I have a rules suggestion, for a much maligned attribute.
Art of Distraction was utterly useless in the last game - I think it was used a grand total of twice; once by Rei to distract Usagi's friends after one of Herb's blunders, and once by Usagi to scam that carnival guy who took all of Makoto and Haruka's money.
The 'punish you' speeches also went out of style in a big way.
How about, then, when we make our pre-battle speeches, we can use Art of Distraction with them to give our enemies a penalty to their initiative?
I plan on making more use of AoD in non-combat situations, anyway (Rei never had much, but Usagi has plenty, which makes it more versatile), but I figure there should be at least some more tangible benefits, rules-wise, for it.
Okay, I'll wait for player imput before chiming in. Girls?
Seems reasonable.
Question, though. Would that stack if multiple senshi used it?
Obviously up to the GM, but personally I'd say no stacking of the effect (to get a worse penalty), but more senshi might be needed to effect larger groups of enemies, per the restriction on how many people you can distract per level of AoD.
QuoteArt of Distraction was utterly useless in the last game - I think it was used a grand total of twice; once by Rei to distract Usagi's friends after one of Herb's blunders, and once by Usagi to scam that carnival guy who took all of Makoto and Haruka's money.
Well, it's mostly because like some other attributes (example, Acrobatics) it's not too well defined as to what specific in-game effect it would have, more of a general description.
QuoteThe 'punish you' speeches also went out of style in a big way. How about, then, when we make our pre-battle speeches, we can use Art of Distraction with them to give our enemies a penalty to their initiative?
This was more because of the tone of the series rather than their uselessness. I sorta like the speeches, but they were completely out of sync with the tone of the game, so I just dropped them personally and only ever bothered if you guys bothered me about it, and even then I put a half-assed attempt. =p
QuoteI plan on making more use of AoD in non-combat situations, anyway (Rei never had much, but Usagi has plenty, which makes it more versatile), but I figure there should be at least some more tangible benefits, rules-wise, for it.
Overall, it doesn't really bother me if the rule gets put in or not.
Okay, I'm tossing this around. If you want to comment on it, do it tonight or tomorrow morning, as I plan to decide by then.
I'm willing to go with a -1 initiative mod, stacking up to -2 with more than 1 Senshi speeching. I'll draw up the exact rule an dhow it works shortly, but does anyone have comments on this?
(Sorry about the delay, I suck.)
-1 is pretty trivial.
The way I'd suggest it to work is with the target(s) making a mind check and being penalised by however much they fail - smart enemies aren't likely to be impressed by the speechifying, after all. It also works better to have the target roll than for us to roll against whatever the relevant AoD stat is (I don't have the book anymore to check), since our stats tend to suck except in our primary area. <_<
I'd also expect the effect to be based on the AoD level rather than number of senshi - a big speech from Moon with level 3 should be more effective than a "I'll punish you!" "Likewise!" from Venus and Jupiter, with a combined level of 1 in AoD.
I can understand you not wanting to make this powerful, but it'd only swing initiative on the first round of any battle, and considering I could get a decent level of EC or whatever instead of my points in AoD, and the kind of shit Rei got away with using EC in the last game, it doesn't seem too major.