Concept: Battle Armour (Survival/Defense Set)

[MetaVileTerror]

Prompted by the other recent thread, I was reminded of the set which I drafted up for one of my players during the homebrew tabletop City of Heroes game I ran a few years back.  They wanted to play a sort of mundane "Iron Man" character, who wore a suit of prototypical power armour.  They had a lot of input on the direction they wanted the set to go and inspired some ideas in me which I hadn't really thought of for Survival/Defense sets before.

I'd like to share a variation of that set with you folks here, rebranded as Battle Armour with the specific intent as to decouple the concept from a strictly technological origin.  Visually, the set would require some new assets, but existing assets could be recycled to reduce workload and improve feasibility.  Ideally, there would be at least three sets of visuals to choose from (like how Spines has Metal Spike, Crystal Shards, etc.), including Technological, Magical, and Organic.

 

The gameplay style for the set is "The best Defense is an Offensive Overkill," and plays similarly to Fiery Aura, utilizing damage output as a means to both draw aggro and combat enemies.  The trade-off being that the set would not have the same survivability of most other sets in its category.  The set would be available for Tankers, Brutes, Scrappers, Stalkers, and Sentinels, with the order and magnitude of the various Powers depending on the Archetype.

 

Thematically, the most obvious use for the set would be with the Tech-based visuals, giving players an opportunity to play as characters that allude to the likes of Iron Man or plenty of Mecha tropes.  Obvious combinations would be Energy Blast Sentinel, Energy Melee Scrapper, Kinetic Melee Tanker.  However, by also including visuals which present as Magical or Organic, we could include concepts such as a beefy Combat Mage or a Mutant with constant explosive energy growths.  

 

Powers would potentially include the following:
- Advanced Body Armour (Auto:  +Res (Lethal, Smashing), +Max HP)

-- similar to the existing Munitions Mastery version, but beefed up accordingly for various Archetypes

-- Auto Power, so no visuals to worry about

 

- Battle Salve (Click:  Heal, +Regen, +Res (Toxic))

-- weaker than Regen's Reconstruction and Fast Healing combined, comparable Recharge (maybe leaning a bit longer), but standard Toxic Resistance value (for appropriate duration based on Recharge time)

-- visual options could include standard self-heal emote, flex emote, injection emote, and/or spell cast emote

 

- Thermal Ablative Barrier (Click:  Absorb, +Res (Elemental, Energies))

-- grants very high Resistance to Fire Damage, high Energy Resistance, and moderately-low Cold and Negative Resistance.  If possible, have these Resistance values tied to the Absorb value; Lethal, Smashing, Toxic, and Psionic Damage ignore the Absorb.  If that's not possible, then compensate values accordingly

-- visual options could include panels of armour assembling over the character and either persisting, or fading away.  Magical variation could be glowing wards/runes.  Organic variation could be similar to Bio Armour

 

- Energy Reserves (Auto: +Recovery with option to Click: +Endurance)

-- provides Recovery which is roughly half as powerful as Quick Recovery, but has the option to be Clicked for the option to gain raw Endurance.  While on Cooldown, the +Recovery is suppressed

-- visual options could be similar to Electric Armour's Energize

 

- Incandescent Blast (Click:  Ranged AoE Attack (minor Fire Damage, -To-Hit, -Perception))

-- basically a damaging variation of the classic Flash Arrow, but obviously with aggro-generation.  Offers mitigation in the form of -To-Hit Debuff, while also helping to peel enemies off of allies, or keeping the allies undetected with the -Perception

-- visuals could be a lobbed grenade, a shoulder-mounted launched grenade, a cast spell, or organic bulb "grenade"

 

- Combat Stimulant (Click:  Breakfree, +Resist/+Protection from Status Effect, +Def (Melee))

-- similar to Shield Defense's Active Defense or Super Reflexes' Practiced Brawler, but with a little Defense thrown in

-- visually similar to Battle Salve animation options

 

- Explosive Reactive Armour (Toggle, effects suppressed unless enemies in range:  PBAoE (minor Energy/Fire Damage), +Def (Melee), Self-inflicted (minor Energy/Fire Damage))

-- positional Defense to represent melee attacks hitting the armour, and triggering the explosions, which also harm the player-character

