RedScarf Tactics -- Game Rules, Looking for Feedback

Goes in correlation with my last post.
http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/4922/vansallywantstofight.jpg (Van is the one on the right)
This is how the project started out. Where I drew and stated character's in this style. When I work on a game I like to sketch out the characters before putting the numbers to them. It helps me think of their perks and weaknesses.

As the ruleset was nearing completion I started drawing more characters like this:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/1794/jereccofinal.jpg
Right now I'm not sure which direction I'm going in, but characters and the like would come last. What I like about what I wrote is that I can attach whatever I want to the game.

Not a priority over critiquing the rules, but I would like to know your opinions on which direction would be better for this type of game. With the first picture it'd be a more "friendly" cuter looking game, geared towards children - teenagers. The second picture would be more fire and brimstone, with demons, dragons, and the like going to war.

There are quite a few characters like that with the cuter style. Opinions were pretty much unanimous offline, so I'm going with that.

Right now there are about 10 or 11 characters in the game that have their abilities ready for play-testing, but I was in the process of condensing the amount they have before I posted here. Decided to go with four or five plus a passive.

Yeah, I was going to make the character stats card sized. The game is still in need of condensing, but I think I'm getting to the point where I'm happy enough to make more characters for it. As for the tokens it's just a personal decision. Things like damage tokens and character tokens I'd use of course, but nothing much more than that.

The biggest change in this set of rules is the exclusion of measuring, and implementing some of the suggestions I've gotten. I've yet to playtest this version, but I have another one with the measuring included. The biggest point of including a ruler was to make it so "skill shots" would have to be aimed and could miss. I'm still looking for a way to do the same on a grid without including too much randomization.

Objective
In Red Scarf, 2 players compete to build the better team and claim victory on the battlefield. The game comes with a cast of fighters, each with an array of unique abilities to let players fully customize their teams to fit their strategies. Create the perfect team and lay waste to your competition.

In battle each player has a pool of 9 lives, and lose a life every time one of their characters are knocked out. When a team has no more lives, the surviving team (even just one surviving member) stands victorious.

((Setup))
The Board
Characters move around a 15 x 15 gridded board that comes with the game, though more complex battlefields can be made. The board consists of the two Starting Rows on the last row of each opposing side where players arrange their teams before the game begins. The Starting Rows are also where the characters are placed on their next turn after being knocked out.

Characters are represented by their markers (flat tokens of varying shapes and sizes) and their stat cards (lists of their stats and available abilities.). Most tokens only take up 1 square, while larger characters would occupy multiple squares making them larger targets. For such characters 1 “square” of movement would be every square their marker take up. (Ex. A character with a marker occupying 4 squares would occupy 4 new squares on 1 unit of movement.)

Characters – Picking
Before the start of the game, a player chooses up to 4 characters to form a team, which they'll use to fight the other player. All of whom have 4 abilities, 1 passive ability, and a list of stats which govern their performance ingame. Players may choose to use pree-made teams, or create teams spontaneously. There is no obligation for players to share which characters they've picked until they place their makers on their respective Start Row. As such, a single character may appear in both teams.

Characters – Stats
Characters have various stats which represent their innate strengths and weaknesses. Understanding these stats will enable the player to choose the right character abilities for the job and create teams that are a force to be reckoned with. All stats are shown numerically.

Hit Points: How much damage a character can take before they are knocked out. There are several variations to damage, which we will cover later.

Mana: Function like Actions in that they are replenished at the start of each turn. Some abilities spend Mana in order to be used, as such some characters won't have a Mana stat because their abilities might not use Mana. When a character runs out of Mana on their turn they are unable to use anymore abilities until the start of their next turn.

Attack: How much damage a character deals per normal attack. A normal attack is when a character attacks another character “Adjacent” (one square) to them. Characters can only use their normal attack if they haven't already spent their Attack Action that turn.

Magic Attack: How much magic damage a character deals per attack. An Attack ability is required to use this stat.

Shield: How much damage is reduced from normal attacks. If an attack’s damage is less than a character's shield, only 1 point of damage is inflicted.

Magic Shield: How much damage is reduced from magic attacks. If a magic attack’s damage is less than character's magic shield, only 1 point of damage is inflicted.

