New Offense Benefits: Random Status, Always Add Random.
New General Benefits: Global Area, Ideal Target
New General Limitations: One Shot
This file gives the information you need to construct Supermoves. Supermoves are a lot like skills, but they have less variety and more power, and they cost Will rather than MP. A Supermove may be derived from a mech's special systems, but normally it represents a fusion of the pilot and his mech, and can only be used when that pilot is in that mech. They cost SP, like Skills and Edges, which emphasizes their pilot-centric nature. However, this is something of an abstraction based on the assumption that the game will revolve around specific pilot/mech pairings. If you want a move that's tied to the mech and can be used by anyone who pilots that mech, that's totally OK, but it still comes from your SP, even though this is completely nonsensical.
Supermoves naturally have less variety than Skills. The basic flavours are "Damage with optional impairments," "lots of impairments," "healing with optional buffs," and "lots of buffs." Specialized effects are possible here, but generally they should count as either buffs or impairments and fit into one of the above models. The lack of variety within supermoves is made up for by the fact that you're not constrained by specific "themes" the way you are with your natural skill groups. You should take care to design your moves around the in-setting functionality of your mech even if you're just taking them to fill a hole in your repertoire, though.
Every Supermove has a Level, which ranges from 1 to 10 and tends to be toward the low end of that range. The maximum level of solo supermove that a character can know depends on his own Level and the number of times he took Supermove Natural in lieu of a skill group.
MAXIMUM SUPERMOVE LEVEL
| Level 0 | Level 5 | Level 15 | Level 25 | |
| No Supermove Natural | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Supermove Natural x1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Supermove Natural x2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
You might rightly ask how, given these limits, anyone can get a Level 10 supermove! You need to combo for that. A Combo Supermove can be of a higher level than a solo move: the maximum level for a combo move is the highest maximum supermove level of any participant, plus 1 for each participant beyond the first. So, if one guy can do a level 6 supermove on his own, he could combo with four other guys to use a level 10 combo move.
Supermoves aren't thematically restricted like skills are, so you should use them to fill out holes in your arsenal. Once learned, a move can't generally be changed, but it can be upgraded. You could take a move that's entirely damage-based, then level it up later and add side-effects, for instance. The GM may allow moves to be changed around in special cases, such as when a character permanently switches to a different sort of mech, but players should check that this is OK.
By default, you buy Supermoves at a cost of 15 SP per move Level. For example, buying a level 2 Supermove or two level 1 Supermoves, or raising a level 1 Supermove to level 3, would all cost 30 SP. Characters with Supermove Natural get a discount, however. If they took Supermove Natural once, they pay only 10 SP per level, and if they took it twice, they pay only 5 SP per level!
When designing a combo move, everyone contributes. Each participant must buy at least one Level (using his own SP costs), and the total levels bought must add up to the Level of the combo move. For example, suppose three guys go in on a Level 4 combo move. They each need to buy one level, and that leaves one remaining level that one of the three guys has to pay for. This does mean that a Combo supermove has to be at least the level of the number of participants.
Escalation
Supermoves are awesome and dramatic. As a battle heats up, more serious Supermoves will be used, and once the biggest guns are pulled out there's no holding back. Every character capable of using supermoves has a value called Escalation that is set to 0 at the beginning of each fight. When he uses a supermove, his Escalation is set to the level of that move. Characters can only use moves whose levels are equal to or greater than their Escalations. You can come out with your biggest move right off the bat, and that tactic may even allow you to defeat a powerful enemy right away. However, if you miscalculate and use your best attack too early you'll be unable to access your weaker moves for the rest of the fight.
Will
Activating a Supermove requires a Will expenditure. Will builds up gradually during combat; you get one Will each time you take action, and certain Edges, Features and Skills can also give Will. By default, a move costs double its Level in Will. You can only have 10 Will at a time, so this means that, by default, you can only use moves up to Level 5. However, various circumstances can reduce the Will requirements by quite a bit, even to the point of making low-level supermoves free. In summary:
| Factor | Description | Reduction |
| Boss Battle | A challenging battle against important foes | -1 |
| Pivotal Boss | A critical perilous fight; a major story climax | -2 |
| Ultimate Boss | This is the moment of truth! Mother, Father, watch over me. YGGDRASIL ENGINE, ACTIVATE! | -3 |
| Spotlight | You have a deeply personal stake in this battle. | -2 |
| Thousand Year Bloom | This is the climax of your story arc; either it's your most important moment in the game, or very close to it. | -4 |
| Grief | You just suffered terrible tragedy at the hands of the enemy. | -1 |
| Impossible Odds | A battle that you seem to have no chance of winning. | -1 |
Certain Edges and Features can reduce the Will requirements even further.
