Evaluating Nasuverse characters

[Schattenbach]

As I'm finally about to read/watch the Mahoutsukai no Yoru visual novel, I've been wondering how the Nasuverse characters (from Tsukihime/Melty Blood/Fate stay Night, Fate Extra, ecetera) actually compare to DnD 3.5 characters in terms of overall "level". As there are plenty of races (like the entire bunch of Death Apostles) that have racial traits that boost their general capabilities or (like Arcueids Marble Phantasm) make them much stronger than their regular stats would suggest, evaluating them along the lines of "character xyz is comparable to some level 11 spellcaster-type character" seems slightly difficult but still possible (as most characters aren't really capable of extreme supernatural feats or overwhelming physical capabilities ... and as such could be evaluated based on how much beyond the norm they go)?

As I'm likely not the only one interested in recreating at least some parts of that setting (or using elements inspired by those settings in otherwise homebrewed settings), it would be interesting to hear some opinions about these characters.

Thanks in advance.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Too many characters have an instant 'I win' button, and divination isn't very good at revealing secrets in the nasuverse.

If your google-fu is decent, you can find some 3.x boards from a few years back that covered the Fate/Stay characters, and did pretty well, but that still pales in comparison to how the characters really are.

[Fizban]

I get the feeling that a lot of them could be done up in the same manner as the old 6th level Aragorn: the fight scenes may be spectacular, but trading a bunch of blows doesn't say anything about level, and as mentioned most phantasms and whatnot are either just a flashier attack or a straight up "I win" button. Just fate/stay night itself you've got one guy who's ultimate ability is attacking extra fast (Assassin), one with a giant doom laser (Saber), one with petrification and a flying horse (Rider), one with 7 extra lives (Berserker), one who can shoot big kabooms from miles away (Archer), one who can stab people extra accurately (Lancer), and one who is a tier 1 caster (Caster).

Considering the fact that even in-universe it is acknowledged that some classes of spirit are better in almost every situation, and stronger/better prepared summoners can call stronger spirits, there's no reason to assume any of the servants would be the same level. Each would have its own unique build with whatever classes/templates/items are required to do their thing, until you run into stuff that just doesn't translate.

Of course you could always just use The Tome of the Holy Grail (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?362608) instead. Why stat up the characters directly when you can play a character who is playing a character?

[khadgar567]

Archer emiya and shirou emiya are easy enough. Nearly every major character from fate can be created with little third party knowledge. Only problem is melty blood characters

[Tohsaka Rin]

Archer emiya and shirou emiya are easy enough. Nearly every major character from fate can be created with little third party knowledge. Only problem is melty blood characters

Archer Emiya/Shirou both reproduce artifacts almost at-will.

Gilgamesh creates storms of them, and has the best version of everything that ever existed. Ever.

Hercules is not only a demi-god, he also can bring himself back to life multiple times, has DR infinity/Artifact, and becomes immune to whatever killed him. Being a Berserker class actually weakens him, if you can believe that.

That's just vanilla Fate. This isn't getting into Fate/Zero, or the Kaleidostick, or Grand Order. E6 doesn't cover the fact that Stay/Night Saber and Rider were fast enough to sprint up the side of a building, and fight whilst doing it.

Either you play E6, and fluff EVERYTHING (to the point that you're not really playing D&D anymore) or you realize that you're going into epic levels to cover this stuff.

[Arbane]

Nasuverse stuff is like the most gonzo World of Darkness game ever, run by a mad logician.
There's allegedly a very complex, intricate set of rules, but since EVERY character worth mentioning breaks them in some way, it'd probably be easier to just run it in something like FATE.

[Tohsaka Rin]

I'd be very interested in knowing when these rule-breakings happened.

And don't say 'Rule Breaker', that's just being cheeky.

[khadgar567]

Archer Emiya/Shirou both reproduce artifacts almost at-will.

Gilgamesh creates storms of them, and has the best version of everything that ever existed. Ever.

