The Wilderness is a famed place. Between the two most bustling and reknowned merchant cities in the world, Toha and Ira, the Wilderness covers miles upon miles of land. An aboveground labyrinth, it is beautiful yet also warped and distorted- one could travel this land and step in an instant from arid deserts to lush jungles, from white snowfields to open plains. Rocky islands float in the clear sky, rivers rushing off from sources unknown into shimmering lakes below. Tall trees seem to reach above the clouds themselves and deep craters reveal a seemingly endless abyss below. Many ideas of its creation have arisen, some scientific, some magical and some divine, but ultimately its origin is a mystery.
Host to hundreds, maybe thousands of creatures and monsters both known and unknown, few have survived the wilderness, fewer have crossed it, and none have conquered it. Even though it is the shortest known path between Toha and Ira, providing it an important position in the world of commerce, to this day it has never been mapped, nor has even a route across it. Explorers come in spades to Toha and Ira, armed to the teeth and prepared to accomplish that goal, seeking fame, fortune and glory.
You are one such explorer. Starting in the town of Toha, you and a group of adventurers, perhaps longtime friends or only newly formed comrades, have pooled your funds, arms, and strength towards that common goal - to triumph over the lands that have claimed so many before you and to make a name for yourselves.
Rules:
Roleplaying
1. Each player may only have one character. Your characters can act independently from each other if you wish to. Please only join if you fully intend to be active (that means, post more than like once every two days).
2. The story requires your character be humanoid (meaning elves, dwarves and the like are alright but no undead). You are free to choose or make up any class concept you like, however.
3. Please try to contribute to the story when playing; this is an RPG, after all. Make your character act logically. Make it interesting. Make it have an own personality, its own reasons to fight and its own story. You are even welcome to have bonds between your characters, like being a brother/sister of someone else (even though no-one ever does that...). You don't need to type up a whole novel each time you post, especially in battles, but just make sure to make your character interesting, so that both you and the other players will be able to like your character (or at least love to hate it).
4. Please write anything your character says in "". I also recommend giving your character a personal talking color; note that you can get any color you desire by specifying a hex value instead of an actual color. #E5B530, for example (the format is #RRGGBB), should give a yellowish/golden color to your text.
5. Since you will be having quite some code in each of your posts, I recommend copying that code by clicking "quote" at your last own post. Just remember to update any changed values and remove the quote-tags afterwards.
6. If you want to say anything out of character in the game thread, use olive as a color please. If all you want to do is to say something out of character, please do it in this thread, not in the game thread.
7. Whenever I post I'll add a status table that indicates the most important stats of your characters, like the current HP of each character and enemy (if there are any). The order of the party members also shows in which order they'll act in battle. The time of day, number of days travelled, weather, gold, rations, shared supplies, and other things of importance are also shown.
8. When you're done talking and want me to move the game forward, make sure to post a clear action on what you're doing next (having your character say that he thinks about doing XYZ and having him actually do XYZ are two completely different things), or else it's possible that I don't recognize it as an actual action and nothing happens.
Character Stats
9. Every character's main stats are HP (Health Points), XP (Experience Points) and AP (Ability Points). I think most people here should be familiar with what HP and XP do. XP are gained for pretty much everything you do, such as helping other people, disarming a trap, picking a door's lock, defeating a monster, etc. AP, on the other hand, are used to learn new skills and abilities that your character can use.
10. Advancing to the next level always takes 100 XP. After a level up your XP are reset to 0, though any leftover XP will be kept (e. g. reaching 108 XP would leave you with 8 XP after the level up). Gaining a level will grant you 30 additional AP and allow you to distribute 1 point on your main stats.
11. Players may define the abilities they learn themselves, but I decide how many AP they actually cost to learn.
12. You may carry 7 items in your inventory. Smaller objects generally stack. You can increase carrying capacity by purchasing better armor or containers such as bags, quivers, scabbards, etc. You start without any items, barring the clothes you wear.
15. Each (player) character has the following stats, called "main stats":
Mettle represents strength, skill-at-arms, and weapons training. Every positive point of Mettle increases your Attack by 1 and the damage of your physical attacks by 1.
Negative points do not give a damage penalty, but each negative point still gives a -1 Atk penalty.
Finesse represent dexterity, timing and preciceness. Every positive point of Finesse increases your Attack by 1 and your AC by 1.
