Slimeblower mechanics

[MattMurdock]

So I was thinking about this idea along with the economic upgrades that I mentioned but I thought this deserved a seperate thread.

What I thought is that it would be cool if a Ghostbuster could elect to take a Slimeblower instead of a proton pack. The unique opportunity here is to have a weapon which forfits the ability to bust ghosts directly, but would be able to help other teammates out immeasurably by 'debuffing' multiple ghosts and restricting ghost movement. (As the positively charged slime should interfere with the ghost or gates normal charge)
I dont think the slimeblower should be a roll to hit weapon as such, it coats such a big area that it should auto "hit" but that its role should require more strategic thinking as to where the slime is used (and how much) then shooting a proton pack.

I have tried to come up with ideas that work with the existing character cards so wouldnt need too much/if any changing. (I only have the regular busters though).

Slimblower:
Treat this weapon as having a line of sight of 2 spaces.
When you begin the game, place 6 positively charged slime tokens of your character's colour next to your character card.
At any time you are adjacent to the Ecto-1 you may use an action to "refill" your slimeblower.

As an action, (attack) you may "shoot" slime by placing one of your postively charged slime tokens out to your line of sight. You may then place upto two more positively charged slime tokens in squares that are adjacent to the first token (remaining within line of sight). There is no proton roll required for this. You cannot place/stack more than one token on a single square in the same action, but you can add additional slime tokens with subsequent actions.

If one or more of those squares contain a ghost, place the slime token under the ghost. If the square contains a Ghostbuster, place the slime token on that characters card.

If a ghost is "hit" by your slime, treat it as a 'missed' proton roll and perform the "When missed" instructions on the Ghost's card.
If a ghost would move across a space, but there is an equal or greater number of positively charged slime tokens equal to the ghost's level in that space, then the ghost will not cross that space and must move in the next closest available direction instead.

Slimeblowers cannot trap ghosts or close gates, however each slime allocated against a ghost or gate may be counted as one stream when another player with a proton pack busts the ghost or gate. When a ghost/gate is 'busted' the player with the slimeblower gains 1XP for every slime that was counted in this way.
Slime that is under a ghost or on a character travels with that character and can only be removed by:
1) the Ghost passing through a solid (red line) object
2) the slime expires.
3) the slime is cleaned off by another character.

Characters who are slimed by positively charged slime lose an action (as per regular slime), but are immune to incapacitating or controlling effects. (such as fear, or sleep).

At the beginning of your next turn, the slime from prior turns expires (drains away). Remove all of your used coloured slime tokens on the board (or other characters sheets) and return them to the Ecto-1.

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examples/reasoning

So a great use would be that you could slime 2 or 3 ghosts, for teammates to then bust them easier and not being quite so limited by the usual LOS or range rules if the ghost moves away from you in a tight area, but you do only have 1 turn before the slime comes off for your teammate to finish them.
The reason why I put the range at 2, is because it should be less than a proton stream, but also allows for the +1 range from Peter at level 5 to bring it up to 3 spaces.
Looking at the economic idea I was thinking of an upgrade purchase that increases the slime from 6 to 9, so you potentially get 3 shots off before having to refill.
The protection for characters was inspired by MMO gaming type buffs, and I think its fair to still lose an action as the slime is goopy and unweildy, that it should have some bonus that isnt as cut and dried as a stat buff, so some sort of fortitude or resistance (particularly to difficult bosses) seemed appropriate. The slime only lasts 1 turn so would need to be reapplied each turn, so I dont really see it being spammed as the squares need to be adjacent, so unless all 3 busters stood together then you wouldnt really have the whole team buffed (unless they all had slimeblowers but then noone could bust any ghosts).

What do you guys think?

[Werechicken]

This is really interesting. I encourage anyone to come up with more equipment uses.

You know what would make slimeblowers way more fun?

When your character gets possessed....