Hercules is not only a demi-god, he also can bring himself back to life multiple times, has DR infinity/Artifact, and becomes immune to whatever killed him. Being a Berserker class actually weakens him, if you can believe that.

That's just vanilla Fate. This isn't getting into Fate/Zero, or the Kaleidostick, or Grand Order. E6 doesn't cover the fact that Stay/Night Saber and Rider were fast enough to sprint up the side of a building, and fight whilst doing it.

Either you play E6, and fluff EVERYTHING (to the point that you're not really playing D&D anymore) or you realize that you're going into epic levels to cover this stuff.
I dont say they can be created in e6 all I know its we just need drop dead studios guys to write unlimited blade works and ionian heteroi as talents. Which nearly all grand order servants use either spheres of power or spheres of might with simple custom templates to change fluff all saber arturia and her variations does is fight with use sword until final fight then umd the excalibur to fire wave motion gun to opponent.
Gilgamesh basicly created in expanded he is human liang chi armorist with atleast one divine rank. And I think even you can create enuma elish with few more talents.
As for emiya itself same build diverges to convict class to get his own fighting technique, as for complete unkown servants like shielder its some fusion of speres of might and few levels of speres of power gish then its served. as for kaledidosticks they are basicly same build with vigilante start then each character is simply same build as ever
edit made it little bit more read able

[Tohsaka Rin]

Could you please use the enter key, and clean up that wall of text a little?

[Schattenbach]

Thanks for the answers thus far.

Death Apostle Ancestors (when ignoring the top ranked ones) and (above average ... as most summoned ones are at the very least above average) Heroic Spirits/Servants each (and as far groups, at least the "average ones within each group" within each group are comparable over all and things come down to compability) do seem to be somewhere between level 10 (for the weakest ones, those with lots of E's and such ... though even E is significantly, i.e. 10x that of some regular human, high) and something like level 25 with something comparable to an basic LA+8 Template ("Death Apostle Ancestor" and "Heroic Spirit" respectivly) slapped on top of that (some of them aren't human to begin with which alters their basic stats and characteristics, anyway). Heracles (especially while sane). Gilgamesh (though he certainly isn't either some kind of spellcaster-type nor some kind of fighter-type) and Medusa (in her Gorgon form) might actually be somewhere between level 30 and 40, maybe even slightly higher than that (Medusa in her "demon god"-like Gorgon form in particular, I guess).


Archer Emiya/Shirou both reproduce artifacts almost at-will.

Only with sufficient Prana Supply. And that's pretty much the main thing he's lacking (besides natural talent).


Gilgamesh creates storms of them, and has the best version of everything that ever existed. Ever.

Gilgamesh doesn't create them, though, he retrives them from his storage space and (usually ... when he feels lazy) fires (i.e. throws/thrusts them) them en mass at his enemies. He can and does use some of them properly, though. No idea about how to evaluate Ea, though.

As far as I remember, he was only upgraded to possessing everything mankind could've reached (at least until mankind goes to space or something. It's been a while since I looked up those fate extra details, so please correct me about that if I'm remembering it wrong) and such.


Hercules is not only a demi-god, he also can bring himself back to life multiple times, has DR infinity/Artifact, and becomes immune to whatever killed him. Being a Berserker class actually weakens him, if you can believe that.

Gilgamesh counts, more or less, as Demigod, too, what with his 2/3 Divinity that's lowered due to his dislike of the gods (and Medusa is a former deity, for what that counts). Nasuverse demigods aren't DnD 3.5 Demigods, though (or at least as far as DnD 3.5's "lots of immunities as well as Alter Reality"-demigods are concerned). A-Rank attacks (which aren't quite the same as Artifacts or "A-Rank noble phantasms") are more than sufficient when it comes to hurting Heracles (which is also why some of the more powerful non-Noble Phantasm physical attacks and magecraft stuff could shave away some of his lives over the course of the series) and not only is he still vulnerable to those attacks until he regenerates, especially powerful attacks can take take out multiple (or, in slightly more extreme cases, even all) of his "comes-back-to-life-multiple-times" jokers at once. Doesn't change the fact that Heracles is extremely dangerous, though. It hurts that he isn't really able to fly ...