Combo Supermove
Solo supermoves are straightforward, but combo Supermoves are a little more complex and follow these special rules:
In summary, combo moves require vastly more Will than solo moves, since everybody has to pay the cost individually. However, their power is also multiplied, since they sum the participants' stats. If X people use a level Y combo move, the effectiveness and Will cost is about the same as if each of those X people individually used a level Y solo move. Given the extra timing considerations, you might therefore conclude that it's better to just use solo moves. However, there are supermove design factors (covered in the next section) that differ: buying a combo move for a bunch of guys costs far less SP than buying a separate solo move for each of those guys, and combo moves have higher a maximum level than any participant could attain alone, allowing for truly earthshaking attacks.
The basic Supermove either inflicts a little bit of damage or heals a few HP. This alone isn't worth using, but there are benefits you can invest in to increase the move's power and add secondary effects. You buy Supermove benefits with Supermove design points. You begin with 2 points per level of the Supermove, and combo Supermoves give an additional +1 point for each participant beyond the first. You can take Supermove limitations to get more points. By choosing limitations carefully you can come up with a move that's deceptively powerful for its level.
With the exception of a handful of common-sense restrictions, there's no limit to which benefits and limitations you can combine. You can't have a move that cures poison in allies and poisons the enemy, because that's combining benefits from the offensive and support types, but you can stack benefits pretty high as long as you have enough points: you could have an offensive move that deals both HP and MP damage, adds a random status effect, and dispels beneficial effects, for example. If that sounds too broad or too complex, the mega-damage route (reached by blowing loads of points on the Power Level benefit) is nothing to sneeze at either.
Support supermoves generally use Wisdom. Offensive supermoves can use either Attack and Hit or Wisdom and Accuracy -- you choose which when designing the move. If it's an offensive combo move, each person in the combo gets to decide (when designing the move) whether he'll be contributing Accuracy/Wisdom or Hit/Attack.
The following properties apply to Supermoves of any type.
Benefits
| Benefit | Points | Effect |
| Power Level | X | A supermove has a Power Level (PL) equal to the number of points it spends on this benefit. If the benefit isn't taken it has PL 0. PL 0 inflicts damage or healing equal to your relevant stat, and every 2 points of PL doubles that amount. Note that while Power Level influences the effectiveness of attack, healing, and status effects that have a chance to fail, it does nothing for buffs. |
| Holistic | 2* | The move is no longer tied to a specific body part and can now be used even if you're suffering from all five break effects. *Costs 1 point for Dragons. |
| Line Area | 1 | The move is L-area -- it is harder to dodge (if an attack) and can hit a line of small-scale targets or a cluster of large units in the Tight formation. Upgrades to the "Party Area" Benefit. |
| Party Area | 3 | The move is P-area -- it is harder to dodge (if an attack) and can hit an entire group at once. |
| Global Area | 2* | The move is G-area -- it is harder to dodge (if an attack) and always hits everyone involved in a battle, friend or foe. *Costs 3 points if taken with Bio Only or Mech Only. |
| Pilot-Based | 1 | This supermove is entirely the work of the pilot (or pilots), and he can use it in any mech. Incompatible with Mech-Based. Mecha only. |
| Mech-Based | 0 | This supermove is easy to use and built into the mech (or mecha), so anyone piloting that mech can use it. Can only be taken for a mech you're quite familiar with. Incompatible with Pilot-Based. Mecha only. |
| Ideal Target | 2 | Pick some sort of target, like "flying enemies" or "people I have Synergy with". For suggestions and guidelines about the rarity of a particular target type, see the skill document under "Type Expertise." The move is stronger against those targets: against the specified type, it gains a PL bonus whose size depends on the rarity of the type.
