Mechanics: Heroic Death, Guard, Injury

Here's some more mechanics!

This crop is all about filling out the heroes' options and incentives. Injury is a form positive feedback that makes getting hurt extra bad. Heroic Death is a form of negative feedback that makes dying less bad. And guard allows you to take conditional actions on the enemy turn and mitigates the "bumpiness" of turn-based combat. So take Gawdion here. He's in a pretty bad spot, in between the boar and the fire. He's injured too, which means his attacks deal less damage. That might not even be relevant for much longer..

Yikes. But when he dies, the other two get +1 Heroism. (Heroism is explained here) So with that they are in a pretty good position, despite the loss of their brave comrade.

When one of your heroes dies, it is sad. But, a death also galvanizes the remaining heroes and gives them a better chance to finish the mission. Next, Ollile demonstrates Guard. If the boar comes within range, Ollile gets a free attack on it.

Now, as a farmer, Ollile's attack is not that great, and he relies on surround to bring down large foes. But Guard can be pretty powerful in the hands of a trained warrior.

Heroic Death - passive - when a hero dies, remaining heroes get +1 heroism.

Guard - active - heroes with a melee weapon can create a guard region around them. When an enemy enters that region, the hero gets to attack it. The guard goes away when used or at the start of your next turn.

Recently Injured - debuff - (Note that your health bar is divided into two segments, damage first counts against Stress, and once you're out of Stress, starts to count against Injury. Ordinary monsters don't have Stress, so they go straight to Injury. I need to make this distinction more clear in the UI.) Recent Injury negatively affects your attack rolls until it wears off. Recently Injured lasts for two of your turns, and stacks. If you take two attacks that injure you, its value will be two, and each time it is refreshed, the cooldown is reset to two turns. This stack and decay mechanic was pretty easy to implement with my new template aspects and effects.

Enraged - buff/debuff - some monsters have a variant on the Injury mechanic that strengthens their attack but weakens their defense when they are injured. So it makes them easier to finish off, but more dangerous. I basically got this for free when I implemented Recently Injured so there you go.

Mechanics are coming in hot and fast right now, I suddenly feel very productive. Funny how two weeks ago when I was tearing apart the ability system, I felt so down. That work is now paying dividends.