Going for all its worth: Mechanics

[FzGhouL]

Hahaha, FzGhoul is actually part of my name ;)

F= Initial.
Zghoul= Clan Faction.

Its kind of like a Superlast name lol.


Anyways; I like your idea of pulling the battle in the end with a strategic use of a final attack; That was one thing I felt my RPG lacked, but yeah, like I said earlier, I pretty much resolved that.

Unfortunantly, I can't show/post my RPG for the sole reason: Its embarassing.

Its 45 Pages purely on battle mechanics (Its play able, because 1: character creation happens over time, 2: the lower level characters have much simplier rules, because most rules happen when a character forces a situation into play, and they can't really do much at the beginning IE: A guy can't disarm another guy unless he knows how.)
No pictures either. Last guy I should my rules to said he got a headache from looking at it...=( I'm currently trying to make everything look nice, and expand the rules so they have examples and maybe color coordinate crap so it is easier on the eyes.
But the point in me saying this, is because I think I have some things you might want to take, but they aren't...simple.

Ok; So one of your reasons why you don't think using a skill multiple times is effective, is because the enemy will learn from it. Maybe you shouldn't explicitly weaken the move, rather narrate the move and have the PC learn from it. I am opposed to intelligence stats, I think PCs should be only as smart as the people who control them. Because, if the move narration is like..."A flame pillar shoots from the ground under you, you jump to try and avoid it, and your opponent punches you back into it" the player will know next time to avoid the punch, or to use a water technique, or someth'n.

Also, you can make it so ultimate attacks a take a certain percentage of your current Hit points. That way, when you have Max HP, it would be foolish to use a move that takes up half your hit points right away, rather you'd want to wait until your HP is like, 20% maximum, so it only takes 10%. But then, that almost makes no sense...

If you've played a Final Fantasy game, think of Overdrives, Limit Breakers, Trances. Those should be a pretty good model to base your ultimate skill usage off of. I think the Overdrive system was done particularly better, but yah...

Try having a Rage type stat, where different things increase it. Have Ultimate moves need to hit a certain Rage.
In a battle with allies, one of them dying boosts rage,
If you are losing, you boost rage,
If you are mocked, you boost rage.
Etc. Maybe? lol.

[tj333]

I've played around with an Emotion/Rage rage meter before. It just did not seem to work as well as I think the Reserve will, though Reserves have seen less play time. Since anything that aversely affecting the character adds to Reserves that covers most of your examples and Reserves are required for the truly ultimate moves. Theme wise changing the name to Rage and allowing a "I'm getting really pissed of now" roll may make sense.
Now one thing that I was thinking of playing with was combining the Condition and Reserves on a group of fighters as well as allowing the transfer of Reserves between characters in a group. When a companion joins in the fight with you the Conditions are averaged and the reserves totaled and then split between everyone on your side.
Then if someone is knocked out of the fight the group Condition stays the same but the Reserves of the departing fighter are split amongst the remaining fighters. Since the departing fighter is likely to be departing due to injury his Reserves will boost those remaining in the fight.

The repetition of a move weakening it only happens if the observer can make a perception/knowledge roll with a difficulty depending on the power of the move. This can only be attempted once per use.
I also have set it up so that a technique can be stronger or weaker against other moves and technique. So a wind blade may be impossible to block, weak vs earth based shields, and can be dodged normally.
This could then be narrated as you suggest. For example the wind blade dispersing harmlessly against a conjured shield of stone or sliding effortlessly around your arm as you try to block it.