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Re-imagining Mortal Kombat


Steve

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Lately I've been wondering how Mortal Kombat would work if it were redone as a post-apocalyptic setting, stripping out some of the more extreme fantasy aspects. I've been inspired by artwork on the web, gaming supplements like D&D's "Dark Sun" and maybe a bit of "Thundarr the Barbarian."

 

Instead of alien races and magical realms, Shao Khan's empire is a place set on post-apocalypse Earth, peopled with mutant species of mankind, espers and the remnants of a high-technology society. "Magic" is actually a form of psionic power, some human subraces gifted with focused forms like cryokinesis and pyrokinesis.

 

Once every twenty years, a great tournament is held at the capital, a martial arts form of "The Hunger Games." Fighters from all corners of Shao Khan's empire compete to become Grand Champion. That person is then given the right, but not the obligation, to challenge Shao Khan to become the new emperor. No one has succeeded so far, and the tenth tournament approaches, marking the end of the seemingly immortal Shao Khan's second century of rule.

 

Characters will be built along constrained guidelines, using Speed as the control factor for other abilities (using a modified list taken from how Gestalt did it). The range of Speed will be kept small:

 

4 Speed: Heavy-Frame characters, built to deal out damage and take it, but lower dexterity and CV.

5 Speed: Medium-Frame character, mid-range on damage output, dexterity and CV.

6 Speed: Light-Frame characters, lighter on damage but highest in dexterity and CV

 

Strength and damage maximums will be set by Frame Type/Speed:

 

4 Speed: 40 Strength/14 DC

5 Speed: 30 Strength/12 DC

6 Speed: 20 Strength/10 DC

 

Defenses will be set to the same level as a frame's DC output (5 Speed=12 PD maximum). Characters may purchase additional defense as Nonpersistent, maxing out their total defense at 2x their DC allowed for their frame.

 

I'm still working out specifics on Active Points, but this is what I have so far on build guidelines. Goro would be an example of a heavy-frame build, Johnny Cage a medium-frame build and Kitana a light-frame.

 

Do my numbers look reasonable to simulate a Mortal Kombat feel for character design?

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One thing I am seriously considering doing is toolkitting STR to half the normal chart's lifting capacity. That will probably be closer to the way things are in the video game.

 

The other way I could approach it would be to shrink the STR caps, like this:

 

4 SPD: 30 STR

5 SPD: 25 STR

6 STR: 20 STR

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My original idea was to approach character building similar to how the superhuman setting Gestalt did things, tying character abilities to their SPD score. I'm revising that a little, trying to incorporate a "frame type" concept. Hulking bruiser types like Shao Khan and Goro move slower, but they inflict heavy damage when they hit. Kitana doesn't do as much damage as those two, but she is more graceful and nimble.

 

I might lower damage and base DEF down to an 8-12 DC range, but 10-14 is probably okay. Additional DEF would be Nonpersistent, so finishing moves against a KO'd but somehow still standing foe could be done without boosting the DCs.

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I've run the numbers, and stretching the increase for lifting capacity from doubling at every 5 points of STR to every 10 gives the following:

 

10 STR=100 kg

20 STR=200 kg

30 STR=400 kg

40 STR=800 kg

 

If I set Goro at 40 STR, that gives him a reasonable lifting capacity. I don't recall him ever lifting anything really heavy in any of the cutscene movies.

 

I'm still looking at my other guideline ranges, but I think Gestalt gives a pretty fair setup that I will modify a bit for each SPD category.

 

4 SPD Maximums

  • 70 Active Points (14 DCs)
  • 87 Active Points (including Advantages)
  • 14 DEF (plus maximum of 14 non-Persistent DEF)
  • 23 Dexterity
  • 10 OCV (including levels, martial maneuvers, etc)
  • 11 DCV (including levels, martial maneuvers, etc)

 

5 SPD Maximums

  • 60 Active Points (12 DCs)
  • 75 Active Points (including Advantages)
  • 12 DEF (plus maximum of 12 non-Persistent DEF)
  • 26 Dexterity
  • 11 OCV (including levels, martial maneuvers, etc)
  • 12 DCV (including levels, martial maneuvers, etc)

 

6 SPD Maximums

  • 50 Active Points (10 DCs)
  • 62 Active Points (including Advantages)
  • 10 DEF (plus maximum of 10 non-Persistent DEF
  • 30 Dexterity
  • 12 OCV (including levels, martial maneuvers, etc)
  • 13 DCV (including levels, martial maneuvers, etc)

Since CV is decoupled from Dexterity in 6th Edition, I could drop the CV numbers a bit. I am still playing with the guidelines and am interested if anyone has opinions on my first stab at balancing the different SPD categories.

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Interesting concept with speed and frame. But how many players do you envision? If you have several, you could all have the same speed but still have large frame lowest DEX and highest DC-perhaps highest DC manuever takes a delayed phase? Middle frame is of course the middle and the light frame has the highest DEX - perhaps lightning reflexes.

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Thus would probably work best with 2-3 players, so I don't envision a lot of overlap. Even if all players took a Brick with Speed 4, there should still be a fair bit of variety. Goro is certainly different from Shao Khan in construction, but I would place them both as heavy-hitting Speed 4 types.

 

Many of the MK characters are probably in the Speed 5 category.

 

Kitana, Jade and Mileena are what I would judge to be Speed 6 types.

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Since 6th Edition eliminated figured characteristics, Dexterity becomes easier to categorize.

 

4 SPD maxes out at 20 Dexterity

5 SPD maxes out at 25 Dexterity

6 SPD maxes out at 30 Dexterity

 

These maximums would include any Lightning Reflexes a character might choose to take, so a 5 SPD type could have a 23 DEX and +2 Lightning Reflexes or just buy 25 DEX straight up.

 

In regards to damage and defense, perhaps a better way to present additional Nonpersistent defenses is with Damage Reduction than Nonpersistent PD and ED. My reasoning behind using Nonpersistent is for finishing moves. This would let a character do heinous damage to a Stunned or KO'd foe without needing to boost damage levels. Applying an Advantage like Armor Piercing that only works versus a KO'd foe would allow for fatality attacks.

 

I'm still working out the numbers in my head. With the above structure, slower characters strike less often but do more damage when they hit, and faster characters are the reverse. I could lower CVs by 1-3 points for each category, since relative CVs are what matter.

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If I require a minimum set of Limitations for Damage Reduction: Nonpersistent and Versus STUN Only, that would trim the cost down to a reasonable level. Of course, additional Limitations could be added on top of that, like "Requires a CON roll" or suchlike. With defenses set at 1x DC, allowing up to 50% could probably be allowable, but no more. Stunning becomes much rarer at 50%, so I would be more likely to top it at 25%. Armor in the range of 3-6 points of Combat Luck would probably work.

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