Special Ability Submissions Thread

Now for the fun stuff, abilities! This thread will be for discussing and submitting ideas for the 15th Man's special ability. This is NOT for the individual abilities that will get used (like dispatch or retort), but rather the overarching superset that shows up on the menu (Swdtech)

This can range from existing abilities being reused (Swdtech) to new ability but using an existing mechanic (Swdtech charge bar) to coming up with a totally new mechanic for the ability. The only requirement is that you tell us WHY you want to use what you submit. For the time being, ignore feasibility and let the ASM team handle that. In an ideal game situation, how do you think the ability should work, and what should it be called?

Here is our character so far:

Concept (Click to View)

Code:

The Implacable Experiment

This character is an individual who has had close contact with the Empire after being used for human (or esper) experimentation in the Magitek Facility and has taken on a grotesque appearance. This character is aware of their disturbing appearance and their primary drive is to seek vengeance against those who have wronged him/her and to see that they are brought to justice.

This character would work well in FF6 as they would serve to show the more cruel and inhumane side of the Gestahlian Empire, especially when you consider how much Terra's past is lacking in filling in the darker parts of the Empire's history. This character would also ideally have a somewhat strange fighting style which would vary from the other characters, they also by merit of being a Magitek experiment could have a natural magic learning list.

Background (Click to View)

Code:

The Betrayed Young Citizen
Gender: Female.

Back history: This daughter of a South Figaro sailor was raised by a lonely old woman from Vector after the boat transporting her and her father sunk near the Southern Continent. She was then taken prisoner by the Empire in her teenage years after the old woman died an that Emperor Gestahl adopted a secret law to capture homeless [and unwanted] citizens for Magitek experimentations. During her captivity, she developed her hate towards the Empire that she was considering once her second home.

Possible encounters: She might have been in contact with Cid and/or Kefka and/or Celes during her captivity. She might also have been in contact with some Espers and talked with them. This all depends on how we want to develop her back story and the game events.


Pros:
- Rich backstory and relations with the actual characters of the game if we want any.
- Explain well why the character feels doubly betrayed by the Empire and explain her hatred.

Cons:
- Might require a lot of event creation, but isn't this the goal of this hack? ;)

Theme Music

Okay so here's my idea.

This girl has been irreparably damaged and infused by magitek experiments to the point where she has lost not only her appearance, but also her ability to call herself human. I see her as an unbalanced and chaotic fusion of human and esper that is constantly at war with eachother, a perfect contrast to the relatively peaceful co-habitation that Terra gets to enjoy. Thus I find that her abilities should reflect this chaotic nature of hers.

Now for my suggestion:

Ability Name: Aether

I think she should use the "Tools" mechanic. In that, you get items (however many) and those will serve as her "abilities" HOWEVER, these are not tools in and of themselves, but rather the manifestation of mana and spirit that grants her access to hitherto unknown power.

I would say that you would receive these Mana Orbs (or whatever) from certain enemies, a few littered in storyline bosses, other powers (and probably her more significant of them) could be from optional bosses.

Now for what will make her abilities different from Edgar's Tools.

All her abilities are random, split among three different possibilities. Imagine for a moment a sort of combination of Edgar's Tools, and Mog's Dances. You stay in complete control of her, use whatever ability you want, but what happens is completely up in the air.

For example:

15man is in battle, you go to her ability selection window, let's call it Aether (why? Because aether is the manifestation of both life energy and spiritual energy, in a sense for this game, magic and spirit).
You choose 'Wyrm Mana'.

now there are three abilities that can happen with Wyrm Mana:

1. Dragon Breath: 15man summons the ferocious fire of a great dragon to decimate her foe. Powerful (fire) or (non-elemental) damage to a single enemy.

