Balance and Combat: Suggestion

[Karjus]

So, been playing around a bit with Combat and what is on offer currently. While it's hard to fully judge, due to it being a work in progress I've a few thoughts that may (or may not) make it a bit more interesting/fun.

I'm not a huge fan o balance in the current state. Not so much to do with the penalties/bonuses involved with it, but more the fact that it's pretty much impossible to really end up with Positive Balance. For the record, I've been using Feint/Combat Readiness, and intend to pick up Circle next level.

Despite those two abilities dedicated to just getting you to Positive Balance, it's almost impossible to get the minimum balance of 10 to use an ability like Mighty Blow on a single opponent. With Circle, I might be able to Feint/Circle/Mighty Blow consistently against a single opponent but against two there is no way you'll ever do anything beyond Attack (which at the moment is pretty viable).

A suggestion I'd have is to actually remove "Balance" from normal attacks/defenses. Maybe gain/lose a fraction of the current cost (1-2 points) on critical/overwhelming successes (or even tie it to abilities, a nimble fighter using a dodge to get into a better position, or more close-orientated ones using a good attack to push the gap with their opponent) and instead only have it increase/decrease through "Balance" maneuvers.

Have it continue to naturalize down to its base, so you can't just build up Balance for when you want it and move about, but in general I think this might make combat more interesting. A character will actively want to use balance abilities, see the benefit from them, and then be able to spend it on another beneficial ability instead of just accepting to be in the negative.

You could also gate certain Mob abilities behind Balance. You've reduced a Mobs balance down to -10, it can't use XYZ attack. It could continue to normally attack, and ideally, use abilities that would boost it's balance up to get in the position to use them as well as hinder you.

Knockdowns themselves could confer a Balance penalty. Being attacked by multiple mobs could still confer Balance penalties (though reduced still). Some mobs could have "Balance Resistance" with amount halved/quartered/etc. Stuff that might work on a human to put it off balance and at a disadvantage likely isn't going to have as much as an effect on a Drakolin.

Anyway, that's the long story. Short story, turn it into more of an expendable resource for abilities than simply making it an extra loss in combat akin to Energy (though I think that isn't the intention)

[Rias]

Balance definitely needs some tweaking. I think I'm going to go ahead and remove gains/losses on normal attacks, outside getting hit with a significantly damaging attack which will probably lower it. I think that alone will be a good start, so then like you said, it's a resource you generate and then use when you want to for special moves, rather than having to be constantly managed as it keeps decreasing from regular attacks.

I like the other ideas you've suggested, particularly limiting critter moves based on their balance. A certain critter could be particularly dangerous based on its moveset, but a smart warrior keeps hitting them with balance-reducing maneuvers so the critter can't ever use its powerful moves because it's too unbalanced. A neat way to "manage" critters in combat, and a fun role for someone in a group to take. "You keep them unbalanced, I'll dish out the damage." Stuff like that is awesome.

[Rias]

Some weapons that were not designed to be balanced weapons, such as pickaxes, mattocks, logging axes, sledgehammers, etc. will still cause balance loss to the attacker when used with regular attacks. Chained weapons also
cause a small amount of balance loss to the attacker when swung. Everything else should no longer cause any balance loss to the attacker on a regular attack.