Greydoom roared black death.
Wreathed in the black flame, Immen crumbled to his knees, screaming. Another failure. Grasping the pommel of his downturned blade, he embraced his death. Immen had failed to protect the people of Amesfeld from Greydoom’s minions. Those the dragon did not incinerate were now enslaved in the dragon’s deep mines. That was only the most recent in what Immen regarded as a dynasty of incompetence and poor judgement. The paladin somehow acquired a reputation as a courageous and valiant defender of good, but this was the fiercest of falsehoods, traveling the land before he on horseback could quell or disclaim it. He tried to tell others the truth, but they took this as a modesty or calculated humility. Immen tried to confess, to atone for the countless times he fought the wrong the battle at the wrong time. His miscalculations killed, by his count, thousands more than he had ever saved.
And now, this. Immen and his party finally located the enslaved citizens of Amesfeld. Bearing witness to their pain and enslavement, the paladin lost control. He leapt from his group’s scouting location and charged forward, right into the dragon’s trap.
Blended with the shadows of the high cave ceiling, no one saw Greydoom. Pirilee, revealing herself to back the paladin up, succumbed first to Greydoom’s attack. Immen could not know if she survived, but it didn’t matter. He had surely killed her. No one in his party would survive. Amesfeld’s slavery would continue.
Immen’s grip on the sword weakened as his strength fled him, and he smiled, welcoming the punishment that had alluded him all this time.
No.
The command was not his own. The voice was at once a song and a crash of metal, chords and anvils, radiant yet metallic in tone.
Immen, you are called to serve. You have always been called to serve. You have always answered.
To what end? He answered and tragedy struck on the side he failed to face. Immen lacked the patience, the vigilance and calculation demanded to be a proper servant of his god. Maybe someone of more capable than he could answer Pelor’s call, and answer correctly.
The answer to the call of service can never be wrong. I call on you now.
Immen’s attention was drawn from flame to his sword. The blade bled light. It’s radiance ate slowly away at Greydoom’s flames. The chosen of Pelor found his strength surging back into his limbs.
Answer the call!
If he succumbed now, Greydoom’s tyranny would infect the land. Immen would stand now, as best he could, as he always had. He rose. Glancing around the battlefield, he saw Pirilee crawling to her feet. Omar emerged from the shadows, dagger in hand. Melik hovered high in the air, his arms weaving together eldritch energy. Greydoom hovered before them all.
“Sssso, you have sssurvived my gift, little one,” Greydoom taunted. Meeting Immen’s gaze for a moment, the dragon knew that he faced a different foe.
The battle truly began.
Limit Break Encounter Rules
When your character is in a Limit Break fight, he can accumulate “drive”. When a character accumulates 10 or more points of drive, he has reached his limit. Drive can be accumulated in the following ways:
Spend a healing surge : 1 point
Miss all targets with an attack (at-will or encounter) : 1 point
Miss all targets with an attack (daily): 2 points
Becoming bloodied: 2 points
Getting dropped : 6 points
Spend an action point for drive (no other action point effects are triggered): 8 points
When your character reaches 10 points, he has reached his limit. you can activate the limit by either using your second wind, or expending a standard action.
Reaching your limit grants you a +2 limit bonus to attack rolls and defenses until the end of the encounter. You recover hit points as if you spend two healing surges. It also grants access to your limit break, which modifies your character’s existing powers or grants new abilities. Limit breaks are chosen at character creation, and can be retrained normally.
A limit break can be triggered even if your character has been dropped, though he cannot use a second wind and must expend a standard action to do so.
More on Drive
You know now how to activate your limit break mechanically, but the next thing that you have to consider is: What motivates and drives my character when he is being pushed to his limits? Immen in the above example was driven by a sense of failure. For every success he had, a million ways that he had failed made themselves known to him. Immen needs to correct his failures, or to come to terms with those failures, and it’s not until his god kicks him in the butt that he starts. That emotional growth combined with a boon from Pelor take him to the next “level” , granting him the ability to fight Greydoom.
Here’s the secret: While growing yellow spiky hair or channeling your inner nine-tail fox is great, building the emotions and growth of your character is even cooler. Really! Accessing your limit break is all about character growth. As a PC, what you need to think about is your drive, and how it ties into the situation you find yourself in. Motivations don’t have to be complex; in fact, sometimes simplest is best. The loyal warrior who values his friends might fly into a rage when he sees a party member die or get dropped. A mages’ fascination may be the accumulation of magical power. Encountering a magical being, he brings some of the energy that he has been hurt with and quickly begins to incorporate and harness it for his own use.
The exciting option is to make it up on the spot. This can be a scary option for some people, but for others being in the heat of the moment and then “learning” what makes their characters tick and generating a brilliant piece of roleplaying right then is what it’s all about.
As a DM, you want to encourage players to roleplay the triggering of the limit break. Don’t just let them get away with describing the spiky hair! Spiky hair is fun, but you want to get at the heart of their character. You didn’t make a limit break fight for nothing. You wanted to push the party and in so stressing them, force the revelation of their true character. If need be, prod them with further questions. Let them for sure describe the manifestation, but delay that moment. First ask questions that deal with emotions and memories. What is the moment like? What is giving the character his/her strength? Answer that, then let that manifest “physically”. Now is the time for the spiky hair and the whirling wreath of green fire.
Of course this means you stretch time a little bit. “Pause” the fight while the character gets his spotlight time. When you resume, the battle should feel different. The stakes as well as the tools the PCs fight for and with are substantially different. The creature that was kicking their butt just a moment ago is now an even fight! But that’s only because the character grew spiritually to confront it.
Later this week, we get into the actual powers granted by limit breaks.
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About gamefiend
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e. By day he is a technologist.
I love this concept and I think I’ll need to try to find a way to use it in my games. I’m looking forward to more articles!
Awesome job!!! Can’t wait to see those limit break powers.
hey guys, glad you like! Powers coming this Friday.
My players and I can’t wait to have a limit break battle! Any idea when you’ll have a new article up? I’m anxious to see their powers!
thanks guys! Last week of work completely killed me…but I’m working on the powers as we speak! Expect it very soon.
I have to say this idea is completely awesome, and would be an incredible fit into the anime-based world I’m creating. Any chance on those promised limit break powers?
Ack, just found the martial and arcane ones. no links guiding me to them, just had to search. any chance on the other power sources? I particularly wanna see shadow and primal.
I like the idea and I think I’m going to use it in my home game but I’m modifying it slightly. Drive points will be gained in a slightly different manner.
A character gains drive whenever they:
*Spend a healing surge during combat. (1)
*Becomes bloodied for the first time this encounter. (1)
*Reduced to 0 or fewer hit points for the first time this encounter. (2)
*Spend an action point. (2)
*Spend a minor action and an action point to gain drive. (5)
Bonus:
*Face a foe that is particularly relevant to your character, at the GM’s discretion. (1 – 3)
No character may have more than 10 points of drive at any time.
Activating your limit break is a minor action which also consumes your second wind for this encounter, if you may take a second wind as a minor action you may activate your limit break as a free action. If you choose not to expend your second wind, or cannot, then activating your limit break is a standard action which may not be reduced to any other action in any way.
I’m also removing the restriction that limit points are gained only in limit break battles so this functions more like Final Fantasy style limit breaks and they can be used any time the player sees fit. I’ve made points accrue more slowly and trigger only during combat and, mostly, only once per combat.