It's the year 1850, in the land of Esyndia.
The winter has just set in. The blistering winds and blood-chilling cold approach, and the days falter and shorten by the week.
For the first time in many years, however, this winter isn't accompanied by gruesome civil war. All three of the major cities have finally decided to lay their arms to rest, and simply co-exist. While some still shiver from the high-running tensions that remain, a relative peace has come about at last.
It is in the sway of this reasonably good news that a gathering has been organised in the upper reaches of Malyast, the smallest of the major cities and the underdog of the wars from years gone past, to commemorate a year of no murders in its reach.
Karma has a funny way with such things, though... and it seems as though You have been Cordially Invited.
The Rules
General
1. This PnP uses the traditional d20 to determine the success of most relevant actions.
An action is successful if the modified result is equal to or higher than the action's DC (or the enemy's AC / saving throw).
In combat, this means:
- Physical attacks: d20 ± Hit vs. AC (rolling a natural 20 results in a critical hit dealing double damage)
- Magical attacks: d20 + SPI vs. d20 ± AGI/FOR/WIL (depending on the type of spell - projectile spells that deal damage usually target AGI, spells not manifesting into a physical form usually target WIL, status ailments like poison, paralyzation or blindness usually target FOR)
Combat
2. In combat, each character has a minor and a major action per turn available. A major action can be used as a second minor action instead if so desired.
- Major actions: Attacking, using an ability or spell (unless it says otherwise), using an item, picking up an item from the ground
- Minor actions: (De-)activating a sustained ability (unless it says otherwise), giving or actively taking an item from someone, changing between front and cover, equipping a different weapon
3. In combat, each character can choose between front and cover. Characters in the cover row cannot attack in melee. Likewise, trying to attack a covered character in melee requires the attacker to first pass a DEX vs. AGI check against every enemy at the front; if even just a single of these checks fails, the attack is blocked completely.
4. You can attempt to escape from battles if things are not going in your favor. Success depends on the circumstances rather than the dice.
Character Stats
5. Each character has HP, MP, XP and AP.
- HP represent a character's health and toughness. If your HP drop to 0, you're KO'd and cannot do anything for the remainder of the battle, even if attempts to heal you are made (unless a skill or spell with an effect specifically to circumvent this is used).
After battle, regular healing methods are sufficient to get a character back into fighting shape.
- MP are used to cast spells. How many MP are required varies from spell to spell; however, the rule of thumb is: the more useful the spell, the higher its MP cost.
- XP are gained for a variety of things, including but not limited to defeating enemies, picking locks, convincing NPCs to see things your way, dodging encounters, ...
Reaching 100 XP results in a level up. Excess XP count towards the next level.
Each level up allows you to distribute two additional stat points and 25 additional AP.
- AP are used during character creation and level ups to learn new abilities as detailed below.
6. You can create whatever abilities for your character you want - the GM may change them to maintain an overall balance, but other than that just names a price in AP required to learn those skills.
The more useful an ability, the more AP you'll need to learn it.
There are three different types of abilites:
- Active. The use of these abilities is actively selected during combat, and the amount of uses per battle is strongly limited - on average, you'll only have one or two uses per active ability.
Uses are kept track of for every active ability seperately.
Usually, active abilities are attacks with special effects (increased accuracy/damage, changing the properties of a spell cast, causing status ailments and debuffs). Non-magic users may also find it worth their time to replicate the effects of support or healing spells this way.
To encourage a varied repertoire of choices in combat, active abilities with a low amount of uses generally are fairly cheap.
- Passive. The effects of these abilities are permanent and can be nearly anything - a bonus to specific actions (like scoring critical hits on lower rolls than usual), specific conditions regarding your character (e.g. automatic counter attacks), special traits (e.g. being immune to fire)...
- Sustained. These can be activated and deactivated at will (at the cost of a minor actions). Usually, these are passive abilities with a drawback that you may want to be able to toggle depending on the situation. (e.g. always dealing and taking maximum damage, converting HP damage to MP damage, or casting spells at twice the effectiveness, but also twice the MP cost)
7. You can also pick what type of weapon, armor and spells you want to start out with. What exactly you actually end up getting is up to the GM, though.
A character can memorize a number of spells equal to his max. MP divided by 5, rounded down. So, for instance, a character with 35 MP could memorize up to 7 spells, while a character with 13 MP could only remember 2.
8. Armor increases your AC, but may at the same time lower your AGI if it's heavy. This means armor protects you from physical harm, but makes you more suspectible to projectile spells. Choose wisely.