Ubiquitous: +3 PL
The GM has every right to veto abusive combinations. |
Limitations
| Limitation | Points | Effect |
| Enabler Part | -1 | The ability requires that a specific Enabler part be equipped to the location with which it is associated, like a skill group with the Skill-Enabler Part feature. Decide what kind of Enabler you want when you take the limitation; for combo moves, different participants can use different sorts of Enabler. If taken with Holistic, the Enabler can go anywhere, but the move can't be used when the location to which the Enabler is attached is broken. Mecha only. |
| One Shot | -1 | The move can only be used once, after which you have to fulfil some special condition that is bound to take at least several turns and may well require many minutes of work in a specialized location. For example, a solar weapon may need an hour's charging in the sun, or a superweapon may blow fuses that need to be replaced. For very onerous recharge conditions (needing to travel to a specific region to purchase rare reagents, requiring a day or more of dedicated work, etc), the cost becomes -2. |
| At Full HP | -1 | The move requires that all participants be at full HP. Incompatible with At Zero HP. |
| At Zero HP | -2 | The move requires that all participants be at zero HP. Incompatible with At Full HP. Incompatible with Exhaustion. Normally this Limitation is only useful for mecha, but kaiju that use the mecha-style breakage system may benefit from it. |
| Break Self | -1 | After being used, the move breaks the locations it was tied to for each participant (different parts may break for different participants, if they each tied the move to a different spot). Upgrades to System Crash; incompatible with Exhaustion and the Holistic benefit. |
| System Crash | -2 | After being used, the move breaks all locations for each participant. Downgrades to Break Self. Incompatible with Exhaustion. |
| Overload | -2 | The move causes 2 points of Breakage for all participants after being used. Upgrades to Critical Overload, incompatible with Ultimate. Mecha only. |
| Critical Overload | -4 | The move causes 4 points of Breakage for all participants after being used. Downgrades to Overload, incompatible with Ultimate. Mecha only. |
| Exhaustion | -4 | The move reduces all participants to 0 HP and human form after being used. Incompatible with Break Self/System Crash and Ultimate. Dragons only. |
| Ultimate | -8 | The move can only be used once ever. Doing so removes you from combat for the rest of the fight and renders you unable to fight for any encounters that follow immediately after. Mecha may be permanently destroyed or suffer colossal Breakage; dragons may lose their ability to change shape (temporarily or forever) or even die. Incompatible with Overload, Critical Overload, and Exhaustion. Can only be taken for Level 5+ moves |
When you first design an offensive supermove you pick which trait is relevant for each You can choose to use either your Atk for power and Hit for attack, or your Wis for power and Acc for attack. In either case you can choose to make the attack physical or one of the eight conventional elements. Pure costs extra and is thus listed as a Benefit. In the case of combos, each participant chooses separately whether to contribute his Wis and Acc or his Att and Hit to the move's pooled stats. No form of offensive Supermove can score a critical hit.
By default, Atk/Hit-based supermoves use your unarmed Atk/Hit -- there's a benefit to sidestep this, if you're so inclined. All these moves are ranged by default, even ones that use the Weapon-Based benefit with a close-range weapon.
A word on damage, to provide some context for the abtract power levels associated with these moves: assuming solo supermoves and average stats, you'll need to use a supermove with PL 0 about 8-12 times to down a single comparable enemy (to say nothing of a boss!). Every 2 points of PL doubles the damage, so by PL 6 you have a chance to one-shot a comparable foe. Normally a PL 6 supermove needs to be level 3 or higher, but if you take the right limitations you can get that kind of power even at level 1.
Benefits
| Benefit | Points | Effect |
| Weapon-Based | 1 | Pick a particular type of weapon (say, "axes" or "bows"). You can only use this move when you have a weapon of that sort equipped to the body location this move is associated with. However, the Supermove uses the Atk and Hit bonuses that weapon provides. You may, if you wish, have the Supermove use the weapon's element rather than its own, but you need to decide that when you take this benefit. In a combo, each participant can pick a different type of weapon, and some can elect to stick with purely unarmed attacks or their Wis/Acc, ignoring this benefit. |
| Accurate | 1 | The attack gains the Accurate property (targets' evasion stats are halved). Upgrades to Flawless. Note that Line-Area attacks give the same benefit for the same cost, and the two don't stack, so Line Area is better unless you are worried about opponents with the Improved Evasion ability. This Benefit is free for Level 2+ moves. |
| Flawless | 2 | The attack gains the Flawless property (targets' evasion stats are reduced to 0). This Benefit is free for Level 4+ moves. |
| Shatter | 3 | The attack gains the Shatter property (it ignores defense values higher than 0).This Benefit is free for Level 8+ moves. |
| Final | 4 | The attack gains the Final property (it can't be Replied to). This Benefit is free for Level 7+ moves. |
| Pure | 2 | The attack deals Pure damage. |
| Element Select | 1 | The attack deals damage of one of the eight conventional elements, but you can pick which every time you use the attack. You have to decide when declaring the supermove. |
| Random Element | 0 | The attack deals damage of a random element (always one of the eight conventional elements). The element isn't chosen until the attack resolves, so defenders don't know what it's going to be when picking pre-type Replies. |
