ZODIAC Final Fantasy RPG

My main concern at the moment is some Command skills are certainly much, much less than others. Why should I take Peep when I can make a tech for 1 or 2 MP that never needs to increase that uses Scan? Hell, I get CHAKRA which I can (in some GMs eyes) spam endlessly out of combat to almost remove the need for items in many instances. I would take that over Peep almost anyday.

I'd like to ask others how they feel about each command skill in turn and discuss them and their relation to the game as a whole. Some characters are more balanced (or imbalanced) than others and GMs need to make sure they see the differences.

I also think that some of the secondary skills should be allowed as a character levels to be chosen. Taking Attack Up or Magic Up doesn't really help out a character as much as say, Concentrate might, or Mentally Strong (we always need more MP). A couple small points of damage matters little after all when monster HP becomes unwittingly huge in scope, and a simple tech with the right elemental affinity will blow them out of the water. Say perhaps you could take another (albeit smaller list of) secondary skill at a given level? (Say one at 30, 60, 90 .. or 50 and 100, or 40 and 80. No more than 3 in any instance) Characters tend to fit a given theme, and I'd just like to put that on the forefront.

Problem Command skills
- Chakra
Chakra seems like it's far too strong when you can use it out-of-combat as much as you want. It destroys the need for the very-expensive ether, and cheapens the idea that MP (or TP) is finite and you should use them sparingly. Why use potions and ethers after combat when one of your team has taken Chakra? You'll all be healed up in a few moments anyways, and your MP will practically be full? This is one of the main issues of having few encounters per session or 'in game day' as one will notice. A GM can easily rectify this by saying it's unusable out of combat, but that makes Chakra a dead choice in comparison. Chakra I feel just needs a little polish nudge/nerf, mainly in its out of combat implication. One use of it per hour per person out of combat may work well, or have a number of uses tied to the user's Level divided by 10 per hour+1, or some given time allotment it takes to use the ability out of combat. Perhaps Chakra should only recover up to a certain total % of an individuals HP or MP out of combat? (Say they are only brought to 50% and 25% respectively, and if they're over that out of combat chakra will have no effect) Nevertheless it should be looked over in my opinion.

ZODIAC, if you haven't noticed, is mainly a combat engine. There are no rules for Out of Combat usage of skills becuase, well, there isn't any need to adjust them. ZODIAC was designed as a simple system, and therefore should remain as such. So what if Chakra can be spammed needlessly out of combat, It simplifies the game.
Also Chakra can be set at a certain limit between battles by GM's discretion. If there's a battle right after the battle you fought, then no, there will be no time to use chakra, but if you can rest for 5 or 10 minutes, then It's okay to Fully heal.

Boogey is working on a change that can bring some of the commands in line with the others.

One problem I've always had is kick. It deals regular attack damage at 1/3 power to all enemies. It's not even a decent replacement at lower levels because you can pick up a 1st level Power Attack with Area Effect and only suffer a 1/2 power reduction. Boogey's rule will bring that into the useful territory in regards to regular damage.