Accelerant 'Fast' Effects
So, one little quirk of the Accelerant system as it currently stands, is that it does not support short duration effects very well, unless you write in a special duration on a skill by skill basis (such as for Agony) which is a pain in the @$$. Lesser offers a 10 second effect, but it is 10 seconds of rest which means that if an opponent can be pressed, the effect remains indefinitely and remains too powerful to give to players as the cheap attack ability one might expect. Especially true for movement restrictors like Root or Slow that would be great cheap spells otherwise.
Luckily, there is a pretty easy way to get around this on a campaign basis without any core rules changes, and you get a few side benefits to go with it, here's how it works:
Define a very specific set of effect tags for your game, such as: Hex (casters), Slight (sneaky guys/illusion), Wound (weapon users).
Any effect you want to be a true fast effect is going to be delivered 'by' one of these tags. You could do it with a single tag, but having a little variety helps with flavor.
Now you simply add the following skill to every player and NPC/Monster in your game:
Willpower (open header, 0cp)
- 10 Seconds after being affected by any effect delivered by 'Hex', 'Slight', or 'Wound', you may purge that trait, removing all such effects from yourself. Call 'Purge 'trait' by willpower' to indicate the effect.
- This skill has no cost to use, but it must be used within 2 seconds of when its conditions are met, you may not choose to delay its use for an extended duration.
- This skill may be used to purge an effect that would otherwise prevent its use, as long as that effect is one being purged by the skill (exp: Drain by Hex may be removed using this skill even though it normally prevents the use of all game skills).
Advantages:
- True 10 second effects (or 5 second effects, or whatever duration you choose to implement in the Willpower skill, actually)
- Fast effects can be delivered without a longer verbal. Instead of 'Lesser Root by Fire', you end up with 'Root by Hex'.
- The defender must verbally declare when they are ending an effect (the purge call). This gives opponents a moment's warning that the target is about to break free. Personally this is one of the things I hate most about Agony - the invisible end to the effect. I'd love it if they had to declare that verbally instead.
- Powerful bosses can now deal with fast effects differently than normal monsters. They can either purge them faster than normal, or simply be immune to your puny cantrip-level spells and effects by ignoring those tags altogether - or reflecting them on you for fun.
- At the other end of the scale, really weenie monsters in your game might not get Willpower, thus taking full effect from these weaker spells.
Disadvantages:
- Players will have to keep track of seconds during combat rather than during rest! But you knew this going in and should not be considering implementing a fast effect system if you weren't comfortable with that, so its irrelevant.
- You lose the usual flavor tag at the end of a spell. So a fire mage throwing a fast effect will be calling 'hex' instead of 'fire'. You can in theory make this up by creating 'fast' versions of many of your flavor tags (Exp: 'Ember', 'Spark', 'Mist', 'Sand'), but that would require your players to memorize a considerable list of effects that Willpower works against.
- You might have the urge to create a complex web of 'Header 1 can purge X,Y,Z fast effects, while Header 2 can purge A,B,C fast effects, and Header 3 can purge A,X,Y" etc. I don't want to get into all the ugly math and details save to say that you SHOULD NOT DO THIS. The results are likely to be very poor in play and undermine the whole concept.
- Similarly, you'll quickly see that you can have higher level versions of 'Willpower' that allow you to remove fast effects faster. Say basic willpower removes them in 10, and advanced willpower removes them in 5. While this isn't nearly as bad as mixing up all the tags, it means that the attacking players can no longer rely on any specific duration for their spells, which makes them universally weaker, even if they don't run into advanced willpower all that often. You COULD do this, and it would certainly work, but be very aware of the ramifications. I'd advise against such an implementation until you are very comfortable with how it works.
Other Oddities:
- One of the unusual effects of the way Willpower works is that it is going to purge all Hex effects off you 10 seconds after the first one lands, so as a caster you probably don't want to stack fast effects on someone, at least not using the same tag. As a side benefit, I as the target end up with only one timer to keep track of even if I have several spells on me, unless they came in with different tags.
Alternate 'Lesser' Implementation
Here is a VERY simple implementation of the Willpower/Fast effect concept that requires NO new tags. In many ways it looks superior to the implementation above, but it just occured to me now, so I haven't thought through all of its ramifications:
Willpower (open header, 0cp)
- 10 Seconds after being affected by any Lesser you may 'Purge Lesser by Willpower'.
- Willpower skill has no cost to use, but it must be used within 2 seconds of when its conditions are met, you may not choose to delay its use for an extended duration.
- Willpower may be used to purge an effect that would otherwise prevent its use, as long as that effect is one being purged by the skill (exp: Lesser Drain may be removed using this skill even though it normally prevents the use of all game skills).
This implementation basically converts all Lesser effects in your campaign to true 10 second effects without requiring any core rules change. It also no longer interferes with the trait tag system at all, so you can use your usual 'by fire/wind/holy' calls without concern and there is no issue with memorizing a list of traits that Willpower can purge. In many ways this is a superior implementation, but you do lose the benefit of short delivery verbals (the 'Lesser' call really bulks things up alas). Pretty much everything else works the same. You do lose the normal Lesser effect however (remove with 10 seconds of REST), because it is effectively overwritten by this skill and no longer exists.