[The_Xavious]

I had some ideas for alternate packs, based off the video game functions. My approach is a lot different than yours though, instead of reworking existing systems to make something work entirely new, I'm adding a few tweaks to to whats already there to add some wrinkles to the gameplay. Nothing against your idea, but such a radical change might be hard to fully balance around some of the bonus characters, and having too many in play might make some scenarios unwinnable.

Here's my idea:

Slime Blower

When a Ghostbuster is using the Slime Blower, whenever you take an action to remove slime from an adjacent Ghostbuster, you may remove slime from any Ghostbuster within line of sight instead.

Whenever you make a successful Proton Roll against a Ghost, do not place a Stream on that Ghost unless you do not currently have a Stream on that Ghost or another Ghostbuster has a Stream on that Ghost.

(My thoughts here are that possession mechanics would probably use some sort of derivative of the slime mechanic, and you probably wouldn't want to be adjacent to them, this helps that. Its also not able to take on anything more than a Class 1 on its own, but its perfectly fine when teamed up. Kind of a heavy restriction, but being able to de-slime at a distance can very easily save you a move action or two, which is pretty dang powerful. The wording is kind of messy though, but the basic idea is that as long as someone else has a stream on it, you can place streams like normal, otherwise you can only have one stream on a ghost.)

Dark Matter Generator

Maximum Line of Sight for Ghostbusters using the Dark Matter Generator is reduced by one.

Whenever you hit a Ghost, if the Ghost would move from an On Hit effect, you may move the Ghost one square of your choice before moving the Ghost from its On Hit effect.

(In the game, the DMG had a stasis beam that would eventually freeze the ghosts, with a shotgun style close range blast to compliment it. I think the reduced range keeps it in theme while keeping its pretty powerful effect in check. I was having a hard time figuring out a clean way to reduce ghost speed, since some of them don't have a set speed and simply go as far as they can until they hit a certain spot. I think this works, as it can either negate their movement or move them out of the way before they move, hopefully preventing a sliming.)

I dunno, that's something I was thinking about for possible equipment. Not complete overhauls, but changes to the existing pack to help them fill a slightly different role.

[happyjew]

I like what The_Xavious came up with, but would thinking about the following:
Slime Blower - For the purposes of closing gates, a slime blower "stream" counts as two streams. Note you still only get 1 XP per stream (not 2). This is based on the fact that the only way to close portals in the game was with the slime blower, so I figure the blower should have a slightly easier time closing gates. Of course there is the penalty to XP so it comes down to whether you want extra XP or get the gates closed.
CPS - The CPS has the same range as the proton stream. If you hit a ghost with the CPS, subsequent shots do not require line of sight. For every two CPS streams on a ghost, the number of streams required to trap are reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 1). If a ghost requires streams from multiple ghostbusters, you still need at least one stream from each required ghostbuster. The CPS cannot catch ghosts on it's own.

For example, if a Gruesome Twosome is hit by a CPS, the next stream from that ghostbuster will hit regardless of LOS, as long as it is still in range. Once hit a second time, the Gruesome Twosome requires only 1 stream to capture. If the CPS is fired at another ghost, all previous streams are lost.

[MattMurdock]

Whilst I enjoyed the video game for its story, I didnt like the added weapons that were shoehorned into the Proton Pack, I found it just grated with the original style. Hence for me a Slimeblower is as per Ghostbusters II, not the video game, which is why my interpretation cannot bust ghosts or close portals, as all it does is spray slime (but that can be useful). I also dont think you should be able to de-slime someone with a slimeblower, as that just seems the opposite of what it does? (Not a slime vacume)

[Babylon1036]

I agree with Matt but with the exception of the rocky fig as it was from the game and thus be the only one to have both slim and proton pack. Just put in a gb2 Ray and Winston with blower packs.

