begin with 25 stamina, and regain 3 per turn. This can be trained in the full game, but for now we'll leave this be till we figure out a decent balance.
'Starting characters begin with 100 health

So, this SHOULD allow fights to happen without GM input. That will be a godsend for the full game if I'm right about that.
Anyway, I'll roll up a few default characters for people to fight with, then people can start challenging each other and we can see how fast the balance breaks down.
Also note, not working racial traits and such into the mix right now. This is a pure combat system test. All characters are assumed to have flight and energy sensing (these are not things all classes start with in the full game, note)

Character Pool
Low Level
Name: Food Pun
Power Level: 4000
Health: 100
Stamina: 25max +3pt
Speed: 3
Techniques: "Energy Gun Wave: 2x power level ranged blast"

Name: Windpipe
Power Level: 4000
Health: 100
Stamina:25max +3pt
Speed: 3
Techniques: "Nail Gun: 1x power level ranged blast, piercing(halves enemy defense calculation, applies after modifiers such as aura)"

A battle between those two should let us see what two equivalent characters look like, as well as tell us if the piercing technique modifier has any difference to just putting an extra power level on something

Name: Middle Ground
Power Level: 2500
Health: 100
Stamina: 25 +3
Speed: 3
Techniques: "Energy Gun Wave: 2x power level ranged blast"

Name: Butt Monkey
Power Level: 1000
Health: 100
Stamina: 25 +3
Speed: 3
Techniques: "Energy Gun Wave: 2x power level ranged blast"

And these thrown in the mix to see how quickly battles between non-equivalent opponents go. Mostly testing what difference in Power Level turns things into single stroke battles. Don't be afraid to pit these two against the more powerful opponents. ITS FOR SCIENCE!

I'll add more once we have a few battles happen.

[BFEL]

Reserved for stuff

[Supernerd]

Personally, I don't think precise numbers are the best way to run a Dragonball game. In the Dragonball universe the only purpose that power levels serve is to demonstrate how meaningless they are! Instead I would recommend basing it primarily on who comes up with the best strategy. None of the best Dragonball fights just came down to brute force and number comparison.

Frieza was fought by distracting him while the other guys collected the Dragon Balls.
The Cell fight took the opposite approach, with Cell starting out fairly weak and trying to gain power.
And I didn't even fully understand what was going on with Majin Buu.

[BFEL]

The precise numbers are there so that people can DEVELOP clever strategies, instead of relying on dice rolls and such.

This is just hammering out the mechanics behind basic combat, which is kinda important for Dragonball.
There's also gonna be a huge customization aspect to this, and a clever build is going to be dominant in this game.

Note that what's shown here is focused almost entirely on the Ki/power level side of things. This is where your attack and defense moves come from, but there's also a whole other system I'm working up based around the more esoteric support stuff called Mystic levels. Mystic levels train differently then power level, so focusing on one or the other will make a marked difference on fighting style. Mystic techniques include everything from flight and energy sensing to growing senzu beans to CREATING DRAGONBALLS. They also have marked effects on combat, namely technique creation is innately tied to how far you are in mystic level. Specifically the more you focus on that instead of MOAR POWAH the more effects you can add to your moves, from upping their damage modifier to the piercing thing I put on Windpipe to Homing and much more.

So TLDR, the strategy is gonna come from the players themselves, and how they train their character.

So like I noted in the thread title, this is very much a down and dirty, nuts and bolts test of combat. With all the really cool stuff stripped away so I can get a good reading on how good the base idea is.

[RAM]

Have you thought about scale differences? Someone might have a greater melee range using a weapon or amorphous limbs. Or maybe someone just decides to go kaiju... It sounds as though you have to get close enough for your opponent to attack before you are allowed to attack, regardless of your own reach, which seems odd. Although I could see it being possible to melee attack someone's limbs if they are attacking you with them, catching someone's elastic fist and throwing them with it sounds like a fairly typical manoeuvre...

How does the theory of dodging big attacks and counter-attacking weak attacks work when people can see previous posts?

Have you thought about attacks with long charge-up times?

How frequently should participants be willing to post? I would not want to claim a character just and then not update quickly enough...

How is the grid labelled?

