see you in court (GlitterGLOG Class: BALLER)

 GlitterGLOG Class: BALLER

Zoltar, Elf Baller. 

Starting equipment: 
- a common basketball (2 slots);
- shorts and a jersey (clothing, 1 slot); 
- 2 rations’ worth of zip-locked PB&J sandwiches (2 slots);
- deodorant, towel (0 slots)

Failed Career: choose one -- college coach; statistician; municipal trash thrower

The common basketball is a two-handed throwing weapon that deals 1d4 Blunt damage and has a range of 6 squares. A successful attack with a thrown basketball causes it to rebound into your grasp; a miss causes it to fall on the targeted square, necessitating retrieval before continued use. Basketballs possessed of strange and fearsome power are known to exist in parts of Laurentia…

Level 1: dribble, dunk
Level 2: jump shot, +1 ball knowledge
Level 3: hang time, balling
Level 4: shot caller, dagger, +2 ball knowledge

Dribble: While wielding a basketball, you can move [BALLER LEVEL] more Steps.

Dunk: While attacking with a basketball from higher ground, you may leap to a square adjacent to your target before attacking. If this attack hits, the target is knocked prone.

Jump Shot: [3AP] Perform a vertical leap in place and immediately make a basketball attack at a target within range. This attack's range is increased by a number of squares equal to the amount of Ball Knowledge you have. If the attack hits, it deals an extra point of damage with your basketball’s damage type for every 3 squares traveled.

Hang Time: Whenever you jump, you may remain airborne until you attack or end your turn.

Balling: You gain +1 AC for every $500 worth of clothing you’re wearing. If autographed, each article of clothing is also worth $10 more for every game or fight you win while wearing it.

Shot Caller: Whenever you land a basketball attack, you and/or an allied character who can see you may immediately move 1 Step.

Dagger: When you or an ally’s basketball attack reduces a combatant to 0 HP, sapient enemies who witnessed the act test Morale.

Ball Knowledge  (1d6)

1. Bank Shot: When you miss an attack with a basketball, you may choose to hit a different target within 2 squares.
2. Box Out: Non-allied creatures must spend 1 additional Step to enter squares adjacent to you.
3. Fadeaway: After performing a Jump Shot, the next attack against you before your next turn automatically misses as you flicker to an adjacent square.
4. Full-Court Press: Once per encounter, choose a non-allied creature you can see. The first time each round that creature moves, you may move 1 Step.
5. Outlet Pass: When you retrieve a basketball off the ground, you may immediately make an attack with it.
6. Sixth Man: When you end your turn without making any attacks, basketball or otherwise, you bank a Setup which may be spent to make a basketball attack for free on your turn. You may hold up to 3 Setups, and once you make any attacks at all you may not gain further Setups for the rest of the combat or encounter.

 

Magic B-Balls

FOOL ENDEAVOR: Printed to resemble the planet Here. Signed by some chump named “Mr. International.” Fool Endeavor has unlimited range, so long as the target is visible to the thrower. The ball does not gain or lose height or momentum in flight when thrown in this way and rebounds much the same, but Authority help you if you miss.

RIOT TIME: A cheap, corny synthwave-inspired print in purple and creamsicle orange alternates between each rib, rendered pale and splotchy by sunbleaching and probable years of wear. Riot Time deals HOPE damage instead of Blunt. When a creature fails a Morale test because of you or an ally, all members of your crew recover 1HP.

Notes 

i'm not a real knower or watcher of baseball. any ballologists or ballistas reading this, please feel free to tell me what you like or don't about this class. i was just divinely inspired by a vision of basketballer-as-acrobat while thinking about laurentia but then i looked at the og glog acrobat and didn't really like it and ended up making basketballer-as-fighter.

as with many of my best works these days, this got grace (<3) from 400 independent bathrooms and i chatting and workshopping until we were each making our own b-baller glog classes in parallel, researching in real time to fill in our extremely patchy knowledge of the sport as we went -- the "balling" feature is adapted from one of grace's inventions for a baller-as-rogue.

why make an entire class based around a sport i didn't know very much about? well, i figured the core combat loop created by this implementation of basketballs as a weapon type was worth exploring, i liked getting to represent and research a traditionally Black-centric part of american culture in my america fantasy game, and getting to put something together to show for it is a solid motivator for learning, and i thought implementing basketballs as a weapon type at all was funny but had legs.

i sometimes forget that i'm like, actually an amateur game designer with burgeoning skills and have peers i've been learning from, that i'm not just a floundering laywoman, until i get the right gentle push to Make Something and at the end of it i go "yeah that's pretty good i think". i like that they can do a little bit of wuxia shit and that their capstones turn them into a team captain.