That's just vanilla Fate. This isn't getting into Fate/Zero, or the Kaleidostick, or Grand Order. E6 doesn't cover the fact that Stay/Night Saber and Rider were fast enough to sprint up the side of a building, and fight whilst doing it.

Fate/Extra is actually much higher up there compared to vanilla Fate and Fate/Zero.

There are actually some spelled out numbers about what "B-Ranked Agility" or "A-Ranked Agility" means (i.e. 40x or 50x as high as that of regular humans, with some specific infos in regard to in what way that plays out due to the specialities of some characters with comparable speed stats but different focus on what their speed is used on; now ... obviously, 40x and 50x doesn't mean "40 or 50 Dexterity" in DnD 3.5 as things don't scale that way ... strength based lifting power and/or breaking strength might be some good indicator here as far as human capabilities are concerned, about what possible ability scores that would result in).

[Prime32]

There are actually some spelled out numbers about what "B-Ranked Agility" or "A-Ranked Agility" means (i.e. 40x or 50x as high as that of regular humans, with some specific infos in regard to in what way that plays out due to the specialities of some characters with comparable speed stats but different focus on what their speed is used on; now ... obviously, 40x and 50x doesn't mean "40 or 50 Dexterity" in DnD 3.5 as things don't scale that way ... strength based lifting power and/or breaking strength might be some good indicator here as far as human capabilities are concerned, about what possible ability scores that would result in).
+5 Strength doubles your lifting strength. So 40x the strength of a normal human would equate to a Strength score of about 36, and 50x to a score of 38 (https://graphsketch.com/?eqn1_color=1&eqn1_eqn=2%5E((x-10)%2F5)&eqn2_color=2&eqn2_eqn=&eqn3_color=3&eqn3_eqn=&eqn4_color=4&eqn4_eqn=&eqn5_color=5&eqn5_eqn=&eqn6_color=6&eqn6_eqn=&x_min=-3&x_max=45&y_min=-3&y_max=121&x_tick=1&y_tick=1&x_label_freq=5&y_label_freq=1&do_grid=0&do_grid=1&bold_labeled_lines=0&bold_labeled_lines=1&line_width=4&image_w=850&image_h=2000).

[Tohsaka Rin]

Considering D Rank strength is enough to casually crush a human's head with one hand, I don't think the scale is quite that low. (The Servant in question was Caster from Fate/Zero.)

[Schattenbach]

+5 Strength doubles your lifting strength. So 40x the strength of a normal human would equate to a Strength score of about 36, and 50x to a score of 38 (https://graphsketch.com/?eqn1_color=1&eqn1_eqn=2%5E((x-10)%2F5)&eqn2_color=2&eqn2_eqn=&eqn3_color=3&eqn3_eqn=&eqn4_color=4&eqn4_eqn=&eqn5_color=5&eqn5_eqn=&eqn6_color=6&eqn6_eqn=&x_min=-3&x_max=45&y_min=-3&y_max=121&x_tick=1&y_tick=1&x_label_freq=5&y_label_freq=1&do_grid=0&do_grid=1&bold_labeled_lines=0&bold_labeled_lines=1&line_width=4&image_w=850&image_h=2000).

Thanks for looking that up.


Considering D Rank strength is enough to casually crush a human's head with one hand, I don't think the scale is quite that low. (The Servant in question was Caster from Fate/Zero.)

