It's the middle of the night. I don't think there's much of anyone around. On that note, good night. I need sleep.

SO!

Several months back there was some discussion going on here about pony RPG's, and the thought of a combat system was drawn up. I just thought you might be interested to know that I'm using those discussions as inspiration fro a project at my school.

One of the concepts considered was what the ponies health would be called, for the sake of keeping it 'kid friendly'. One of the suggestion was Will To Fight, but there were... obvious reasons that couldn't be used. Instead, I've substituted the term 'Fighting Spirit'. Another change I've made is that FS is now the only meter a character has. This means it is both their health, and the pool from which all their abilities are cast. The idea of this is to facilitate a much tighter, more strategic style of gameplay rather than simply Attack! Attack! Attack!, which is what I always ended up doing in TBC games. One party member would be pretty much need to be kept on healing duty at all times, and any time they aren't healing they'd have to be pretty much crippling the enemy or casting boosts and the like.

I don't intend to make it pony-related for the assignment, but if I did I actually imagine this would be Dash's role. She'd be the one who would need to keep the team willing to fight. Rallying cries, encouragement, the like. Her and Pinkie as support, in essence.

The only issue that leaps out at me with the system is that it also turns the tanks into DPS's, since they can launch the most attacks. But I think a way to work around this is a sort of build system. The characters don't just get a set pool of skills for all characters, they get more individual skills. Or, all skills come from the same pool but they advance along a very specific line, similar the the arcana mode from Persona. So AJ has loads and loads of FS, say, but her skills are low cost and do only so-so damage. Meanwhile, a pony like Fluttershy or Twi has fairly low FS, with expensive but explosive skills. Which would make for an interesting strategy - AJ and Rarity are your tanks, and sort of become suppressors - they draw fire and chip away at the enemies, giving Twi and Shy time to recharge until they launch a super. Each role is equally important. but... hm.

How would that affect the feeling of it, do you think? Would it make combat feel tedious, as you're just buying time until you can devastate? The intention of FS was to make things feel a bit more frantic throughout. But if most of it was effectively chip... maybe the benefit of Twi and Fluttershy could be something aside from actual damage. Something hugely useful, but not out-and-out damaging aside from one or two skills? But if they're not combat or support, what other role could they provide?

Anyways, thoughts? before I turn this entire forum into my own personal cardboard dog