Speed: How far a character can move per Action, measured in squares. Characters cannot occupy the same square as another character or a spawn (see Ability Effects) unless stated otherwise by an Ability.

Actions: How many Action Points a character use before their turn ends. Every character has 4 Actions which replenish at the start of each of their turns. Of these 4, only 1 may be used to use a normal attack (Attack Action) and 2 can be used for movement (Move Action). Spending both of a characters Move Actions exerts the character, preventing them from using their Attack Action that turn. Actions can be spent on as many Abilities as the player can afford (1 Action per Ability). Using an Attack Ability, though it only spends 1 Action, counts as an attack, and prevent the character from using their remaining Action as an Attack Action. If, however, an Ability specifies it's cost in Actions then using that Ability doesn't spend the 1 Action it would normally need to activate.

Characters (Stats) – Abilities

Every character has 4 abilities to choose from that represent their unique attacks and spells. There are two kinds of abilities: Attack abilities which replace the normal attack during a turn when used, and Effects which encompass a character’s array of skills that don’t count as attacks. Abilities that target characters require both characters to be adjacent to one another unless a range (measured in squares) is specified.

Abilities possess three unique stats of their own:

Cost: The points required for the character to use the ability. All Abilities spend 1 of the characters 4 Actions to use, however Abilities primarily spend Mana and might also spend HP. Some abilities have no cost to them aside from the 1 Action spent.

Cooldown: To prevent certain abilities from being used too frequently, or “spammed” they might have Cooldowns. Abilities with Cooldown cannot be used on the next turn after it is used, and only becomes availible on the start of the following turn.

Modifier: Shows the character stat use for the Ability (Attack / Magic Attack) and how much additional damage is added to the stat while attacking (ex. Fireball +1 Magic Attack, Magic Attack = 4. Damage = 5).

Passive: Passives technically do not count as Abilities, and aren't affected by anything that would normally target them. Passives are additional effects which function all the time without needing to be activated. Some Abilities work like Passive's, in that they do not need to be activated to function.

Terms
Certain terms are used to describe the effects and mechanics of Red Scarf Tactics and it is essential to understand them to play the game well:

Normal Attack / Attack normally: As mentioned before, a normal attack is when a character attacks another character adjacent to them without an Ability. Abilities can increase the power of a character's next normal attack, or multiple Attack Actions per turn.

Damage / Magic Damage: Two different types of damage caused by normal attacks or magic attacks (Abilities) respectively. Some Abilities may deal “bonus” damage or magic damage if certain conditions are met.

Knockout: When a character is knocked out by reducing their Hit Points to 0 their marker is removed from the board until the start of their next turn, where they are placed back on their player's Start Row with full HP. When a character is knocked out their player loses 1 of their 9 lives. The game can be lengthened or shortened by increasing or decreasing the number of lives assigned to a player.

Adjacent: Means to be directly next to another character, or 1 square away. Also mentioned, some characters may occupy more than 1 square with their character marker. What counts as being adjacent to them (regardless of their size) always applies as 1 square. Characters must be adjacent to one another to use their normal attack, or if the Ability they want to use doesn't specify range.

Exact/ Within: Keywords which determine how strict an ability’s requirements of range are. Abilities that use “Within X squares...” allow players to target anyone adjacent or within the specified range; whereas “Exactly X squares” means the player must always target characters in that range when using the Ability. Unlike "Within" Exact measurement must always use the fastest possible route when targeting characters.

Rounding: Some Abilities and effects require numbers to be rounded. In this event, all rounding is done to the nearest even number.

Target: Abilities will never say they “hit” characters without fail. Instead Abilities will “target” characters. Giving the target character the chance to avoid any effects by activating an Ability of their own. (Ex. “This Ability targets...” “If you are targeted...”)

Enemy: Characters and spawns with HP on the opposing players team are specified a “Enemies”.

Squares: A square is both 1 unit of movement and measures range.

Bonus: Some abilities inflict bonus damage or magic damage when certain conditions are met. Bonus damage is added to the total damage/magic damage before the target character's Shield or Magic Shield applies.

Ability Effects
Some Abilities inflict status effects on targets as well as doing damage, called Ability Effects.