It doesn't sound that off, though, as even E Rank strengt would still be a strength score of around at least 27 or so and thus (as it is twice that much with 20x the strength of normal humans) D-Rank would mean it's at least some strength score around ~31 or so ... which means it's an strength modifier of +10 or even +11. That's enough to do quite a bit of damage (enough to kill sufficiently weak creatures instantly or to at least push them into negative hit points). It's still not enough to bend iron bars (Break DC of 24), to "Break down strong doors" (Break DC of 23), "Burst rope bonds" (Break DC of 23), "Burst chain bonds" (Break DC of 26) or to "Break down iron doors" (Break DC of 28) with pretty much certain success but still enough to accomplish those feats if one does considerably well (regardless if it's by luck or by taking enough time or due to something else) or just tries often enough.

Obviously, one could also argue that one should higher base values than some human with an measly strength score of 10, which would result in adjusting those values up accordingly to see if that works better for them.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Except we start running into problems once magic comes into play.

Caster (ahem) casted Reinforcement onto Souichirou, allowing him to fight on par with Saber (under Shirou as Master), putting them both on B Rank strength. So giving him the benefit of his training (because if we don't, this gets even more problematic) and saying he had 25 strength, minimum level 20, and put all his stat points into strength... Caster still gave him roughly 10 (or 11 if we're keeping track) points of strength. Honest question now, can that be done pre-epic?

Shirou makes it even worse. He manged to boost himself with reinforcement to match Archer (EMIYA)'s D rank strength. Not a huge leap, true, but he's known in-series for being a TERRIBLE Mage. Like dirt terrible.

Yet somehow he can manage to use magecraft (and his Reality Marble, another problem) to create artifacts degraded by one rank, with a few exceptions. Multiples of them. And wield them with the exact same skill as the former owners of the weapons (cough cough Nine Lives Blade Works) in an instant. Sure, he doesn't have a lot of Mana, he's still managed to pull multiple (often dual) castings out of his butt without any magical support (example, the short 'rescue Saber' arc, or his entire duel with EMIYA).

...Wow, that was a long, and complainy rant, wasn't it? Ok ok, being constructive here.

Don't try and model non-heroes ingame. Have them as NPCs or something, because they break the system too much. Just statting out Heroic Spirits? You're pretty much in the clear on that one, so long as you're ok with wildly varying character levels.

Or piling on a bunch of gestalt combinations.

Or giving out free full caster ranks.

Or giving out free high-level/epic spells to non-caster classes.

[khadgar567]

Except we start running into problems once magic comes into play.

Caster (ahem) casted Reinforcement onto Souichirou, allowing him to fight on par with Saber (under Shirou as Master), putting them both on B Rank strength. So giving him the benefit of his training (because if we don't, this gets even more problematic) and saying he had 25 strength, minimum level 20, and put all his stat points into strength... Caster still gave him roughly 10 (or 11 if we're keeping track) points of strength. Honest question now, can that be done pre-epic?

Shirou makes it even worse. He manged to boost himself with reinforcement to match Archer (EMIYA)'s D rank strength. Not a huge leap, true, but he's known in-series for being a TERRIBLE Mage. Like dirt terrible.

Yet somehow he can manage to use magecraft (and his Reality Marble, another problem) to create artifacts degraded by one rank, with a few exceptions. Multiples of them. And wield them with the exact same skill as the former owners of the weapons (cough cough Nine Lives Blade Works) in an instant. Sure, he doesn't have a lot of Mana, he's still managed to pull multiple (often dual) castings out of his butt without any magical support (example, the short 'rescue Saber' arc, or his entire duel with EMIYA).

...Wow, that was a long, and complainy rant, wasn't it? Ok ok, being constructive here.

Don't try and model non-heroes ingame. Have them as NPCs or something, because they break the system too much. Just statting out Heroic Spirits? You're pretty much in the clear on that one, so long as you're ok with wildly varying character levels.

Or piling on a bunch of gestalt combinations.

Or giving out free full caster ranks.

Or giving out free high-level/epic spells to non-caster classes.
ishtar-chan( since you host in grand order) would you mind checking spheres of power and might books from drop dead studios they said you can create cu cuhain legitima in might book so only character we cant create is funnly mata hari from grand order due no su skills just raw charisma and her golden tongue and the guys from melty boold era due I am not knowing them to much.

