Turn-based
Learning paths through this topic
Craft something mid-fight and get fair materials back if you are hit
Bandaging, lighting a torch or assembling a barricade takes several turns, and the materials must be safe from other uses meanwhile. If the work is cut short, what comes back? This entry answers with a rule that is neither all-or-nothing nor a free refund.
Give a hurt player a moment of safety without making lava harmless
After a hit the hero blinks and cannot be hurt for a moment, which stops being hit three times in one second. But done naively it also makes steady burning damage useless, or lets a trap hurt every frame. This entry sorts out which damage obeys the safe time.
Make burning tick on a steady beat, even when it is renewed or a frame is long
A burn that should hurt once a second can hurt twice in one frame, skip a beat when renewed, or lose its last tick at the end. This entry keeps the beat steady and says exactly what a second ignition does to a fire that is already burning.
Give a dash two or three charges that come back one after another
With several dash charges the question is how they refill. All together makes spending them in a row free; one by one makes each one precious. This entry builds the second kind and shows what happens to a half-finished refill when you spend or when the frame is long.
Settle a raid on your base while you were away, without endless loops
When a player returns after a long absence, the base may have been attacked. Playing every round would take forever, and a single coin flip feels unfair. This entry shows a short, repeatable resolution with a round limit, shared damage and honest outcomes for deadlock.
Make armor reduce damage without ever making an enemy immune
Subtracting armor from attack feels natural, but then a tough enemy takes nothing from a weak hero and a small upgrade suddenly flips a fight. Here is a way to combine attack and armor that stays smooth, plus how to add a little variation without breaking the numbers.
Let fighters collapse and be rescued instead of dying at zero health
Dying the moment health hits zero is harsh in a long journey, but a downed state that never ends makes fights endless. This entry sets up a short countdown, what a further hit does, and when the whole party counts as beaten.
Raise enemy strength with the days survived without sudden leaps
In a world that gets harder as time goes by, sleeping through a month should not mean waking up to monsters far beyond you, and walking in and out of a region should not make them stronger each time. This entry sets a slow, stable rule for the area's level.
Give enemy attacks a warning long enough to react to
Some hits feel cheap because the warning was too short to react to, and the fault is not the player. This entry works out how long a warning has to be, and why a slow arrow can warn for less time than a sword swing.
Finish off weak enemies automatically, but never bosses or double rewards
A finishing blow that kills an enemy below a health mark is satisfying, until it triggers on a boss, counts the same kill twice, or lands on the wrong side of the mark because of rounding. This entry says when the finisher fires and what it reports.
Give bonus turns for clever play without allowing endless chains
Rewarding a critical hit or a weakness with another action feels great until one lucky hero plays the whole fight alone. This entry shows where a bonus turn belongs in the order and how to cap it so luck stays exciting but never takes over.
Stop fast bullets from flying straight through small enemies
A very fast shot can be on one side of a small enemy in one frame and on the other side in the next, so it never counts as touching. This entry shows how to check the whole path of the shot each frame and how to know where along it the hit happened.