2. Dragon Skin: 15man releases her chaotic energy to give her party Shell and Protect, but at the cost of burdening them with the weight of her spirit. (Casts Protect, Shell, and Slow on party)

3. Entrap: 15man's energies have run out of her control, paralyzing a random person with her ill intent.

With this example, I show that 15man can easily be a powerful ally, but at the same time she could hurt you as well. This would show how her very nature is twisted up, warping her powers and possibly harming the very people she is trying to help and protect. In this way, even in battle it can show just how desperate she is to get out of her troubled situation.

Plus I think with that kind ability she could add a whole new level of tactics to battling, since you never know if she is going to do something helpful or harmful. And I just love gamble type characters in my battle party.

@Lord Sutebenu

That sounds really cool, although I believe that the good abilities should outweigh the bad ones to a degree, because the other characters' abilities are generally really good all the time (although Mog is random as well, until he starts jumping). I feel like giving her some risk is a really great way to add some flavour, but too much would make her lackluster in battle until magic takes over the game towards the end. Then again, she would probably be one of the more powerful characters at the end because I presume she'd have a good magic stat, so making her a character that gets better as you go along could work too.

Another idea to differentiate Aether from Edgar's tools could be that she will gain each skill in order from the mana eggs, instead of gaining each particular skill from a particular egg. For example, no matter which order you collect them in, egg 1 will teach Wyrm Mana, egg 2 will teach Beast Mana, egg 3 will teach Cuddly Moogle Mana, etc. You'd still be forced to beat some optional bosses to get the best ones either way. Obviously it's your call, not mine, but I wanted to throw that out there.

My idea for an ability would have to be:

Dark Magic

She can cast the ordinary magic spells at double (or maybe less than that, if we find that it upsets the game balance) power in return for a price of some kind (maybe double MP, except that wouldn't matter much with Osmose. A percentage of her HP could also make a good sacrifice). This definitely works with her "normal" light side, "chaotic" dark side, thing. I also like that it's a twist of game mechanics and not just a bunch of attacks that are learned at a certain level and selected from a menu, which I wouldn't want. I also think it will just be fun to be able to go OMG psycho against the tougher enemies. It's also really easy to modify to make it fit with game balance if need be, as the sacrifice/power boost would be easy to adjust if we got the skill working at all. It also might be possible that we could load a black palette or something for the spell animation, instead of the normal palette, if that's feasible.

The con that I can think of would be that we'd be forced to only put her in the party after the Magitek Facility, or at least Zozo, so that she'd have a selection of abilities at the start and not just Fight, although that would probably be a good course of action either way. This could probably be avoided though, if we at least start her off with some magic spells. I'm not talking about a natural magic list or anything, just giving her Fire, Ice and Thunder with an event command when you get her.

Summon (...would be the name of the special command, but there is more to the ability than just the command)

Idea related to the fact that she is a magitek experiment. The idea is that she was the result of research into methods of creating a better magitek soldier, capable of absorbing more of an esper's power. This resulted in her deformed appearance -- she's forcibly been made to "absorb" a lot of different espers, becoming not quite a half-esper like Terra, but some sort of esper chimera. Or something like that.

So anyway, the ability. She can instantly cast any spell teachable by whichever esper she currently has equipped. In addition, she can summon the equipped esper an infinite number of times, instead of only once per battle (as per the unused "summon" command). This is because, unlike the other characters, she's been "modified" to instantly form a very strong bond with the esper/magicite. Possibly she's almost "possessed" by the esper.

However, she can only cast the spells of the currently equipped esper, because the old bond is instantly replaced with the new one, if she uses a new magicite.

This circumvents the need to give her a unique magic list. That isn't the main reason for doing it, though. I think a new magic list is doable, and would even be a fun challenge. Mainly I just like the idea.

these are some pretty awesome ideas

I like the ideas so far, I wish I could take pieces of each and mush them all together. Either way, here's my idea:

------------------------------------------
Malady

It's a multi-skill ability that has no menu. The way it works is when you select Malady in battle it will automatically choose a skill based on her current status ailments. So if she's poisoned, she uses a certain ability, if she's blinded, another, near fatal? yet another. I think 6-8 abilities is a good working number and also works with the status effects in place.