[Tuvarkz]

Except we start running into problems once magic comes into play.

Caster (ahem) casted Reinforcement onto Souichirou, allowing him to fight on par with Saber (under Shirou as Master), putting them both on B Rank strength. So giving him the benefit of his training (because if we don't, this gets even more problematic) and saying he had 25 strength, minimum level 20, and put all his stat points into strength... Caster still gave him roughly 10 (or 11 if we're keeping track) points of strength. Honest question now, can that be done pre-epic?

Shirou makes it even worse. He manged to boost himself with reinforcement to match Archer (EMIYA)'s D rank strength. Not a huge leap, true, but he's known in-series for being a TERRIBLE Mage. Like dirt terrible.

Yet somehow he can manage to use magecraft (and his Reality Marble, another problem) to create artifacts degraded by one rank, with a few exceptions. Multiples of them. And wield them with the exact same skill as the former owners of the weapons (cough cough Nine Lives Blade Works) in an instant. Sure, he doesn't have a lot of Mana, he's still managed to pull multiple (often dual) castings out of his butt without any magical support (example, the short 'rescue Saber' arc, or his entire duel with EMIYA).

...Wow, that was a long, and complainy rant, wasn't it? Ok ok, being constructive here.

Don't try and model non-heroes ingame. Have them as NPCs or something, because they break the system too much. Just statting out Heroic Spirits? You're pretty much in the clear on that one, so long as you're ok with wildly varying character levels.

Or piling on a bunch of gestalt combinations.

Or giving out free full caster ranks.

Or giving out free high-level/epic spells to non-caster classes.

Not 3.5, but PF: Caster can actually give Souichirou a +10 total to Strength. Idealize Wizard discovery at 20th lets Bull's Strength net him a +8 enhancement bonus, and then Polymorph so he takes the benefits of Alter Self-Medium Humanoid form is another +2 size bonus to strength, for a +10 total.

Also, on a technicality, Shirou is just an extreme form of specialist-He's terrible at most magic, but quite good at Reinforcement/Alteration/Projection-with an Reality Marble letting him break the normal magic rules and get the noble phantasms without the normal mana cost killing him. I'd dare say he'd have a custom class that is just focused on his stuff, a la Dread Necromancer, but with a Conjuration(Creation) and Transmutation focus instead.

[khadgar567]

snip

Also, on a technicality, Shirou is just an extreme form of specialist-He's terrible at most magic, but quite good at Reinforcement/Alteration/Projection-with an Reality Marble letting him break the normal magic rules and get the noble phantasms without the normal mana cost killing him. I'd dare say he'd have a custom class that is just focused on his stuff, a la Dread Necromancer, but with a Conjuration(Creation) and Transmutation focus instead.
well he is builded at least several times in this forum you dont need to reinvent wheel to create him two levels of armorist from spheres of power then one level of armiger from might book then switch to good gish class boost the build. Here it is adventure capable shirou emiya from level 3 and onward so its not to hard to create him. As others just pm me some info then i create them for you .

[Fizban]

Caster still gave him roughly 10 (or 11 if we're keeping track) points of strength. Honest question now, can that be done pre-epic?
Draconic Polymorph into himself for +8, assuming we don't care about duration or more effective uses of the spell. Or use the 3.0 Bull's Strength which can be Maximized and Empowered up to +6-7. If one allows unlimited shenanigans you could stack Draconic Polymorph with Bite of the Werebear and Persist them for +24.
Edit: er, polymorph doesn't help if you needed the 25 to start. But the rest exist, and the only reason there aren't higher enhancement bonus spells is. . . ? There's also Extract Gift with sufficiently cheesed caster level, and +5 inherent from whatever source. Applying the Spellwarped template is worth another +4 with extra magical endurance, and Wish can be used to slap templates on people as per Savage Species. Considering the "I win" expectations of Caster and the nature of cheese, it seems appropriate to assume she has far more caster level than she should and doesn't care about xp costs at least. That just runs back into the problem where being able to do X in dnd with a caster means also doing ZYXbbq.