Agility represents speed and reflexes. In combat, every point of Agility increases AC by 1. Agility is also commonly used to dodge spells.
Fortitude represents your hardiness, constitution, and resistance to pain and illnesses. Fortitude affects your ability to resist tackles, poisons, diseases, and harsh physical conditions in general. Base HP and HP gains upon a level up are higher with higher Fortitude.
Spirit represents your magical skill and ability to learn and consistently cast spells. The number of spells that can be cast before resting are equal to the number of spells that can be learned, which is equal to the player's Spirit plus three.
Willpower represents conviction, faith, and sheer inner force. Willpower contributes to the damage of your spells, and helps you resist mental effects, spells of a mind-affecting nature, and torture.
Perception represents how honed your senses are, how likely you are to notice small details that others may miss, how likely you are to detect hidden enemies, traps, secrets, and so forth.
16. Distribute your starting stats wisely. You start out with 150 AP to define your abilities.
Your stats can be anything from -3 to +(3+Lvl/2), but the starting total of them all added together must not exceed +5. You will gain 30 AP and one point to spend on any of your main stats every time you level up.
Abilities are bought with AP. They are the equivalent of D&D feats, and Abilities and skills in our old system.
They fall into three categories:
Passive abilities are abilities whose effect is permanent from the moment they are acquired.
Examples:
Weapon Mastery: +1 Attack and Damage when wielding my weapon of choice in combat (one handed sword, polearm, bow, etc).
Stealthy: +2 on stealth checks.
Combat Premonition: I can see small details from the very near future. If I am hit by a sneak attack or an ambush maneuver, I can reroll my check again to see if they actually hit.
Active abilities are abilities that must be activated. The can be fancy attack maneuvers, unique actions, reaction abilities, etc. Active abilities have
a limit of how many times they can be used before resting. More uses means a steeper AP cost.
Examples:
Rain of Steel [1/1]: Allows me to simultaneously throw as many ranged thrown weapons as my Finesse modifier, in a single action.
Leap Attack [1/1]: Allows me to attack a target even if their formation does not normally permit it.
Defensive Roll [1/1]: When a hit would normally take me below 0 HP, I reduce the damage in half, remaining with no less than 1 HP.
Sustained abilities are modes that can be turned on and off and offer some kind of bonus in exchange for a malus. You can only turn sustained abilities on/off at the beginning of your own turn, but they are otherwise unlimited.
Examples:
Combat Expertise: Converts my Mettle modifier into a Finesse modifier.
Quickened Spell: Casting a spell is considered a minor action in this mode, but my hastened movements and the tremendous concentration they require make me an easier target, reducing my Agility, Fortitude and Willpower by 2 each.
Daggerdance: Whenever I successfully dodge a melee attack, my AC is increased by 1 for the remainder of this encounter. This bonus is cumulative. Being hit in melee resets the bonus, deals double damage, and ends this sustained ability prematurely.
Spellcasting: In order to cast spells, your character needs to learn them, adding them to their spellbook. You can learn spells from scrolls and books you come across in your adventures, and NPCs can teach you spells as well. The number of spells you can memorize is equal to your Spirit modifier+3, which is also the number of spells you may cast before resting. You can learn abilities to increase the number of spells you can memorize or cast above what your spirit allows, if you wish. Once your spellbook is full, you will have to forget an existing spell if you'd like to learn a new one. Unlike in our old PnPs, you cannot define your own spells (balance ahoy).
This effectively makes spell-casting accessible to anyone with more than the minimum spirit. A warrior can dabble and learn one or two spells to help turn the tide of battle.
You can personalize your spells via abilities, for example:
Cold Ember (Sustained ability): All fire spells that I cast in this mode deal cold damage instead.
Augment Healing (Passive): Healing spells cast by me are 20% more effective.
Extend Spell [1/1]: Doubles the duration of a duration spell that I cast.
There are multiple ways to restore active ability uses, HP and spell uses. The first is an extended rest, which usually takes around 8 hours and fully replenishes HP, active ability uses and spell uses. The second is a short rest, which is automatically done after any encounter not immediately followed by another and restores active skill uses and spell uses but not HP. The third is through the use of consumable items which may restore one or more of the above.
Combat
17. Rolling a natural 20 on any attack (meaning no modifiers) causes the attack to be a critical hit, normally dealing double damage. Certain abilities and weapons may affect the chance or damage of a critical hit.
