Action
Learning paths through this topic
Area of Effect
An area of effect lets one attack hit a crowd, punishes standing together and gives the player a way to answer many enemies. The warning, the falloff and the cover rules are what make it readable and fair instead of a surprise from nowhere.
Cover System
Cover turns a fight into a choice between safety and shooting: the player hides to survive, then pays with exposure each time they peek to hit back.
Charge Attack
A charge attack lets the player trade time and safety for power: a stronger strike for anyone willing to stand still, slowed down and open to being hit.
Weapon Switching
Carrying several weapons gives the player choices in the middle of a fight, and the time a swap takes makes each choice cost something.
Enemy Wave Spawner
Waves give a fight a rhythm of pressure and relief. The player gets time to breathe, spend and prepare, then faces a harder round, and the game can grow in difficulty without anyone placing enemies by hand.
Let an ability store two charges and recover faster with haste
A single cooldown timer is easy until you add stored charges and a speed bonus: charges refill too early, the timer restarts at the wrong time, or a huge bonus makes the ability endless. Here is the bookkeeping that keeps all three right.
Keep cooldowns and charges right when a player reconnects mid-fight
After a reconnect the abilities should be where they would be if the player had never left, not frozen, not reset. This entry shows what to store, so the time that passed away from the screen counts, and how stored charges come back without losing the leftover time.
Make arrows and bullets hit a target that keeps moving
An enemy archer who aims at where you stand always misses a running player, while one who aims perfectly is unfair. Aiming ahead is a small piece of geometry with one trap: sometimes there is no answer at all. This entry gives the answer and what to do then.
Let a shout wake nearby allies without waking the whole dungeon
When one goblin spots the hero, its friends should join, but if every alerted goblin shouts too, one sighting empties an entire level onto the player. This entry shows how far the call should travel, who ignores it, and who passes it on.
Make a ranged enemy hold a good distance without jittering back and forth
An archer who backs away when you come close and steps forward when you leave sounds easy, but at the border it flips every frame and shakes in place. And one cornered against a wall must do something else. Here are the rules for a calm, believable archer.
Send enemy waves into an arena and unlock the door only after the last one
A locked room with waves of enemies is a classic, and it breaks in three ways: the next wave comes only when the last enemy dies and the fight stalls, waves overlap into a crowd, or the door opens too early. This entry shows when to call each wave and when the room is truly done.
Make armor reduce damage without ever making a hero untouchable
Simple armor math either gets useless at low values or turns a tank into a wall that nothing can hurt. This entry shows a rule where every point still helps, hits never drop to nothing, and designers can ask for a target protection.