-- initial animation similar to Thermal Ablative Barrier, with panels of armour/magic runes/organic armour.  Then constant waves of explosive energy radiating from the character's chest

 

- ALTERNATIVE Explosive Reactive Armour  (Toggle:  +Res (Physical, Energies, Elemental), New Mechanic: Melee Damage Return)

-- this is the sort of thing which worked better in the pen-and-paper roleplaying game, but it is kind of the "signature" of the set (along with Active Countermeasures below).  Basically any time an attack made with Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, or Negative Type is made on the character, PBAoE area Energy/Fire Damage is dealt with a value based on the Enhanced Resistance of this power specifically.  I suspect such a mechanic would require extensive research and workshopping, if it's even possible with the code as-is and didn't introduce too many potential bugs.  Hence why this version is pitched as the alternative

-- same initial animation as above, but the waves of explosive energy only radiate when the player-character is hit by enemy Melee attacks

 

- Soft-Kill Barrier (Toggle:  +Def for Team (Ranged, AoE))

-- essentially Maneuvers, but specifically for projectiles.  If possible, exclude Psionic Ranged/AoE Attacks from being affected by this Def (unlikely, given how I understand the positional/typed Defenses to work, but one can hope)

-- visualized as lasers scanning the area around the the character, or an magical energy dome, or little pockets of organic gas clouds

 

- Active Countermeasures (Toggle:  PBAoE (minor Lethal/Energy Damage), +Def (Ranged, AoE))

-- should provide the lion's share of the Defense that, when combined with Soft-Kill Barrier, the entire set still performs below Fiery Aura in terms of survivability

-- missiles from shoulder-mounted launchers (see IDF backpack for visual shorthand) periodically, or magical beams firing from torso, or organic pod popping off and bursting in the air

 

- Siege Mode (Toggle close to ground only: -Movement, +Damage, +Range, +Taunt, +Res (Physical, Energies, Elemental, Teleport), +MaxEnd, apply additional -Range Debuff to Taunt and all attacks)

-- completely immobilizes the character while active, but greatly improves various stats for offensive and defensive capabilities.  Should have a pretty long Recharge timer to emphasis the whole Tier 9 aspect of it, but can be shut off at the player's discretion.  The -Range Debuff on attacks facilitates bringing enemies to the player-character, since they can't go and hit them personally

-- slow, ponderous foot-stomp animation (like from the Assault Bot's activation animation) with dramatic ground-cracking texture until character is in squat posture, or magical tendrils latch on to the ground, or organic tentacles

 

.......

 

So, yeah.  Overall, probably a pretty visually (and audibly) noisy set, but we now have the wisdom of Power Customization at our disposal to provide players with the ability to selectively choose how active they want their Powers' effects to be.  

 

I leave this set to the mercy of the wider community.  It's not one of my "babies," so tear in to it as necessary, but please:  Critical feedback.  If you don't feel something works, please offer alternatives or breakdowns of where you see the specific problems so that others may offer solutions.  But then, I feel that should be the standard operating procedure for all suggestions, not just my own.

[MetaVileTerror]

gah, can't believe I forgot this part:

- ALTERNATIVE Active Countermeasures (Toggle:  Periodic Flying Pet Summon (pets can be targeted and destroyed, and have a large area Auto Taunt Power, but no other Powers))

-- the damage mitigation comes in the same form as Seeker Drones from Traps, but without any of the self-destruct effects of the Seekers.  This also basically increases the aggro cap for a Tanker with this Power.  The pets spawn at regular intervals while the Toggle is active, up to a maximum number at any given time (either by giving the pets a short lifespan, or a code limiting the number of possible pets active at one time)

-- pets could be invisible, or could be little drones, or magical runes, or organic flying cysts, or swarms of bugs.  Lots of potential options here

[RoboKnight]

I like it except for being immobalized. I don't like my movement being restricted.

[GladDog]

Jack's initial proposal for City of Heroes was for everyone to go into missions wearing power armor.  As they got damaged the armor would be less and less effective until the hero needed to abandon it.

 

Once he realized the ridiculous amount of work he was making for himself and his team, he gave up on the idea.  Also, this introduced gear into the game, and he was loathe to do so, since he was trying to make a game that was not gear-dependent.  This was all the way back in early 2001.