DpT/ Damage per Turn: Effects that inflict damage on a character for a set amount of turns. Only the target character's turns count toward DpT. DpT is unaffected by Shield or Magic Shield.

Knockback / Thrown: An ability effect that causes the target character to be moved away a certain number of squares. Character's are always knocked back in a straight line and must occupy an empty space when they land. If there is another character on the last square, or if the character would be knocked off the board, then they land on the closest available square. Knockback always travels in a straight line, going "away" from the character knocked back the target character.

Pull: The opposite of Knockback. Pull moves characters in a straight line "towards" the character using an Ability with Pull. As with Knockback, a character cannot be Pulled into a square occupied by another character, and will instead occupy the next available square.

Immobilize: An ability effect that negates the target character's ability to move for a certain number of turns. The character can still be affected by other ability effects that force them to move, such as knockback.

Blind: An ability effect that negates the target character's use of their abilities for a certain number of turns. Abilities that need to be “channeled” can be stopped by blinding the channeling character before the turn where their ability takes effect.

Stun: An ability effect that negates the target character's use of attack abilities and stops them from using normal attacks for a certain number of turns.

Slow: An ability effect which reduces a character's max Speed for a certain number of turns.

Knockup: A powerful ability effect that Immobilizes, Stuns, and Blinds target characters with the trade off that they cannot be targeted by abilities or attacks. Knockup's can be used to temporarily remove certain characters from the fight, or make sure enemy abilities can't target them. Such as heals or buffs.

Paralyze: An ability effect similar to Knockup's which Stuns and Blinds target characters all at once. It is a rare ability effect with slightly more versatility than Knockup's.

Channeling: Some abilities require characters to spend a certain number of turns to channel, or prepare, in order to use them. Abilities that need to be channeled must always be used at the start of the character's turn and automatically ends that turn. The characters upcoming turns are then skipped until the turn where the ability takes effect.

Spawning: A minion or object that is put on the board through the use of an ability. Anything spawned will either have a certain amount of Hit Points (making them targetable for attacks and effects) or will be removed from the board after a certain period of time. Only the player that used the spawning ability can control whatever is spawned, during their turns. Unless stated otherwise, players cannot spawn anything on top of another character, or another spawn.

((Core Mechanics))
Starting the Game
Gameplay is divided into two phases: a single Turn and an entire Round. Turns make up an individual character’s turn whereas an entire round progresses after every character has had a turn. After player's teams have been made and characters have been set in their respective Starting Rows, players must determine which character takes their turn first. Instead of having players go back and forth acting out a whole team’s actions at a time, each round starts with the “fastest” character and goes down until the round ends with the “slowest” character, regardless of which team said characters are on.

The fastest character is determined by a character’s Speed (“faster” characters have higher Speed). Any conflicts are settled with a coin toss at the start of each new round. Ability effects that reduce Speed or stop movement all together will change turn order. Any character on the board that cannot move will always take their turn last, and in the event where that applies to multiple characters the character that would normally be “faster” would take their turn first.

Combat
Combat is an integral part of the game's mechanics and is handled very simply. Attacking can be done using an Attack Ability or using a character's normal attack. The first step to attacking is to declare an attack and pay its cost. When using a normal attack the cost is usually1 Action, while an Ability will always specify a cost (if it has one) in addition to the Action spent for using an Ability. Normal attacks always target adjacent characters unless an effect which increases range is active. Abilities offer a wider variety of ranges and can possibly target multiple characters at once.

There are two types of attacks, as mentioned before. Magic Attacks which use Attack Abilities and a character's normal attack powered by the Attack stat. Which deal Magic damage and regular damage respectively. When attacking damage is only applied to the character after it is reduced base on the target character's Magic Shield and Shield Stat. For example, if a character would take 3 damage and they have a Shield stat of 1, they would instead take 2 damage. Damage or Magic damage can never be reduced to 0, no matter how good the target character's defenses are. If it would, damage applied to their HP would always be 1.

When a character loses all of their Hit Points they are knocked out and consume one of the player's lives, and are removed from the board. At the start of their next turn they are placed back on their players Start Row.

I know what you mean. Originally I wanted to make it pen and paper but I lowered the numbers on stats so that I could use counters/tokens. Like, little chips in numerals of 1's, 5's and 10's.