Ability idea dump

[SolaceAvatar]

Probably more useful for UMCs, but these are generally food for thought, as well as feasibility and whether it's been done before. Just ideas that have been rattling around in my head, anyone who likes them, cool~
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Nightcast/daycast: An ability that can only be used a certain time of day.

'Attacks' that target allies: So you can have more control over how much healing/buffing units get, since nearby units can be between 1-6. Healing 8 damage and 48 damage a turn are very different.

Similarly, 'attacks' that target empty spaces: Summons, mines, healing areas... terrain modification?

Using "strikes" to instead denote how many times an attack can be used; every use decrements it by one and it can't be used at 0. Could be recharged by money, resting (possibly at a village), at a certain time of day... or never, ala AW: Days of Ruin.

Villages that illuminate (or 'deluminate') nearby spaces if they're controlled... possibly you can choose which.

"Very lawful" / "Very Chaotic" units, which are abnormally affected by time of day.

Attacks that override the unit's regular lawfulness setting (basic attack that's neutral, special attack that's "very lawful", ect.)

"Auras" that affect more than one space away from the unit, probably should only be minor effects since they affect so much area; 2 healing/damage, illuminate/deluminate, leadership, ect.

Unit that spawns a unit in it's place when it dies; or activates an attack when it dies.

Anti-Swarm (Rage?): Attack that gets stronger, the lower the unit's hp is. I'd probably recommend it going toward a theoretical 2x damage at 0 hp.

Unit that leaves a trail behind it; 'scent', wall, fire, poison, temp river or unwalkable/unpassable...

Bridges or gates that allow only your units to pass when captured (or impose a movement penalty against enemies), or trigger some positive or negative effect elsewhere on the map (possibly controlled manually by the captor).

Mini-regen: Kinda surprised that most everything has regen-8. Weaker levels of regen would not only be less powerful, but also allow the units to interact with healers and towns, which are kinda pointless to things that regen now.

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Aaand... that's everything I can remember. Please post critique, your own ideas, or whatever~

[Scatha]

To my mind these all look kind of plausible, but I particularly like the "anti-swarm" idea. I'd think this would want to affect damage rather than number of strikes (probably what you intended, but just checking). Mechanically first strike would help it a lot, too, but that might be harder to work flavour-wise.

[Cloud]

Nightcast/daycast: An ability that can only be used a certain time of day.

Unit that spawns a unit in it's place when it dies; or activates an attack when it dies.

Anti-Swarm (Rage?): Attack that gets stronger, the lower the unit's hp is. I'd probably recommend it going toward a theoretical 2x damage at 0 hp.

Mini-regen: Kinda surprised that most everything has regen-8. Weaker levels of regen would not only be less powerful, but also allow the units to interact with healers and towns, which are kinda pointless to things that regen now.

All CABD. Some nice ideas though. Mucrawlers do the second and there is a 'lastbreath' event for the latter part of that too.

"Very lawful" / "Very Chaotic" units, which are abnormally affected by time of day.

Easy to do, and when the Vaeringjar eventually get released the latter will be on the Ulfrsklat.

The others probably CABD.

[bladescape]

Has anyone done the opposite of healing?
I.E.4 damage to surrounding units?

[Ken_Oh]

Has anyone done the opposite of healing?
I.E.4 damage to surrounding units?

The Abilities Era I made has an ability that both blocks units in villages from healing and causes 8 damage every round to adjacent units (both friendlies and enemies).

[Gambit]

We've already had three threads like this and they all ended up behind Noy's shed. xD

Also yes bladescape the lizard riders in GEB have a stench ability that will do -7 to adjacent units.

[Neoskel]

Out of curiosity (since people are assessing the validity of the ideas here), is there a way to get a unit to unload all of it's attacks at once? For example a elf fighter attacking an orc archer doing 4 attacks, then the orc (if it survives) retaliates with it's 2 attacks. On defense and against first strike the opponent does one attack, then the unit with this ability does all its attacks, then the other unit does its remaining attacks.

