Attacks, skills, magic … a crucial part of a role-playing game – in ORK Framework all of this is packed in abilities.

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Ability Types

Abilities are separated into different ability types. You can define as many ability types as you need. They are created in the ORK Framework editor in Status > Ability Types.

The ability types are used in menus to optionally separate a combatant’s abilities.

Abilities

Abilities are used as a combatant’s base attack (i.e. their default ability, you can also use support abilities like heal as a base attack), their counter attack and learnable abilities. Classes can also have a class ability – like the combatant’s base and counter attack, the class ability wont be displayed in an ability list, they’re only accessible in battle menus.

There are two types of abilities:

  • Active abilities
    They are used against a target combatant and change their status values and status effects.
  • Passive abilities
    They can’t be used, but give status bonuses to a combatant who learned the ability.

Abilities can have multiple levels – leveling up can be done in different ways:

  • None
    The ability can’t be leveled up.
    New levels must be learned through ability development (class/combatant level up), items or the event system.
  • Auto
    The ability will automatically receive experience points when the combatant receives experience points.
  • Spend
    The player must spend experience points on the ability to level it up.
  • Uses
    The ability must be used a defined number of times to level up.

Abilities are created in Status > Abilities.

Active Abilities

An active ability is used against a target combatant. The target of an active ability can be the user itself, an ally or enemy – or just any combatant. It can target a single combatant, the whole group or be used as AoE (area of effect) spell. Also combatants that are nearby the target can be affected.

You can select if the ability can be used in the field, in battles, or in both. If the ability can be used can also be decided by certain status requirements (like having a special attack stance in form of a status effect that must be applied), or only if another ability has been used prior to the ability (i.e. ability combos).

If the ability will hit the target is decided by the optional hit chance – also a critical hit with other status changes is available. When the ability hits a target, it can change it’s status values, status effects, class and place in the battle order. It can also steal items and money from the target, and require certain use costs (like 5 MP) and consume items on use. The changes to status values can be influenced by attack and defence attributes (learn more about attributes in this how-to).

Active abilities use battle events to animate them in battles or in the field. You can also use battle events to extend the things an ability does – like capture a monster by adding it to the player group, or damage multiple times.

Passive Abilities

A passive ability can’t be used – instead it can give a constant bonus to various  statuses:

  • Status values
  • Attack/defence attributes
  • Status effects (auto effects, immunity to effects)
  • Chances (hit, counter, block, critical, escape, steal)
  • Movement speeds (walk, run, sprint)