| Death | 0 | The attack does no actual damage. If, before defense or the Defend action are accounted for, the move would inflict enough damage to drop the target to 0 HP, the target falls to 0 HP immediately. This is not considered to be damage; it just changes his HP. |
| Add Status | 2 | If the attack connects it may add one of the eight status effects or the five break effects (pick one when you take the benefit). Resolve this as a separate effect using HIT or ACC (as appropriate for the move) with a PL equal to the move's overall PL. You can take this separately for multiple effects, in which case they all resolve with a single roll. Upgrades to Always Add Status |
| Always Add Status | 3 | Functions the same as Add Status, but if the original attack lands, the status effect always works unless the target is immune. |
| Random Status | 1 | Resolves like Add Status, but the effect added is randomly chosen from the eight Status Effects (never a Break Effect). If combined with a random-element attack, use the status effect associated with whichever element comes up. |
| Always Add Random | 2 | Functions the same as Random Status, but if the original attack lands, the status effect always works unless the target is immune. |
| Provoke | 1 | If the attack connects, the target is Provoked towards the attacker for its next action. Solo supermoves only. |
| Off-Balance | 1 | If the attack connects, the target loses his Stance and Formation. |
| Dispel | 4 | If the attack connects, the target's beneficial effects are dispelled. |
| Drain | 3* | When you use this attack you are healed by an amount equal to the damage dealt. If in a combo supermove the total damage dealt is evenly divided as healing among the participants. This healing works equally well on mecha and living things. If in a combo supermove, the cost rises to 2 + [number of participants]. |
| Also Damage MP | 3 | Each target damaged by the attack loses 1/10 as many MP as he suffered damage. Incompatible with MP Nuke, Side Effects Only, and Death. |
| MP Nuke | 5 | The attack's damage is inflicted entirely to MP, rather than to HP. Incompatible with Also Damage MP, Side Effects Only, and Death. |
Limitations
| Limitation | Points | Effect |
| Close | -1 | The attack is close-range. This Limitation only gives points if the attack is Single- or Line-Area -- you can still take it if the attack is Party- or Global-Area, but you don't get any benefit. |
| Side Effects Only | -2 | The attack is a collection of side effects with no damaging portion. Resolve any attached side-effects as though the nonexistent attack portion connected solidly. Incompatible with Accurate, Flawless, Shatter, Death, MP Nuke, and Also Damage MP. |
Benefits
| Benefit | Points | Effect |
| Cure | 1 | The move cures all Status Effects. |
| Uncripple | 2 | The move cures all Breakage Effects. |
| Revive | 1 | The move revives KOd living things with however many HP it heals, or with 1 HP if it doesn't heal. Incompatible with Self Only and Mech Only. This Benefit is free for Level 4+ moves that restore HP. |
| Repair | 8 | The move removes one point of Breakage from all targets, provided that they have 2 or less Breakage. If they have more than 2 Breakage this benefit can't help them. Upgrades to Repair Plus. |
| Repair Plus | 14 | Works the same as Repair, but removes both points of Breakage from targets with 2 or less Breakage. |
| Restore MP | 14 | The move heals MP instead of HP. Incompatible with Side Effects Only. |
| Also Restore MP | 18 | The move heals MP as well as HP, in equal amounts. Incompatible with Side Effects Only. |
| AttackUp | 2 | The move adds AttackUp. |
| WisdomUp | 2 | The move adds WisdomUp. |
| Temper | 3 | The move adds Temper to all the target's weapons. |
| HitUp | 1 | The move adds HitUp. |
| EvadeUp | 1 | The move adds EvadeUp. |
| Protect/Shield | 2 | The move adds either Protect or one of the six elemental Shield abilities (Geo/Heaven/Hearth/Storm/Fury/Grace Shield). You can take it separately for each effect. |
| Unity | 4 | The move adds Unity. |
| Forcefield | 4 | The move adds Forcefield. For this effect only, use the highest Wisdom of any participant rather than the summed Wisdom of all participants. |
| Mach/OrgSoul | 2 | The move adds either Machine Soul or Organic Soul. For 3 points, it can add both. |
| LifeUp | 4* | The move adds LifeUp. *The cost is 2 if combined with Bio Only and 3 if combined with Mech Only. |
| Held/Lasting Reply | X | Supermoves can add Held Replies (buffs that cause a particular Reply to trigger at the next opportunity, then wear off) and Lasting Replies (buffs that cause a particular Reply to trigger at every opportunity for the next X turns). Replies are eclectic so it's impossible to price these. As a general rule, though, lasting replies and held replies cost the same amount for one turn, two-turn lasting replies are +2 cost, and three-turn lasting replies are +5 cost. Very weak Replies are cost 1 to hold, most are cost 2 or 3, and very good ones (like complete damage prevention) might be 4 or even 5. |
Limitations
| Limitation | Points | Effect |
| Self Only | -2 | The move's targets the user (or users), and nobody else. Incompatible with Revive, Mech Only, and Bio Only. |
| Mech Only | -1 | The move's effects only function on mecha and other magitech devices. Incompatible with Revive, Self Only, and Bio Only. |
| Bio Only | -1 | The move's effects only function on biological organisms. Incompatible with Self Only. |
| Exclude Self | -1 | The move does not affect the units that used it. Incompatible with Self Only. This Limitation only gives points if the move is Party-area or Global-area -- you can still take it with Single- or Line-area moves, but you don't get anything for it. |
| Side Effects Only | -2 | The move is a collection of side effects with no healing. Incompatible with Restore MP or Also Restore MP. |