[BFEL]

Have you thought about scale differences? Someone might have a greater melee range using a weapon or amorphous limbs. Or maybe someone just decides to go kaiju... It sounds as though you have to get close enough for your opponent to attack before you are allowed to attack, regardless of your own reach, which seems odd. Although I could see it being possible to melee attack someone's limbs if they are attacking you with them, catching someone's elastic fist and throwing them with it sounds like a fairly typical manoeuvre...

I did think about this a bit. The idea is that "mid" range combat involves the type of things you mentioned. Everything from power poles to namekian limb stretches.
Those who have basic ki blasts unlocked (one of the first things you can unlock with mystic training) can use basic attacks at long range as well.
As of now these are mechanically identical to basic punches and kicks though, with only the range differing.
It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that someone without these things would be unable to strike back without moving closer though. So it should definately provide an advantage.

Have you thought about attacks with long charge-up times?

Such attacks would require multiple actions to use. That is pretty much what I have so far. Should allow for decent balancing, once the numbers get sorted out.

How is the grid labelled?

I intended for it to be easy to visualize without having to do anything like that, but for a basic rundown its 9 mirrored tiles, the x axis is "close" "mid" and "far" and the y axis is "ground" "low" and "high"
Opponents are more or less counted to always be facing each other, so it looks like this:

h---|---
l ---|---
g---|---
 fmccmf

How does the theory of dodging big attacks and counter-attacking weak attacks work when people can see previous posts?

That...does throw a wrench in things, admittedly. This is the kind of thing testing was/is supposed to figure out
Since the second poster would have an advantage in seeing stuff coming perhaps the quicker poster should receive a bonus of some kind? Extra moves? I'm...honestly not sure what would be fair here. Which is why this is a brainstorming/test thread.

How frequently should participants be willing to post? I would not want to claim a character just and then not update quickly enough...

Right now anything should be fine. Unless you plan to throw your computer across the ocean in between posts, I think other testers won't mind a bit of a wait. Part of the test is to see pretty much exactly this.

This is a slightly hurried first draft of the system, so what happens in the tests will influence what gets changed and improved.
Also I appreciate these questions RAM, this is pretty much exactly the kind of thing I wanted from the Brainstorming portion of this thread.

[RoseHeart]

I just want to make a small confession. Ten or fifteen years ago I was obsessed with this little flash game for dbz. It was a simple four square grid. 2 ground and 2 air. It was a game of poker, you set in what kind of blast you will do and where to aim it. Or some would have a wider range. Or you made a move. If you moved into their Square you initiated a melee combat and you do the most damage and take the least. So simple.

[RAM]

I would be happy to just use spoilers and the honour system.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

transparent

or something would be required to stop accidents... Some sort of bonus for posting first would help account for ne'er-do-wells but I wouldn't want to be the poor Frieza-henchman number three responsible for balancing that...

P.S.
 I know basically nothing about Super...

...

...

I suppose that I may as well take Burter Moonkey! (I couldn't go in with that name, monkeys are mad overpowered!)

[BFEL]

Actually that's a pretty good idea with the spoilers. I was sorta thinking of just using the honour system before but couldn't think of a way to make it fair.

[BFEL]

Something else I thought of while thinking of the charged attack question you asked RAM.
I have the multipliers for techniques set up and wasn't sure how to balance it. Now I'm thinking that those multipliers should represent levels of charge, each taking an action.
Perhaps even make a mystic skill where you can more or less infinitely charge things for 4-5 times the action cost to model things like the Special Beam Cannon vs. Raditz and the Spirit Bomb.

Also BUMP.

[BlitzDungeoneer]

...so, is this still a thing that's alive? I've been gone from B12 for a while, so I didn't notice when this was first posted, unfortunately.

If it is, I'll go with Windpipe I guess.

[BFEL]

Sorta? I've been kinda waiting for some people to run a test fight, but it didn't seem to happen. Been thinking of maybe throwing it onto the TFS subreddit since that would have more interested parties, as Bay seems to just give zero shits about Dragon Ball, at least in the FG&RP section.

[SOLDIER First]

I like dragon ball ):
It's just the RP's I've been in have died really quick