Wednesday 27 March 2019

Status Effects as Choices

While riding my bike today it occurred to me that maybe combat status effects would be more interesting if they were always designed to offer players a choice. For example, instead of "Stunned: miss one round", you could have "Shaken: -2 to all rolls until you take one round to clear your head." That leaves the player with something to think about and do on each combat round.

Below is a table that cross-combines different negative effects to produce various choices.


Effect
Damage
Penalty to rolls
Drop an item
Slowed
Miss a turn
Acid on you: Lose 1hp per round until you take a turn to brush it off.
Shaken: -2 to all rolls until you take a round to clear your head.
Pack torn: Drop a random item each round until you take a turn to tie it back up.
Weighed down: Weird heavy jelly stuck to you. Slowed by 30’ until you take a turn to wipe it off.
Damage

Sucking wound: Take action carefully (-2 to rolls) or forcefully (lose 1d4 hp). Effect continues until you take 10 minutes to bandage yourself.
Heat Metal: All metal items you carry grow red-hot. Drop them or take 1d4 damage per round.
Iron Brambles: You got iron brambles stuck all over you. Move slowly (30’ max) or take 1d6 damage. Take 10 minutes to carefully unwrap yourself.
Penalty to rolls


Wood Growth: All wooden items you carry begin growing green shots. Drop them or take -2 cumulative penalty to all rolls.
Inner Ear Disruption: Sonic attack has wrecked your sense of balance. You can move or you can take an action, but not both in the same round. Ends after 10 minutes of rest.
Drop an item



Heavy Metal: All metal items you carry become progressively heavier. Drop them or be slowed by 60’. (LotFP encumbrance: any regular-sized metal item becomes an oversized item; any oversized metal items add double to encumbrance.)


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