[ClkwrkDragonfly]

I also dont think you should be able to de-slime someone with a slimeblower, as that just seems the opposite of what it does? (Not a slime vacume)

I disagree with this bit. I see it kind of as the slime blower's positive "mood slime" counteracting the draining effects of the negative energy inherent in "slime". Look at the thin coating of slime is actually on Peter after getting slimed by the spud/onionhead/slimer in the first movie, there's really no physical reason Peter should be so out of it... it's purely psychological/metaphysical.

[Babylon1036]

good point

[The_Xavious]

I disagree with this bit. I see it kind of as the slime blower's positive "mood slime" counteracting the draining effects of the negative energy inherent in "slime". Look at the thin coating of slime is actually on Peter after getting slimed by the spud/onionhead/slimer in the first movie, there's really no physical reason Peter should be so out of it... it's purely psychological/metaphysical.

That was my reasoning. Plus, in GB2, they sprayed the slime into the painting alongside the proton streams (and I think Vigo? I forget), which i'd say is more or less along the same lines as a portal. If it was nothing more than just non-descript slime, it wouldn't have been much use animating the statue of liberty or excising Vigo from Ray. The positively charged slime counteracts the effects of negativly charged psycho-kinetic energy, since its a source of positively charged PKE.

@Babylon1036 my idea was that the slime blower replaces their proton pack, not to have it alongside the standard pack.

I like what The_Xavious came up with, but would thinking about the following:
Slime Blower - For the purposes of closing gates, a slime blower "stream" counts as two streams. Note you still only get 1 XP per stream (not 2). This is based on the fact that the only way to close portals in the game was with the slime blower, so I figure the blower should have a slightly easier time closing gates. Of course there is the penalty to XP so it comes down to whether you want extra XP or get the gates closed.

I thought about something like that, but the thing is, unless you're Ray, you'll be having a harder time getting XP with the slime blower anyways, since you'd be depending on others to hit a class 2 or higher to trap it, diminishing the amount of XP you can get from ghosts. Plus the portals in the video game were caused from significant build ups of necrotic slime while the ones on the board game aren't necessarily caused from slime directly.

CPS - The CPS has the same range as the proton stream. If you hit a ghost with the CPS, subsequent shots do not require line of sight. For every two CPS streams on a ghost, the number of streams required to trap are reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 1). If a ghost requires streams from multiple ghostbusters, you still need at least one stream from each required ghostbuster. The CPS cannot catch ghosts on it's own.

For example, if a Gruesome Twosome is hit by a CPS, the next stream from that ghostbuster will hit regardless of LOS, as long as it is still in range. Once hit a second time, the Gruesome Twosome requires only 1 stream to capture. If the CPS is fired at another ghost, all previous streams are lost.

I had an idea for the CPS with some similar themes. My concern is reducing streams needed for every 2 on them is kind of weird. It wouldn't actually affect a Gruesome Twosome since they'd be trapped on the second stream anyways for anyone else, and a Boogaloo manifestation would still require 3 streams to trap as well.

I think a better way to work that idea is whenever you add a stream to a ghost you already had a stream on, add a second stream. Your wording makes each stream worth 1.5 streams, in the end you'd have to land 5 hits and get the equivelent of 7 streams (4 streams reduce requirement by 2, fifth stream does nothing special), that's a lot of streams but ultimately not helping out that much against that many ghosts, particularly since it still requires a stream from another Ghostbuster. My suggestion would work out to be 3 hits = 5 streams, it would be a bit more useful against a bit wider range of ghosts.

My own idea for the Meson Collider was -1 to hit when you don't have a stream on the ghost or gate, but losing LoS does not remove your streams from the target unless you do not have line of sight by the end of the turn.

Losing line of sight when its not your turn or on the first actions of your turn won't lose you your streams immediately, giving you time to get back into position, but you aren't as good at getting that first hit, making it pretty bad against class 1's without outright denying you access to otherwise easy XP.

I'm not real happy about my design though.

[Babylon1036]

@The_Xavious I only think the rookie as he has that pack forme the video game and as a kickstarter exclusive it would be a good add on