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Old 11-09-2014, 03:45 PM   #3
Xplo
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Default Re: Castlevania's Combat Cross

We're talking about the boomerang, not the smart bomb, right? It has whatever stats you want.

Well, let's see. It's a Crushing Innate Attack with Reduced Range /10 (-30%) and Increased 1/2D x10 (+30%). It uses up hearts, so give it Costs 1 FP (-5%) and buy the user a separate Energy Reserve.

More interestingly, it passes through solid objects both living and dead, which means it can't be blocked or parried. Cosmic (Irresistible Attack +300%) seems to cover that nicely. It also hits everything in its line of fire; you could argue that this is a natural consequence of Cosmic, but if you want to charge more for the ability to hit multiple enemies - I would! - calling it a 0-hex Cone (+50%) might work. It doesn't actually damage walls and other inanimate objects except when they hide meat, hearts, or powerups, and presumably it wouldn't hurt allies, so Selective Area (+20%) is probably in order.

It's also a boomerang; once it reaches its maximum range it flies back to the user's hand/body (along its original path), hitting any enemies a second time. Enemies in the line of fire should get to dodge both times, or move out of the way entirely. So buy a second copy of this attack, stick a fixed 1-second Delay (+0%) on it, and permanently Link them (+10%).

There's two other game effects which I wouldn't bother with. If the user fails to intercept the boomerang when it returns, it continues in the direction it's going (still damaging any enemies in its path) until it flies off the screen and disappears. I guess we could model this, some kind of "if the user moves off the line or makes a Dodge roll, a third attack hits behind the user's original position" thing, but you'd probably pay a lot more points for an option that's not all that great and rarely used. The other effect is that, at least in some games - I haven't played them all - failing to catch three boomerangs in this manner results in losing the subweapon until you find another instance of it, and since I'm not modeling the former, I'm not gonna do the latter either.

Final cost is 48 points per level (since you have to buy it twice). Since Belmonts are fairly heroic, strapping men, and using enchanted weapons to boot, and the boomerang does about as much damage as a primary weapon attack, let's call that 2d - so you'll need two levels for 96 points.

Powering up the Boomerang lets you have up to three in the air at a time, but as I recall, enemies experience a brief moment of invulnerability when hit, so tripling the boomerangs doesn't quite triple the damage output. Rapid Fire might be the best way to model this, but I'll let you do the math.

...well, that took entirely too long to write up.

Last edited by Xplo; 11-09-2014 at 05:54 PM.
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