The Mezzer
Basic Information
The Mezzer (derived from "mesmerizing") is a combat role that specializes in applying Standard Status Effects like Sleep (status) or Paralysis to the enemy. The Mezzer's job is to deny the enemy actions during the fight - not just preventing them from doing damage to the party, but preventing them from doing anything.
Related Tropes
Sources
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Game and Story Use
- This character type or dedicated combat role is more prevalent in videogames than tabletop games, and tends to be downplayed in any system that encourages PVP activity. Frankly, while it's lot of fun to paralyze your enemies, it's never any fun to have the same done to you.
- If your system encourages this sort of thing, either as magic or especially as a character specialization, the GM should take some time to consider the impact it will have.
- Monsters will need to come in groups, because a solo monster that gets Mezzed will just sit there while the party slowly chops it apart. That might be fun every once in a while, but it's usually a hollow victory. Having two or more monsters or villains keeps the fight interesting beyond the first combat round.
- If monsters have these sorts of powers, or if the NPCs have access to the same magic the PCs do, the GM should tread with caution. Some players take real poorly to status effects in general, and even worse to losing actions. Let's face it, it's no fun to sit out while everyone else plays out an hour-long battle. Sometimes you can't avoid it - like when a critical hit drops a PC in the first round - but in this case the GM can. One option is to establish that there's no Ontological Inertia, so that if the NPC Mezzer is killed, all the immobilized PCs are suddenly back in the fight. Another option may be to just avoid these sorts of powers entirely.
- One way of handling this might be to either have "partial mezzing" effects (instead of not being able to act, the character loses part of the turn or is restricted from a particular category of actions), or to give characters some way to help an ally recover (whether killing the Mezzer, or spending an action "shaking you out of it").
page revision: 6, last edited: 14 Sep 2015 04:01