The Chessmaster's Board: ideas for a trial/raid

[Ekimmak]

Anyway, here's the specifics on what I've been thinking about:

Pawns: These pieces are countered by DPS. They have a debuff that's essentially a permanent True North, so you don't end up with melees leaving their tile unattended and letting the Pawn move forward too much. Pawn's Advance deals consistent damage to their highest threat target, and upon casting, it knocks back any unit in the two spaces ahead one tile back. If the front tile is open, it moves one space ahead. If the tile after that is open, it moves another tile, and anyone in the tiles directly left or right of to it gain a damage buff (to represent En Passant).

If the Pawn reaches the final tile, and does not have the tactics buff, they promote into a Queen. This is generally a *Very Bad Thing*, although I can see that being a necessary step for a savage/extreme version.


Rooks: These pieces are countered by Tanks. I dunno what will need to be done to make them a less enticing target than Pawns, but to make them the sort of thing you don't stand in front of is easy: they deal far more damage than a Pawn does, and Rook's March is effectively a tankbuster. It deals damage to all players in the column in front of it, and knocks them back, before moving to the furthest unoccupied tile. If on the second last row, it moves to the last row.

In actual Chess, two rooks can checkmate a King just by chasing him across the board, since they can cover two columns/rows at a time. Representing that is Castling: letting any other piece that reaches the final row (including the other rook) wipe the raid. Not how the actual move goes, but I thought it was clever.


Bishops: These pieces are countered by Healers. Rather than coming up with mechanics for them to counter, I see it that they counter them the same way as everything else: by countering raidwide damage with healing. I thought I'd go extra clever and make it that you want them downed simultaneously: one will inflict a specific element resistance debuff, damage pieces of an opposite colour, places a HoT on ones of the same colour, and remove a specific element resistance debuff, so if you kill one, the other side will quickly spiral out of control.


Queens: Essentially, a sign that things are going really badly. If they aren't casting Checkmate to wipe you, they cast Queen's Glory, which deals significant damage to all players and pieces of the opposite colour, while placing a strong HoT on pieces of the same colour. As mentioned before, the Savage/Extreme strategy might involve using these to finish off the Bishops before killing them.


Putting it all together: DPS focus on burning down 2 Black Pawns and 2 White Pawns so they can move on to killing Bishops/Rooks. Tanks keep the Black Rook and White Rook from advancing forward too far (although writing this now I did notice a weakness in that they only cause problems when another piece is in the back row, so a daring group could let one go the full distance, and have the Tank block a pawn). Healers keep the group alive by negating what the Bishops can do on top of the specific Piece vs Player damage.

Savage/Extreme: I don't know whether this would be better as an Omega style raid, or a Primal type Trial, so I don't know which difficulty to use. That said, I've thought of a few ways to make it a bit more brutal. Pawns now grant a tether to another same-colour piece. That piece is now harder to kill. But, when the pawn has taken enough damage, it redirects the tether back to the pawn, and they begin to cast Promotion, turning them into another of that piece. So not only are they rather hard to kill for the cast, but then they'll unbalance the board and cause a wipe (Either as a third tankbuster, or unbalancing the debuffs inflicted by Bishops).

Another idea I've had is for Bishops to gain a substantial Stoneskin effect when their health is depleted by a certain amount. The trick here is to get both Bishops to this point, then allow two alternately coloured Pawns reach the final row and become Queens. Queen's Glory will finish off the Bishops (as it kills them before the HoT can restore them), and then it's a race to kill the Queens before they can use Checkmate.

On an alternate thought with Bishops, since real Bishop pieces are colour locked for the game, you could add that they only apply their cleanse to players standing on the same/different colour squares. Throw in that the pawns will inflict debuffs of their bishop's colour, but won't remove them, and it's a hectic dance to ensure that while Pawns remain challenged all the time, which players oppose them changes constantly.

Perhaps Savage Rooks now inflict a debuff that forces a tankswap? How about the Rook's March inflicts/removes the resistance debuff, but the channel deals consistent elemental damage of that type, forcing the main tank and offtank to swap rooks every other move? Make Castling far nastier by having it deal raidwide player damage of the Rook's element, and then apply that elemental debuff. So you really can't afford to let them move into the final row.

And after all that, why not give it an ordinary boss that plays as the King piece: while untargetable chess pieces target the board with AoEs like their chess moves, he alternates between being a White piece and a Black piece, and the MT has to drag the boss to the correct tiles to ensure he's getting hurt, rather than healed, by all these moves.