Soul: A new mechanic

[SentinalBlade]

[DarthPaul]

Any of the resurrection spells should take away one soul and give it to the other player.

[Skip Sandwich]

sooo... its like life points from the Saga series? awesome. will it work like lp in saga does? by that I mean that attacks damage hp normally, but critical hits, and hits when your hp are depleted each take 1 lp away.

[The Damned]

^ Nice to see someone else played Saga Frontier besides Zozma and I because that's also the first thing I thought of.

The idea could be quite interesting provided the amount of things that directly affect Soul aren't too. From the initial description, am I incorrect in saying that once you Soul is depleted, you want people to Crystalize instantly Sentinal?

That's the part I have a problem with it. If it's just the usual KO count, then I don't really have a problem since that's being rather generous.

(Similarly, if it's the above, then I'm against spells taking up your Soul outside of maybe the resurrection one that darthpaul mentioned.)

Regardless, I will now keep an eye out for how this goes since I feel that Saga Frontier was vastly underrated, so any pseudo-follow-up mechanic should be interesting.

[Shade]

So this makes resurect spells useless?

[Vanya]

Very interesting idea, dude! This could make a great new mechanic for the game. I'll also be keeping an eye on this. ^_^

[Skip Sandwich]

well, for those that have never played the Saga games, i'll try and explain the full mechanics of Life points and HP and how they work (in the Saga games) just so those people have a frame of reference.

All characters have a reserve of Life Points (LP), this number varies from character to character, but is usually somewhere between 4 and 10, (in the Romancing Saga remake for the Ps2, the inclusion of spells that use LP in addition too or instead of Spell Points has some characters with upwards of 20 LP). LP do not increase as a character gains levels, nor do they reset between battles (unlike hp, which in the saga games recovers fully between fights), the only way to recover LP is to stay at an Inn/some other recovery device (FFT lacks that common RPG feature, so for our purposes, LP and HP will recover between fights)

HP works as normal until a character reaches 0 hp, at which point they are 'wounded' and lose 1 LP, futher attacks to their defenseless bodies deal 1 additional LP of damage each, when LP reach 0, that character is dead and gone. Critical hits also deal 1 LP of damage, regardless of the target's current HP level.

[SentinalBlade]

Instant crystilization. yes.

This started as a small idea to get rid of cheap pheonix downs, and give staying allive and protecting units more of a priority than just rezzing them before theyre CT goes to crystal/treasure.

This will also help battles be more lengthy and challenging

[DarthPaul]

Yes but the difficulty will have to stay close to vanilla as you will have lots of problem sandbagging if everyone gets onehitted.

[Shade]

Dude this makes battles alot shorter then they should.

I mean some one go's does charges and magics on someone. first one kills 3 next ones take you three souls.
Or is it so that it will restore hp to full?

[SentinalBlade]

You can only damage one soul with each attack.

[kinneas123]

Leet Saga Frontier reference and all around excellent idea.

[The Damned]

Instant crystilization. yes.

This started as a small idea to get rid of cheap pheonix downs, and give staying allive and protecting units more of a priority than just rezzing them before theyre CT goes to crystal/treasure.

This will also help battles be more lengthy and challenging

Hmm...I fear that it will have the opposite effect, though of course testing is needed.

I'm curious, though. Are just having it be 3 because of the way the "Death" counter is in vanilla? Cause it seems like LP should be (a lot) more, especially if you're going to have some abilities use it up.

Also, I'm curious as to how you are going to be handling multi-hit techniques like the Triple Thunder or Truth or Un-Truth. Are you just not going to have any?

Finally, doesn't this kind of screw over Undead as both as a status and a type of monster?

[Zuka]

I don't think instant crystalization will lengthen the battles, I have to agree with the majority in saying that it will be more likely to drastically reduce the length of a battle, and when you consider the fact that these are characters we have worked many hours to level up, I think you're likely to simply tick-off most gamers. I mean, I've introduced a lot of people to tactics and the one complaint I get from ALL of them is that they don't like permanently losing a character. Now I have no issues with the way tactics can permanently take away your hours and hours of hard work leveling because you're too tarded to keep a healer around, but I don't think making it easier for characters to die permanently will help anything to be honest.

[Shade]

This get really backfired.
This will make every fight short.
This will make easy crystalizations.
This will make people mad.


Anyone can do charges if you have noticed.
You can make some uber strong spell at someone and lock at the player boom 0 hp then someone have's 2 swords your souls ar reduced to 1 then just one more guy to finish you...

I just don't think it is a good idea.

[Vanya]

I think it would work out better if each soul was a full charge of HP.
That way you still have a good chance to keep your unit alive.
And then have some uber powerful skills that can destroy a single soul at a time, but have heavy costs to learn and cast. One type of uber skill can have an MP cost of 99. Another type can cost you a soul of your own to take another's.

I'd also recommend having an expensive skill that can bring a unit back from being crystalized to offset the risk of losing a character permanently.

[Zuka]

I think Vanya makes some good points, though I'm not sure about bringing someone back from a crystal, I like the fact that if someone dies they die, no coming back, I don't think it's a bad idea at all to make a soul equal your entire HP, I usually end up disappointed cause killing my opponents is too easy, it might be nice to have to kill them 3 times before they die...

[SentinalBlade]

Unfortunatly the game doesnt have the code stored ot bring back a char. once he is a crystal, his data is wiped.

I agree, after some thought, crystilzation will not be made into instant. Soul will also be bumped up to 5 charges, but id like some opinion on this, as it is obviously going ot make some battles just long and drawn out if you have someoen with item...as once your soul takes damage your still allowed to restore hp.

Im also editing the first post.

[Zuka]

I thik it's a good idea to boost the ammount of soul a character has, I would work soul like Wound points from the D20 version of Star wars, they're almost like extra HP, For example, instead of soul being one full charge of HP, you could say that when HP runs low, one soul will restore you to 25% or something, and from there you could run with it. The trick I think is coming up with a way for characters to be killed quickly, cause yeah otherwise battles will take forever, I think if perhaps you're HP was reduced to 0 you should get a counter representing your remaining soul, one that drops each round just like your normal countdown, the trick woudl be for players to hit critical, but never die, like when you hit 10% of your max HP your Soul triggers, it spends a charge and you regain 25% health, however if you skip past the 10% mark all-together and wind up dead, than you have a boosted 5 round counter (assuming you haven't spent any soul to heal with) before you're permanently gone... then again, so does your enemy...