nexus Posted January 21, 2009 Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 Zen No Mind is another maneuver from the Streetfighter role playing game that's proving tricky to convert. Masters of Zen philosophy are able to faster than thought. The Master becomes part of the natural flow of the world so that his actions do not merely respond to some outside force but spring into being as they are required. System: The player can select three Combat cards from his deck. His character must then wait until everyone else has performed their movement and attacks that's turn. At the very end of the turn, they can select one of their three cards and use it as their character's action for the turn. I'm really stuck on what this would be in Hero System. In the streetfighter rules it's an interesting power with some serious drawbacks. As it's worded you act dead last in the turn and so lose the ability to interrupt slower opponents (in ST: The RPG characters act from slowest to fastest and faster characters can override a slower characters move/attack as will). With this ability your character would get to see what everyone does but wouldn't be able to interrupt them but could have more than one maneuver ready so they could pick the optimum once everyone else is done; more useful in group battles than one on one duels and pretty easy to render useless by knocking the character down, grabbing or preventing them from using their Action that turn. I think the Maneuver might actually be described incorrectly (judging the flavor text) and it means the player with it gets to wait until all the other fighters in the battle have revealed their Maneuver cards for the turn THEN select which of three he select that he'll use. This would make the ability much more powerful. But what would this be in Hero? Combat Skill levels with some sort of Limitation? Trigger on some MA maneuvers? Combat Precognition? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodstone Posted January 21, 2009 Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind How Complex do you want to go here? I'd be inclined to use some sort of Combat Precognition, but that sort of thing gets pretty tricky in actual game play. Not bad in a one on one, but as you add more bodies to the fight it can get hectic... Maybe just extra SPD with some sort of limitation that states it must be used reactively or can only be used to Hold Actions? Or massive Lightning Reflexes for a few specific actions... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thia Halmades Posted January 21, 2009 Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind Yeesh. Not having played Street Fighter in any kind of structured incarnation other than the video games, I can really only speculate as to what this should be. But, having played a ridiculous amount of Rage, I have a rough clue where this is going. So you wait until everyone ELSE goes, but then you can react accordingly? Ack... I'd really need to know the rules this was built on to get a better feel for the intent. That would only be a band-aid on a gunshot wound though, because the systems are so disparate. So what I really wanna know is: What, exactly, do you want this version of it to do? If you can specify that for me, I can help you build. I see the speculation, and I agree that it's not the best worded thing in the world, but I'm not really picking up on a specific intent, "TH, it needs to do this." Reason from Effect. What do you want to achieve here? Tell me what it ought to do, and I can help you do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
braincraft Posted January 21, 2009 Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind This is one of those abilities that's really specific to the system it's used in. In practice, it gives someone certain advantages in exchange for preventing certain agressive maneuvers. How about +levels, only when delaying an action, and a bunch of Lightning Reflexes, only to delay an action? Or to simplify it, +Dex, only when delaying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prestidigitator Posted January 21, 2009 Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind This is one of those abilities that's really specific to the system it's used in. In practice, it gives someone certain advantages in exchange for preventing certain agressive maneuvers. How about +levels, only when delaying an action, and a bunch of Lightning Reflexes, only to delay an action? Or to simplify it, +Dex, only when delaying. That's close to what I was thinking. Maybe just make the limitation Extra Time (Delayed Segment, or whatever it is called) and probably Instantaneous (so you'd have to use it right away instead of activating it and then using it every Phase...). Since you can delay Half your Phase, you'd have to activate the power on your normal Segment, delay your attack until the next Segment, and then go. Something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted January 21, 2009 Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind +5 to dex rolls only for DEX-off on held actions? 10 points Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Gridlock Posted January 21, 2009 Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind This just sounds like a fancy-schmancy way of Holding your Action then using your levels to good effect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Samson Posted January 21, 2009 Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind Maybe just extra SPD with some sort of limitation that states it can only be used to Hold Actions? It seems like this to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted January 21, 2009 Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind The trouble with SPD for specific purposes is this: how do you work that, mechanically? Unless the faster SPD includes all the phases of the slower SPD it is difficult to run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nexus Posted January 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind This just sounds like a fancy-schmancy way of Holding your Action then using your levels to good effect. You know, once all the boiler plate is stripped off this is really what the power is in a nutshell, at least as far as comparative mechanical impact. Hero System assumes a basic "cinematic" level of combat proficiency in all characters whereas Storyteller generally seems to assume a "gritty" level of ability (odd choice for a Streetfighter role playing game but…) For example characters in Streetfighter have to use a Special Maneuver slot to be able to jump. OTOH, it feels "off" to just dump the ability in conversion. It had some nice flavor text and fits a couple of the styles as presented in the game. I think Extra Skill Levels that require the character to delay their action works pretty well as a Hero System effect for Zen No Mind. Maybe more advanced practioners will have additional abilities. Thanks for the assist everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted January 23, 2009 Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind For a specific reaction - counterpunch, or dodge, or somesuch, you could always consider a triggered ability? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 23, 2009 Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind I would, if trying to convert, do something like this: +2 Overall Skill Levels; Only When Action is Held until Last To Act In Phase (-1 or more) The biggest problem is if you go last and it turns out you want your CSLs in DCV you're kind of SOL. Hrm. I got nothing too useful here. It's a build too specific to the original rules to translate well. I would decide on a different effect and call it the same thing - something more useful to Hero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper-Man Posted January 23, 2009 Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind It looks like using some form of Combat Precognition might be the only way to do an 'accurate' translation. The only problem is that using such a construct has the potential of doubling the lengths of ALL combats involving this character whenever he uses the ability (Do Over!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted January 23, 2009 Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind I recall building a character for my very Steven Perry influenced SH game with similar abilities (different name... Zanshin, because I tend to come from a more Japanese MA background), which IIRC I modeled as a lot of Lightning Reflexes, Combat Sense, Danger Sense, and 8 point All Combat skill levels with RSR. A resetting triggered Speed boost of some sort might also be good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prestidigitator Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 Re: Dhalsim's Transcendent Awareness: Zen No Mind Hmm. What about +X Speed; Extra Time (Full Turn); Must be Reactivated After 1 Turn (-3/4)? Every OTHER Turn (and not on the first) the character could take some extra actions. The key being the activation time, which hopefully allows the GM to work it in smoothly with the Speed Chart. (I didn't use Continuing Charges because I hate having to limit number of uses along with duration.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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