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Classical Element Combination Powers

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Thu, 07/31/2014 - 17:30
Toa Lewa
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I have been working on a war/civilization-building game called Creature Clash – War of the Elements. The board is an island made up of modular hex tiles (think Settlers of Catan or Terra Mystica). During the game, players will take control of different types of terrain and build an army composed of five classical elements and their combinations.

The classical elements are:

Fire
Water
Air
Earth
Aether

The combinations I have in the game are:

Steam
Lava
Lightning
Light
Dust
Ice
Void
Plant
Darkness
Metal

In a previous forum topic, I got some suggestions on what the special powers should be for the base elements. It was suggested that fire can do area damage by attacking two adjacent hexes at the same time, earth can tunnel into and attack other earth spaces on the board, air can fly to any player controlled space, water can attack any space on the coast, and Aether can reroll attacks. Those were the suggestions for the base elements, but I would like to get some suggestions for the combinations. Do you have any suggestions for special abilities for the list of combinations?

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Thu, 07/31/2014 - 18:40
#1
X3M
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I got some

Let me know if you find something useful.

Steam
Clouding vision, thus letting opponents miss an attack.

Lava
Burns for a longer time. 2 rounds after an attack?

Lightning
Make things stick together with static/magnetic or melting. I don't know :D.

Light
Blinding vision, thus letting opponents miss an attack.

Dust
Blinding vision, thus letting opponents miss an attack. Perhaps someone can think of 3 fundamental differences between the 3; Steam, Light and Dust.
Although, Dust might slow down an opponent.

Ice
An extra help for moving over the water. A temporary extra hexagon? Just like Ice man from "Spider man and friends". Or use it as a slippery effect on opponents. Maybe adding a little bit more speed with a random effect too.

Void
Might let the attack of an opponent disappear completely.
And perhaps letting it return to be used against the attacker. It could also serve as creating voids that are linked. Thus creating new "stargate" paths.

Plant
Hmmm, grow over canyons? Creating new paths by growing?
Of course, fire and lava can destroy these.

Darkness
If you have some sort of nightfall, Darkness could go instantly anywhere. But any of the vision blocking abilities would be of no use against a being in Darkness.
And Darkness will not be stopped by a void.

Metal
Well, could guide lightning. Store it. Storing it until, returning the favour. Just like the void. But this time you can keep saving up into one attack. The void might have several different attacks. Or you can only use an attack or use a pathway with the void.

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Thu, 07/31/2014 - 21:30
#2
dnddmdb
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What's the Combat System like?

It's a little hard to come up with more abilities unless we knew the combat system. Maybe some vague bonuses could be:

Steam--Damages just by moving into an area, without attacking.
Lava--Flows together. Can leave hexes to move into adjacent hexes that are being attacked.
Lightning--Move and attack at same time? Like, can move into a hex, attack it, then move out.
Light--Can't be outnumbered. If there are 3 units in a hex, only 3 units can move in to attack.
Dust--Can redirect attacks to adjacent hexes.
Ice--Keeps enemies from fleeing hexes.
Void--Can't be attacked with special powers (water could only attack it traditionally).
Plant--Can remove terrain? Terraform it so it's covered in plants and doesn't give benefits.
Darkness--Needs to be outnumbered to kill--fear effect.
Metal--Harder to kill. More hits to take out a single unit?

Maybe you could make specific landforms that can exist on the modular board. Like tokens that represent Volcanoes or such. These would make more possibilities that the specific types can interact with.

If you wanted to keep up the mobility theme of the first 4 elements, I don't know how many more movement-like possiblities there are.

Also, air seems overpowered compared to earth or water.

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Fri, 08/01/2014 - 13:25
#3
Toa Lewa
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Combat System and Abilities

dnddmdb wrote:
It's a little hard to come up with more abilities unless we knew the combat system.

The combat system is pretty simple. You just compare the attacker's attack value to the defender's defense value. If the attack value is less than the defense value, the attack fails. If the attack value is equal to or greater than the defense value, the attacker rolls a die. If the roll is a 1 or 2, the attack is a miss. If the roll is a 2 or 4, it is a hit. If the roll is a 5 or 6, the roll is a critical hit. The damage formula is as follows: damage dealt = attack value - defense value + 1. A critical hit doubles the damage. Once a unit's HP reaches zero, the unit is removed from the board.

dnddmdb wrote:
Also, air seems overpowered compared to earth or water.

It may seem that way, but I don't think it is. Air has special movement power, but it doesn't have advanced attacking power. Air can only use its special ability to move to hexes owned by the player. In addition, there has to be a direct line of controlled spaces between one space and the other for air to move there. It's kind of like a free move in Risk. If there is a hex on one side of the board that is surrounded by enemy controlled hexes, air would not be able to move to or from that space.

Also, I believe many of the abilities will be able to be countered by utilizing an element or combination's weakness. If a player is specializing in air and abusing the power, the other player can spawn lots of fire creatures (one of air's weaknesses) to keep the air units in check. Of course, I'll have to playtest this and see what happens.

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Sat, 08/02/2014 - 16:54
#4
Toa Lewa
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Seasons

X3M wrote:
Darkness
If you have some sort of nightfall, Darkness could go instantly anywhere. But any of the vision blocking abilities would be of no use against a being in Darkness.
And Darkness will not be stopped by a void.

Nightfall. That is a good idea! Nightfall could grant modifiers to others as well. For example, plant could be weak during night. Now that you mentioned nightfall, it started making me think about seasons as well. For example, plant could be really strong in the summer and really weak in the winter. Ice could be strong during winter and weak in the summer.

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