18. If a character's HP drop to 0, he/she faints. Unconscious characters can't act anymore until the battle is over, at which point they regain consciousness (but remain at 0 HP, unable to fight). Your characters cannot die in combat unless the whole party is defeated.
19. In combat, you may do one attack (major action) and one minor action or just two minor actions per turn. Anything that is not just talking counts as a minor action (e.g. using an item from your inventory, changing your row, etc.). After having done your actions, wait for my next post, unless all you want to do is to make your character say something.
20. You can choose between two possible positions for battles - front or cover. The front can be attacked by anything, but can also attack with anything itself. Covered characters can only be hit by ranged attacks, certain skills/spells and attacks that hit multiple characters - however, this only applies if there is at least one character standing at the front. If no-one at the front is left, melee attacks will be able to hit covered characters as well, so beware. Also note that if you're attacked from behind, your front and cover will be reversed.
21. If it looks like you're about to lose a battle, you might want to try to escape instead of waiting until you're defeated. Usually, if you try to escape and there aren't any obstacles in your way, you will succeed. However, if you escape, any party members not capable of moving (e. g. because of being unconscious) will be left behind (carrying them would slow you down too much). Usually, this means that they'll be captured. If you're unlucky, it might also mean their death, however.
22. Be creative. There are many ways to defeat your enemies, and not all of them necessarily involve defeating them yourself or even reducing their HP to 0 at all.
23. In a battle, whenever a turn passes in which a player hasn't posted (and the other players haven't chosen what that character should do either), his character will simply attack the first enemy on the list with a simple normal attack if he can hit an enemy from where he's standing. If you don't want that to happen, simply add a "Script" tag in your charater's profile (in the spoiler) that tells me what your character should do in which situation. This can be as detailed as you want; if you want, you can even make a whole universal strategy to be used when you're absent, and I will make your character act accordingly to it (unless something happens which isn't covered in your script, in which case your character will resort to doing either normal attacks or nothing).
24. If you don't want to wait for the other players to post in a battle (for example if it just drags on and seemingly takes forever), you can just post a bolded End Turn in the game thread. You can then also give orders to the characters that haven't posted yet, if you want to, kind of like in an actual RPG game. Any characters that do not receive orders and have not posted yet at that point will resort to their script. If you ever actually want a character to do nothing, state so.
25. I may automatically end the current turn in a battle if some players haven't posted their actions after around 24 hours.
A quick reference for deriving your secondary statistics:
Starting HP: Dependent on Fortitude as such :
-3 : 10
-2 : 12
-1 : 14
+0 : 15
+1 : 17
+2 : 19
+3 : 20
HP gain on level up : Dependent on Fortitude as such :
-3 : 1d4
-2 : 1d4
-1 : 1d4
+0 : 1d6
+1 : 1d6
+2 : 1d6
+3 : 1d8
+4 : 1d8
+5 : 1d8
+6 : 1d10
+7 : 1d10
+8 : 1d10
+9 : 1d12
Dmg: Weapon damage + Mettle
Hit: Mettle + Finesse + Weapon Hit Bonus
Armor Class: 10 + Finesse + Agility
Spell Pool (number of times you may cast a spell before resting): Spi+3
Señor Example, Lv1 [00] Demonstrator [Front]
19/19 HP
5/5 SP
3-9 Dmg | +2 Hit | +3 AC
Weapon: Example Sword [1d6 Dmg]
Armor: Example suspicious trench coat in the middle of summer [1 AC]
Spoiler:
- Item [Effect]
- Item [Effect]
- Item [Effect]
Spellbook...[ 02/05 ]
- Magic Rocket: Ride it baby!
- Lukewarm Hands: Can be either pleasant or awkward, depending on the context....
Active Abilities[list]Example [3/3]: Provides an example of an active ability your character can learn when used.[/list]
Sustained Abilities[list]Example: Sometimes provides an example of a sustained ability your character can learn.[/list]
Passive Abilities[list]Example: Always provides an example of a passive ability your character can learn.[/list]
Attributes:
Mettle: +2
Finesse: +0
Agility: +2
Fortitude: +2
Spirit: +2
Willpower: -3
Perception: +0
Miscellanea:
Ability Points: 150
Hit Die: 1d6
Scripts:
- nil.
Description: Describe your characters appearance and background here.