Dark
Poison
Imp
Near Fatal
Mute
Slow
Berserk - optional
Muddle - optional

I try to stick with abilities that don't cause loss of control of the character, but maybe we can make exceptions for berserk and muddle if we are smart about how we build the ability mechanics, i dunno. There would have to be a hierarchy to determine which spell gets used if 2 or more of these are in place, or maybe it randomly chooses between any current afflictions.

My reasoning for this mechanic is that it capitalizes on the 15th's man afflicted side. It encourages the player to use her in a way that's different from the other characters they play with. By allowing or placing status ailments on the 15th Man, we are accepting these afflictions in exchange for power, and the balancing game will make single-ailment curing items useful for setting up the 15th man with the best mix of risk vs. reward for the situation, making it a good strategic ability as well. The only potential downside to this is that some afflictions and abilities will need to be set up in-battle, costing turns to set up. We can counteract this with the quality of the abilities obtained from each ailment.

Thoughts? suggestions? I am open to ideas for tweaking the submission.

Malady

I like this ability a lot. It's different from the other characters in the game, and it has the potential to be interesting.

In order to be useful (but not overpowered) we'll have to worry a lot about balance, particularly with the ease of setting up the situation where the ability can be used. In FF6, and square RPGs in general, the more esoteric, situational, or difficult-to-set-up abilities tend not to be used. For instance, players rarely cast offensive debuffs. Also, there are existing near-fatal attacks for every character in FF6, but I've personally never seen one go off through normal gameplay.

Basically with FF6's style of game balance it's usually better to just use more conventional strategies (damage / heal / maybe buff). If the setup for the attack or strategy is too cumbersome or risky, it just isn't worth it. Even if the ability is good, the game is easy enough that you can just win with straightforward strategies anyway. You forget the ability even exists.

(This is unlike a certain brand of "hardcore" game design, in which there are sometimes bosses designed as puzzles, in which you need to use some esoteric strategy with a complicated setup, or you just can't win.)

But anyway, this kind of ability might be used more often than, for instance, desperation attacks in the vanilla game. Being afflicted with poison or blind is more common than being near-fatal for a long time, and less risky to maintain. If the attacks/abilities she gets are good enough to be noticeable, people are fairly likely to just let her "keep" minor negative statuses when she receives them. And maybe even cause them on purpose, after it's happened by accident a few times, if they realize it's useful.

I'd also suggest she might receive a benefit where she doesn't suffer certain annoying side-effects: I'm thinking in particular of the damage out-of-battle from poison. With the need to watch your health as you walk, and the terribly annoying mosaic that happens in this particular game when you're poisoned. It's all in the name of stopping it from getting so cumbersome it isn't worth it.

My idea is very similar to the one of Egger

She would "Fuse" with an esper. I guess it could be with the equipped one, or within a list of 6-8. The esper could appear behind her, like with sketch. Thereafter, a second battle menu appear, like with "control", and she use ability related to the esper, not necessarily the spells she gives. Like Gau, she would gain status ailment and elemental resistances of the esper. Part of her pallette could change depending on the esper with a custom status ailment.
With this, you have great versality and you will be able to discover new things with each esper.
Also, another possiblity is, we could make the ability a lot stronger, but make it that a magicite is required to use the ability

Also, are we discussing about a relic that change the ability? Like fakemustache?
If so, i suggest that the relic change "Fuse" for "Wild Magic", which cast a random magic black magic, but alot stronger than the normal version. It could also rarely cast esper attack.

Can I get people to bold their ability names for me. Remember, they need to be 7 letters or less.

I think I might like daemoth's idea better than mine. It's like an upgraded version of mine.

The name of the special command in my idea would be Summon (allowing an esper to be summoned many times in battle). I've bolded that word in my post, although the special command isn't the whole idea.