Shirou makes it even worse. He manged to boost himself with reinforcement to match Archer (EMIYA)'s D rank strength. Not a huge leap, true, but he's known in-series for being a TERRIBLE Mage. Like dirt terrible.
Sure, but he's a cheating protagonist up against people with an extremely strict view of what a "mage" is. The same as wizard zealots saying sorcerer is garbage. Shirou could be a Battle Sorcerer, no "mage" spells but plenty of transmutations/self-buffs/defenses and not so far away from a full brawler. Say his mana registers as low because it's measured after some amount of daily buff spells he is always assumed to have cast. Or because only castings of flashy enough spells count as mana while most of his spells are low-key and don't "require" as much-he has a full complement of spell slots but the in-universe characters have come up with a faulty "mana" term that fails to explain where he gets his power (Rin giving him "mana" still results in spell slots he can use because she's just transfering her "mana" looking spell slots which are still spell slots for his mechanics). Heck, maybe the reason he has no "mana" is that sorcerer slots don't count at all?

(And the recursive nature of Shirou/EMIYA mooching skills off his alternate self goes perfectly with Servant Soul Shirou taking heroic spirits EMIYA and Shirou and then installing himself to get his main abilities, without even statting up how the "original" timeline did it. Pime Taradox!)

[khadgar567]

Draconic Polymorph into himself for +8, assuming we don't care about duration or more effective uses of the spell. Or use the 3.0 Bull's Strength which can be Maximized and Empowered up to +6-7. If one allows unlimited shenanigans you could stack Draconic Polymorph with Bite of the Werebear and Persist them for +24.
Edit: er, polymorph doesn't help if you needed the 25 to start. But the rest exist, and the only reason there aren't higher enhancement bonus spells is. . . ? There's also Extract Gift with sufficiently cheesed caster level, and +5 inherent from whatever source. Applying the Spellwarped template is worth another +4 with extra magical endurance, and Wish can be used to slap templates on people as per Savage Species. Considering the "I win" expectations of Caster and the nature of cheese, it seems appropriate to assume she has far more caster level than she should and doesn't care about xp costs at least. That just runs back into the problem where being able to do X in dnd with a caster means also doing ZYXbbq.

Sure, but he's a cheating protagonist up against people with an extremely strict view of what a "mage" is. The same as wizard zealots saying sorcerer is garbage. Shirou could be a Battle Sorcerer, no "mage" spells but plenty of transmutations/self-buffs/defenses and not so far away from a full brawler. Say his mana registers as low because it's measured after some amount of daily buff spells he is always assumed to have cast. Or because only castings of flashy enough spells count as mana while most of his spells are low-key and don't "require" as much-he has a full complement of spell slots but the in-universe characters have come up with a faulty "mana" term that fails to explain where he gets his power (Rin giving him "mana" still results in spell slots he can use because she's just transfering her "mana" looking spell slots which are still spell slots for his mechanics). Heck, maybe the reason he has no "mana" is that sorcerer slots don't count at all?

(And the recursive nature of Shirou/EMIYA mooching skills off his alternate self goes perfectly with Servant Soul Shirou taking heroic spirits EMIYA and Shirou and then installing himself to get his main abilities, without even statting up how the "original" timeline did it. Pime Taradox!)
here we go again

[Zancloufer]

Well this looks, interesting.


1) Souichirou; I don't know if Caster gave him enough strength to match Saber in strength outright. In the Visual Novel he used technique and the element of surprise +a pile of Buffs from what is probably an epic level Mage to take out a gimped servant (gimped as in Saber didn't have enough Mana to reach even class baseline stats). He didn't match her in speed or strength, he caught her blade at awkward angles and struck pressure points when her guard was down. Look at something like Manticore Parry from ToB + some other manoeuvre than can stun on a successful hit. Also remember than HP doesn't exist in the Nasuverse. It has been stated that one solid super human blow (so like ~20 damage) to the right spot will kill a servant. Blow that can fell a tree to Saber's neck? Unless she was secretly a Dulahan she is dead.

