I like your list, Baudolino05. It sure looks like you know your stuff when it comes to turn-based combat. : )
On a side note, one thing that I'd like to see tried would be an initiative system somehow similar to the one in heroes of might & magic 5: Basically, the higher your speed/initiative/whatever, the more often you take action. Of course, it shouldnt have side effects like shortening cds or be an OP stat that everyone would focus on, more an alternative playstyle/way to build a character.
The pnp Hero System ruleset use a system that more or less works like this: Each turn is divided in 12 rounds. Most characters have a speed of 2 and thus take action on round 1 & 6, a character with a speed of 3 takes action on rounds 1, 4 & 8. If several characters have action during the same round, then initiative determines which one plays first. Of course it is balanced by several factors like fatigue cost for everything, so characters with high speed get tired faster, and the Speed stat costs a lot more to upgrade than health points or strength. The obvious advantage of such a system is that it's good for simulating fast & nimble characters vs slow, mighty brutes, for instance.
I'm not claiming it would work in D:OS, or necessarly makes the game more interesting, but I think it's an approach that deserves being looked at.
Thanks for the compliment, Grokalibre.
As a rule I've nothing against systems where fast characters act more often than slow characters, but In my experience, when you couple this feature with AP you buy a ticket for unbalanced combats (see Wasteland 2 beta, for instance).
In a combat system with action points and personal initiative fast characters 1) act first; 2) have more action points, so more agency during their turn. If you give them also additional turns, it becomes EXTREMELY hard to balance the game.
This is not D%D do not suggest Daily limits or reagents on magic. as much as I like D&D that is not the way to do things. cool downs are fine just not a daily limit.
The way to fix some issues is of course to balance the damage a bit but to also add features to weapon based combat. Now I haven't played much of the game and what I have played was mostly mage since at this point I am not going to get into hybridization. But having weapons do non elemental conditions should be the advantage. bleed, poison, cripple, vulnerability. and have moves that synergise with them. say you have an attack that bleeds and then you have an attack that causes vulnerability/weakness (attacks do 50% extra damage) and then finish off with an attack that does 50% extra damage to bleeding targets.
Also weapons should have higher crit chances.
This is not D&D, so? Original Sin already has classic D&D features like attacks of opportunity and saving throws, why exactly daily limits should be a problem?
See, if you ask me, D&D is a clusterfuck of unbalanced, over-complicated and simply boring game mechanics, but it also does a couple of things in the right way, and preventing high level abilities spam is one of this things.
You can spend your whole life trying to balance a game, but a level 10 spell/ability will be always better then a level 5 spell/ability.
So, why on earth should I save my "Fire Armageddon" spell for an hard encounter when I can cast it on any unlucky goblin that crosses my way?
Cooldowns are not the answer to this question. They work fine in combat, NOT BETWEEN combats. To prevent high level abilities spam you can either 1) use more restrictive time limits (I'm not a big fan of this approach, but it could work) 2) use resource consumption (mana, reagents - which, by the way, would be hardly out of place in a game that claims Ultima VII as its main source of inspiration -, whatever...) 3) use trade-offs, my favorite approach (an health cost for high level spells/abilities, for instance).
PS: high critical chances just add more unpredictability to game. Hardly a tactical improvement.