9. Each item takes up a full slot in the inventory regardless of its size; some items, however, can be stacked in the same slot up to a certain amount. If an item can be stacked, the maximum number per slot is indicated in <brackets>.
Example:
- Longsword (3-8 Atk) -----> This item has stats, but no <brackets>. It cannot be stacked.
- <3/5> Darts (2-4 Atk) -----> This item has <brackets> and can thus be stacked. In this case, it's currently stacked up to 3, and could be stacked up to a limit of 5.
10. Each character has the following stats:
Strength (STR)
- Each point in-/decreases the inventory limit by 1 slot.
- Each positive point increases your max. HP by 2. Each negative point decreases your max. HP by 1.
- Each positive point increases the damage you deal with physical attacks. Negative points do not decrease your damage.
If a temporary change in your STR causes your inventory limit to drop below the amount of items you're carrying, you have to discard items until you're no longer surpassing your new limit.
Dexterity (DEX)
- Each point in-/decreases your Hit by 1.
- Every other point in-/decreases your AC by 1.
Agility (AGI)
- Each point in-/decreases your AC by 1.
- Your AGI is applied to your saving throw against physically manifesting spells.
Fortitude (FOR)
- Each positive point increases your max. HP by 4. Each negative point decreases your max. HP by 2.
- Your FOR is applied to your saving throw against status ailments like poison, paralyzation or blindness.
Spirit (SPI)
- Each point in-/decreases your max. MP by 4.
- Every other point in-/decreases your Hit by 1.
- Your SPI is added to the chance of success of many spells and sometimes makes them more effective. Negative SPI doesn't affect this negatively.
Temporary changes to your SPI do not affect your max. MP.
Willpower (WIL)
- Each point in-/decreases your max. MP by 2.
- Your WIL increases the effectiveness of many spells. Negative WIL doesn't affect this negatively.
- Your WIL is applied to your saving throw against spells without a physical form (e.g. curses, debuffs).
Temporary changes to your WIL do not affect your max. MP.
These stats can be anywhere between -3 and (2 + Lv). During character creation you can distribute your stats however you want so long as they do not exceed either of the aforementioned limits and add up to +5 in the end - no more, no less.
Each level up allows you to distribute two more stat points.
(+ only applies when that stat is positive, - only applies when that stat is negative. ± applies in either case.)
Code: Select all
- HP : 14 + Lv + 2xSTR + 4xFOR - STR - 2xFOR
- MP : 10 ± 4xSPI ± 2xWIL
- AP : 125 + 25xLv
- Inventory limit : 7 ± STR
- Spell slots : MP/5
- Physical attack strength (Atk): Weapon damage + STR
- Bonus to accuracy (Hit): Weapon accuracy ± DEX ± SPI/2
- Armor Class (AC): 10 ± DEX/2 ± AGI ± Armor Bonus
11. You can rest whenever you're not in immediate danger.
To fully recover your HP and MP, about 8 hours of rest are required.
Attribute damage recovers by roughly 1 point per 8 hours.
To recover ability uses, no rest is required - they're automatically restored after each battle that isn't immediately followed by another one.
12. For the purposes of special effect and status ailment duration, turns end at the end of each GM post.
The turn in which an effect is applied is already counted in this duration, so "1 turn" and "until the end of the current turn" are essentially the same.
Mr. Example, Lv 1.00 (Front)
17/17 HP
16/16 MP
5-10 Atk | +3 Hit | 15 AC | Crt @ 20
Longsword ( 3-8 Atk )
Chainmail ( +4 AC | -1 AGI )
Spoiler: Inventory & Status
- Incredibly epic item
- Impossibly useful item
Spells (3/3):
[list][*][04] Magic Blast
Deals 2d6+[1.5xWIL] damage to the target.
[*][05] Valor
Increases the target's physical Atk by [3 + WIL/2] for [3 + SPI/2] turns.
[*][07] Disorientation
Forces all enemies to do a saving throw against [10 + SPI/2]. Every target failing the check is inflicted with a [1 + WIL/3] Hit malus for [2 + SPI/3] turns.[/list]
Abilities (??/150 FP):
[list][*]Example Ability [ 1 / 1 ] [ Active ] [ ?? AP ]
-> It's the usual, so I honestly cannot be bothered to come up with example abilities.[/list]
Attributes:
+2 Strength
+2 Dexterity
±0/+1 Agility
-1 Fortitude
+2 Spirit
-1 Willpower