Team Combos

Hey guys,

     So, as usual, playing video games inspires my thinking on the tabletop again.  Starting next session, I'm going to implement the "team-combo" system.

COMBO BONUSES:

     The basic idea of this is to grant bonus XP to party members who combine their abilities in effective ways:  

*START OF RULE DESCRIPTION*

    If two or more party members combine their powers or abilities in a way that results in a non-minion monster being killed or bloodied that round, they will receive an amount of bonus XP equivalent to a percentage of the XP value of that monster to be divided equally between them.  The responsibility for "noticing" a combo that unintentionally occurs is the responsibility of the players.  

    There are many ways that this can happen given how deep the combat system in this edition is, but lets break them down into three vague levels for simplicity's sake.

*Minor Combos: 

-Aid another

-General Buff to Attacking Ally

-General DeBuff to Attacked Monster.  

(Note: A "General" Buff/DeBuff is one that simply grants a universal bonus/penalty to an attack or a defense or damage roll with no additional effect.)

10% XP bonus to participating party members.

*Moderate Combos: 

-Combining 2 or more Encounter powers in the same round.

-Specific Buff to attacking ally

-Specific Debuff to attacked enemy

-Moving an enemy into a position where an ally gets a significant benefit to their attack.

-Moving an ally into a position where they gain a significant benefit to their attack.

-Allowing an ally to make use of a class feature or power that they otherwise would not have used in their attack (eg. Moving to flank with a rogue so they can Sneak Attack, Delaying your charge until after the Warlock has gone so they can use their Prime Shot, waiting until after the fighter has marked a foe that you are trying to move past so the fighter gets an OA against the foe if it OAs you, this sort of thing).

(*Note: A "specific" buff/debuff is one that somehow takes advantage of a strength or weakness of an ally or monster.  It includes things like buffing an ally's fire attack against a monster who is vulnerable to fire, Debuffing a monster so that they are vulnerable to the fire attack of your ally, Immobilizing a monster that somehow depends on movement, 

(*Note: A "significant benefit" includes being able to attack at all, moving the monster into an Area of Effect zone, moving an ally so that their AoE zone encompasses more monsters and anything else I deem "significant" at the time.)

25% XP bonus to participating  party members

*Major Combos:

-Combining 2 or more Daily Powers in the same round.

-Positioning yourself, an ally or a monster so that 2 or more party members gain a significant benefit and/or can make use of a class feature or power that they otherwise would not be able to use (see above for description of these circumstances).

50% XP bonus to participating party members

     Each PC can only get one XP bonus for each combo level (minor, moderate and major) once per encounter.  So you can only get a maximum of 185% XP out of one monster, and that's if they heal themselves at some point since you only get combo XP for bloodying or killing a monster.

*END OF RULE DESCRIPTION*

Hopefully that's clear, but feel free to post questions as comments here.  

Combo Bonuses (CBs) and Cool Description Bonuses (CDBs):

     Remember how I've been giving you guys an XP bonus for "cool descriptions" of attacks and kills?  I've decided to fix that bonus at half the combo-value of the monster you are attacking, down to a minimum of 5%.  So, if you attack a monster on your own and get the CD (cool description) bonus you will get 5% of its XP value as a bonus.  

     If you provide a CD of a combo-move, you might get up to 25% of its XP value as a bonus if its a major combo (half of the 50% CB for a major combo = a 25% CDB).  

     In practice I think it will be very difficult to come up with cool descriptions for big combos on the fly, so I would recommend figuring out some standard good combos and then whoever wants the CD bonus should write the description in advance and break it out when the combo goes off.  I'll be more lenient with CD standards for combos that aren't just straight-up combinations of encounter or daily powers, since it seems like very little work to write up a cool description of these combos.

Anyways, as I said, feel free to post questions/comments here.