This version doesn't have the odd effect of wiping away all effects of a given trait. And because 'Purge Lesser ' is defined in the call, it won't wipe away full effects at the same time as a Lesser one goes away - so if you were rooted twice, once with a lesser and once with a normal, you'll still be rooted after willpower kicks in.
Luckily, there is a pretty easy way to get around this on a campaign basis without any core rules changes, and you get a few side benefits to go with it, here's how it works:
Define a very specific set of effect tags for your game, such as: Hex (casters), Slight (sneaky guys/illusion), Wound (weapon users).
Any effect you want to be a true fast effect is going to be delivered 'by' one of these tags. You could do it with a single tag, but having a little variety helps with flavor.
Now you simply add the following skill to every player and NPC/Monster in your game:
Willpower (open header, 0cp)
- 10 Seconds after being affected by any effect delivered by 'Hex', 'Slight', or 'Wound', you may purge that trait, removing all such effects from yourself. Call 'Purge 'trait' by willpower' to indicate the effect.
- This skill has no cost to use, but it must be used within 2 seconds of when its conditions are met, you may not choose to delay its use for an extended duration.
- This skill may be used to purge an effect that would otherwise prevent its use, as long as that effect is one being purged by the skill (exp: Drain by Hex may be removed using this skill even though it normally prevents the use of all game skills).
Advantages:
- True 10 second effects (or 5 second effects, or whatever duration you choose to implement in the Willpower skill, actually)
- Fast effects can be delivered without a longer verbal. Instead of 'Lesser Root by Fire', you end up with 'Root by Hex'.
- The defender must verbally declare when they are ending an effect (the purge call). This gives opponents a moment's warning that the target is about to break free. Personally this is one of the things I hate most about Agony - the invisible end to the effect. I'd love it if they had to declare that verbally instead.
- Powerful bosses can now deal with fast effects differently than normal monsters. They can either purge them faster than normal, or simply be immune to your puny cantrip-level spells and effects by ignoring those tags altogether - or reflecting them on you for fun.
- At the other end of the scale, really weenie monsters in your game might not get Willpower, thus taking full effect from these weaker spells.
Disadvantages:
- Players will have to keep track of seconds during combat rather than during rest! But you knew this going in and should not be considering implementing a fast effect system if you weren't comfortable with that, so its irrelevant.
- You lose the usual flavor tag at the end of a spell. So a fire mage throwing a fast effect will be calling 'hex' instead of 'fire'. You can in theory make this up by creating 'fast' versions of many of your flavor tags (Exp: 'Ember', 'Spark', 'Mist', 'Sand'), but that would require your players to memorize a considerable list of effects that Willpower works against.
- You might have the urge to create a complex web of 'Header 1 can purge X,Y,Z fast effects, while Header 2 can purge A,B,C fast effects, and Header 3 can purge A,X,Y" etc. I don't want to get into all the ugly math and details save to say that you SHOULD NOT DO THIS. The results are likely to be very poor in play and undermine the whole concept.
- Similarly, you'll quickly see that you can have higher level versions of 'Willpower' that allow you to remove fast effects faster. Say basic willpower removes them in 10, and advanced willpower removes them in 5. While this isn't nearly as bad as mixing up all the tags, it means that the attacking players can no longer rely on any specific duration for their spells, which makes them universally weaker, even if they don't run into advanced willpower all that often. You COULD do this, and it would certainly work, but be very aware of the ramifications. I'd advise against such an implementation until you are very comfortable with how it works.
Other Oddities:
- One of the unusual effects of the way Willpower works is that it is going to purge all Hex effects off you 10 seconds after the first one lands, so as a caster you probably don't want to stack fast effects on someone, at least not using the same tag. As a side benefit, I as the target end up with only one timer to keep track of even if I have several spells on me, unless they came in with different tags.
Alternate 'Lesser' Implementation
Here is a VERY simple implementation of the Willpower/Fast effect concept that requires NO new tags. In many ways it looks superior to the implementation above, but it just occured to me now, so I haven't thought through all of its ramifications:
Willpower (open header, 0cp)
- 10 Seconds after being affected by any Lesser you may 'Purge Lesser by Willpower'.
- Willpower skill has no cost to use, but it must be used within 2 seconds of when its conditions are met, you may not choose to delay its use for an extended duration.
- Willpower may be used to purge an effect that would otherwise prevent its use, as long as that effect is one being purged by the skill (exp: Lesser Drain may be removed using this skill even though it normally prevents the use of all game skills).
This implementation basically converts all Lesser effects in your campaign to true 10 second effects without requiring any core rules change. It also no longer interferes with the trait tag system at all, so you can use your usual 'by fire/wind/holy' calls without concern and there is no issue with memorizing a list of traits that Willpower can purge. In many ways this is a superior implementation, but you do lose the benefit of short delivery verbals (the 'Lesser' call really bulks things up alas). Pretty much everything else works the same. You do lose the normal Lesser effect however (remove with 10 seconds of REST), because it is effectively overwritten by this skill and no longer exists.
This version doesn't have the odd effect of wiping away all effects of a given trait. And because 'Purge Lesser ' is defined in the call, it won't wipe away full effects at the same time as a Lesser one goes away - so if you were rooted twice, once with a lesser and once with a normal, you'll still be rooted after willpower kicks in.