2) Shirou ; Having below average magical capacity and knowing like 4 spells Doesn't mean he is bad at those 4 spells. Imagine a Battle Sorcerer+, minimal Spells know and spells per day but still the same level of power that is eventually reachable. Shirou is an example of the super niche spell caster. Can the problem be solved with 50+ magical pointy objects to the face? Done. No? Well damm, I got nothing guys. Also to be fair Shirou has a training regiment that makes Satima look like a lazy bum. He's probably bordering on professional body builder physique before magecraft.



On the whole stating people? I know my D&D group was somewhat interested in doing a Holy Grail War esque game. I stated the servants has level 20+ Outsiders with custom HD and massive stat boosts (like +5-25 to each given stat) and some other decent bonuses. Each class also had different BaB, class features and requirements. All the Knight classes had 20+ levels of class features from classes without spellcasting had effects similar to Globes of Invulnerability to mimic Magic Resistance (which, oddly enough in the Nasuverse almost never stops True Magic despite it's name. Magecraft Resistance not sounding cool enough?). I could post I had if people are interested.

I probably low balled it, but it did make the servants rather powerful but not totally unapproachable. You could stat the masters as being much weaker, maybe a E6-E10 to the servants level 20 if you wanted a functional game that at least got the relative feel of the servants being beyond your average person, but still not 100% unapproachable.

[Tohsaka Rin]

The OP's question was specifically for 3.5, not Pathfinder. Not knocking Pathfinder at all, just pointing out that anything PF-related is straying from the topic.

On the point of Mana, the Nasu-verse apparently uses spellpoints, not slots. There's a reason a lot of the attempts at creating the characters in 3.5 use psionics, and it's not because spellslots are bad.

There's no such thing as a 'faulty mana term', just people trying to shoe-horn spellslots into a series that runs on granularity, not vancian casting.

As for the EMIYA/Shirou overlap, well... Blame Nasu for that. There was originally going to be a 4th route, featuring Ilya (since Rin, Saber, and Sakura all got their turns) and explaining how EMIYA came to be who he is... But that got cut. Tragic.

...What? Oh, right. The specific rules for Original/Copy in the nasu-verse are weird. The World abhors copies, and degrades them over time. That's why Servants cannot last without a Master (or source of mana), and objects created with Gradation Air don't last very long.

...Unless you make a perfect copy. Then the World goes 'oh, this is exactly identical to the original, this must be the original, I'll leave it alone'. Since the World perceives Emiya/Shirou to be the same person (and really, except for differing ages/experiences, they are), they slowly start to leak into one another.

The nasu-verse is weird, but at least it's consistent.

Let's just not talk about OP Jewel Sword Zelretch. Like, at all.

[Fizban]

There's no such thing as a 'faulty mana term', just people trying to shoe-horn spellslots into a series that runs on granularity, not vancian casting.
Which is a way to use RAW mechanics and fluff away the problem rather than building a whole new system. Oddly enough no one's suggested psionics yet, even though Shirou as a Psywar and Caster/other mages as StP Erudites probably works a lot better.

No matter how you're statting it, anime (and many other action genre) characters also tend to need lots of extra free/swift/immediate actions and abilities, since they're always doing this or that instantly in between things. Which should require significant levels.

As for the EMIYA/Shirou overlap, well... Blame Nasu for that. There was originally going to be a 4th route, featuring Ilya (since Rin, Saber, and Sakura all got their turns) and explaining how EMIYA came to be who he is... But that got cut. Tragic.
Now that is interesting. Wonder if any of that inspired the existence of Prisma Illya, since I basically had the same thought about it and eventually there's a flashback where Shirou fights a bunch of stuff.

[Zancloufer]

Which is a way to use RAW mechanics and fluff away the problem rather than building a whole new system. Oddly enough no one's suggested psionics yet, even though Shirou as a Psywar and Caster/other mages as StP Erudites probably works a lot better.


