is this a good idea? (dual purpous skills)

[Oddball]

skills with dual purposes 

Like a high priority attack (one that has a ridiculous invoke speed) with a stun till end of turn. You can use it to finish off a weak enemy without taking extra damage, or use it to to add a bit of momentum to the battle

 Or maybe a skill with both a positive and negative effect that can target anything. you can target it at your party to get the positive effect, or if you need the negative effect, you can target it at the enemy

 

[captainproton]

Pokemon is a good reference for skills with extra effects. Various attacks can buff or s debuff, add states, alter priority, etc.

 

[Eschaton]

In my opinion, I would love to see more games whose skills have expanded utility. The skills have more than one function outside of exploiting elemental weaknesses.

 

[Milennin]

I like skills that have more than one purpose. It makes them useful in more than maybe a single type of situation and helps cut down the amount of skills in the list. I went with that idea for some of the Skills for the characters in my game and it works really well. Like, a skill that can grant an ally a useful buff for several turns, but it can also be used to cure a negative status condition. But when you can use it to do both in the same turn it's usefulness truly shines. Or even something as simple as a damage skill that also inflicts Blind. Sure, it's nice for the extra damage, but when you're up against a heavy melee hitter, the Blind will be really valuable. If the Blind lasts long enough for the player to regain the MP to cast the Skill again VS the same enemy it'll also create a meaningful choice. Do I go for the extra damage as soon as possible but without the effect of Blind, or do I wait until Blind wears off and then cast it to re-apply it? Neither could be seen as the correct choice. Recasting as soon as possible is the faster but riskier play, waiting is the slow but safe route.

 

[Oddball]

Pokemon is a good reference for skills with extra effects. Various attacks can buff or s debuff, add states, alter priority, etc.

not exactly what i was going for, thanks anyway. I found alot of them have one purpous though, or maybe im just not strategicly minded enough@mileninn: yea, i definitly agree. Another could be a skill that boosts MAT but cuts ATK. that can target anything, and has a 3 turn cooldown. Sure you could boost your magic user, but maybe a physical attacker is giving you a hard time, and you need to trim its claws or something.

And if sevral of your actors know multi-purpous magic attacks, it creates more choices for the player and can even reward planning ahead

@Eschaton: It annoys me that alot of games centralize around exploiting elemental weaknesses as the main way of winning. Maybe some games should have enemys react more intensly to that, and give the player certain options. Sure you could hit that sahgin with an ice or electric attack and deal extra damage, but they will unleash a counter attack and use a strong skill on there next turn

 

[Mysticphoenix]

That's cool. There's nothing wrong is multi-purpose skill.

 

[Eschaton]

Start with the three basics that every RPG seems to have: the fire, ice, and lightning skills, and think about what else fire and smoke do to a person. What else does frigid air do to a person? What else does a bolt of lightning do to a person? What does a sudden shift in temperature do to a person? Then, come up with and balance the effects accordingly.