Another weird idea is a unit which has different stats at different times of day: different health, different attack damage. The basic idea is a shadow that 'stands up' to fight so when the shadow is longer the fighting form is larger and more powerful. So it's a unit with more health and damage at dawn and dusk, and less at noon and midnight when the lightsource is at its peak.

In addition to the previous, is it possible to force a unit sprite to face one direction or the other except when attacking? That way the shadow can point to the west at dawn and to the east at dusk.

Just a couple ideas i've had kicking around. I'd like to know if they are doable and if so, how.

[solsword]

Meh, pretty much anything is *possible*. I can think of ways to do all of those things, but they'd take quite a bit of WML to implement. In some cases, you wind up having to re-implement, in WML core game functionality, like an attack. But it definitely can be done.

Basically, units can have events attached to them, so a unit ability can do anything you can do in a WML event. You could give a unit an attack that ends the scenario in victory or defeat. You could give a unit an attack that plays a cutscene. You can give a unit an ability that turns the ground under it into a village every turn, or that makes any unit that attacks it into the new leader for the enemy team. You really can do pretty much anything with abilities. The only question is how complex it is, and the answer to that is often "very."

[drachefly]

You could give a unit an attack that plays a cutscene.

We're no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do I...

[solsword]

You could give a unit an attack that plays a cutscene.

We're no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do I...

<offtopic> So, Neoskel. You don't mind if I use that disco troll of yours, do you? </offtopic>

[Zakalwe]

A few more ideas:

Haste: Unit can move (and/or attack) on the same move it is recruited or recalled. - To use this in a balanced faction it would have to be an expensive scout unit or some other niche unit. Can make it very dangerous to get close to the faction leader in games.

Brain drain: Weapon special - each strike takes away 1 exp from the victim. Probably works best with a floor so exp can't go below 0. Maybe gets +1 HP healed for each exp 'stolen' in this way. Unit should probably have 1-3 strikes. 4 or more strikes would make a real game-changer and should probably be really expensive (like horseman or gryphon rider).

[Gambit]

Zakalwe uses bump. It's super effective.

Why not make your own thread in WML workshop if you plan to code these? And if you don't plan to code/use these then what good are they?

[Rya]

'Attacks' that target allies: So you can have more control over how much healing/buffing units get, since nearby units can be between 1-6. Healing 8 damage and 48 damage a turn are very different.

It'd be funny if you could attack your own units to level them.

[TheBladeRoden]

Here's a few abilities I've wanted to add but haven't coded.

Hit and Run: Unit can still move after it has attacked. Attacking does have a 1 or 2 MP cost though.

Spread damage: Attack has a 70% to hit, but the amount of damage inflicted is lowered by the defense rating of the terrain. So 10 damage attack against 60% defense will only do 4 damage.

Reflect Damage: When attacked, this unit reflects a percentage of the damage endured back on to the inflictor. Perahaps for balancing it will only do it for the first battle each turn.

Suicidal: The unit destroys itself when performing this attack. More useful for a cheap unit.

Immobilize: A variation of Slow. The victim cannot move at all for the next turn, but still does full damage.

Bind: The reverse of Immobilize. The victim can move at full speed, but its attacks do zero damage.

[Xudo]

Villages that illuminate (or 'deluminate') nearby spaces if they're controlled... possibly you can choose which.
...
Mini-regen: Kinda surprised that most everything has regen-8. Weaker levels of regen would not only be less powerful, but also allow the units to interact with healers and towns, which are kinda pointless to things that regen now.

I like it. And it's easy to do, I think.
More than that, if I find way to define poison damage, I'll could create mini-poison. Or poison to movement points. or to xp...
This all are un-KISS, but it's good for RPG's.

Reflect Damage: When attacked, this unit reflects a percentage of the damage endured back on to the inflictor. Perahaps for balancing it will only do it for the first battle each turn.

Some static amount of damage without type will be better. For ex. based on lvl.