A spell point system would probably work better. I know I have an half finished homebrew of building 3.5 casters that would behave more akin to the Nasuverse ones. Spell points was a big thing, also they had regeneration mechanics as MP would regenerate more over time than just resting. Not fast enough in combat outside of some real tricks, but enough that caster's could "Nova" a little. Spells where all modular where the characters would have to make make them by combining "effects" and what not. Also had bonus to CL for those who specialized more, given an incentive to build less broad characters (Person who couldn't use, say Fire or Ice damage, got extra CL on other elemental spells). A static list of "known" spells just doesn't work from the fluff angle on how secretive they tend to be with their mysteries.




Now that is interesting. Wonder if any of that inspired the existence of Prisma Illya, since I basically had the same thought about it and eventually there's a flashback where Shirou fights a bunch of stuff.

I honestly see more inspiration for Prismatic Illya in a Doujinshi that the mystical 4th route. It's been all but out right started in the actual Visual Novel's 4th wall breaking sessions that EMIYA is essentially from that 4th cut route.

[Prime32]

Considering D Rank strength is enough to casually crush a human's head with one hand, I don't think the scale is quite that low. (The Servant in question was Caster from Fate/Zero.)
If Caster's D-rank strength is 20x that of a normal human, then that translates into a Strength score of 32.

I.e. even without Improved Unarmed Strike or any kind of damage boosters like Power Attack, his punches/grapples are dealing 12~14 damage with each attack. An lv1 commoner has only 1d4 hit points (which aren't maximised like PC's), so this is enough damage to kill them instantly. If he spends the whole round crushing someone's head (rather than moving and head-crushing in the same turn) then he gets to make multiple attacks for further damage.

My, what a fool you are, Tohsaka Rin! DOHOHOHOHOHO!

[Tohsaka Rin]

Prime, stop that.

Both being right, and laughing like that.

Your rack isn't nearly big enough, nor do you have enough drill-horns.

[Schattenbach]

Thanks for the help thus far.

So ... the spell point system combied with some custom source of bonus spell points (that, for the most part, aren't tied to their mental ablity scores ... maybe some templates that model their naturally high magical capacity/magic circuits/whatever) and spells (maybe combined with access to incanation-related stuff and custom spellcasting classes ... as class containers and/or generic magus classes, etc) might work for them, as far as modeling for pretty much everyone that uses magic is concerned. It also helps that there are plenty of stated values to work with (like shiro!sabers consumption or that she, with her B-Rank mana, started out with around 1200 to 1300 units of magical energy).

As far as I could tell, several servants (Saber being the primary suspect here, what with her highly variable physical strength) use at least some of their magical energy (there are plenty of values stated thus far) for physical reinforcement/enhancement (that still factors into the evaluation of their strength ... like in Sabers and, maybe, EMIYAs case).

Servants (and other superhuman enities that are often quite fast) would also need something that boosts their speed (movement speed, combat speed, etc.) up to respectable levels ... regular 30 feet movement speed just isn't going to cut it for servants and such once things turn supersonic (or, in some cases, even hypersonic).

What about the non-Servants (i.e. mundane mages/magical beasts/dead apostles/etc.)? Other than the need for some templates to replicate specific characteristics (especially those that shouldn't be tied to specific mental ability scores, like plenty of bonus spell points due to inborn huge magical capacity, though simply adding more class levels of some custom spellcasting class that provides lots of spellponints would solve this as well) and some actual magus-like class (because wizard-levels just don't make much sense for them) or variants of that, is there much else that one would need to look into? It seems that most characters (non-MC-like characters in particular) are fine with being somewhere between level 3 to (at most) 10, as they usually aren#t all that impressive, correct?

[bekeleven]

Nasuverse can't be rendered in a simulationist system because its priority is not on logic or consistency.

Your quest is destined to end in failure. Might I recommend Nobilis?