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pseudovere
2008-03-31, 05:14 PM
Alright, I've been working on this thing for ages, and nobody is paying it any attention in it's old thread, which probably has something to do with the fact that I never make new posts, only edit, so despite the fact that I work on it several hours every week it just fell off the face of the earth. That and it had a cruddy title so nobody would click on it to begin with.

ANYWAY, enough rambling. Copied and pasted from the old, and now dead under thread necromancy laws, thread for your viewing convenience, the Campaign Setting and Game System:

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It looks like you all hate spoiler tags, so they are now removed.

World Background
The world is sort of an odd take on post-apocalyptic. Rather than being set in a futuristic wasteland, it is set in a fantasy world that is a few thousand years after the collapse of civilization, and the world has long since become a stable environment, and reformed society. All that remains of the ancient civilizations are scattered, ruined skyscrapers standing in the forests, and technological and magical wonders that are beyond even the most skilled wizard's understanding. However, the world is still without its troubles.

Years ago, all of the continent of Austius was ruled by the Emperor of Separida. He was a powerful wizard, who actually managed to achieve immortality through the sacrifice of others. While he was able to make his city a virtual paradise, it was at the expense of all of the other cities. He managed to hold the continent under his harsh rule for over 200 years before the continent united in revolt against him. In an effort to regain control of the continent, he began altering natural life with magic to create monstrosities to use against the rebels. These creatures would probably have been able to crush the rebellion, if it hadn't been for the Blight.

After the destruction of Separida, the rebels themselves had little to unite themselves after the destruction of their mutual enemy. With a lack of rapid long distance communication or transportation, the cities inevitably split into their own city states, drawing sustenance from a small network of towns around them.

The Blight
50 years ago, a huge amount of magical radiation shot out from the city of Separida, presumably from the Emperor's experiments, shot across the lands, contaminating practically the entirety of the northern continent. The magical energy, now called the Blight, presumably intended to twist nature into more powerful versions of their original form, simply killed them. Practically every form of life died where it stood for hundreds of miles around the city, leaving the entire northern continent a land of dead trees, dried grass, and animal skeletons.

However, while it was powerful enough to kill only in the wastelands, the Blight's effects have been felt throughout the entire continent. Exotic diseases, apparently magical in origin, have sprouted up throughout the land, monsters previously unheard of have been roaming the land, and the amount of Blood Mages, (people with inborn magical talent) while previously almost nonexistent, has skyrocketed, causing many people to call them Blight Mages.

Locations
World Map (http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg27/pseudovere/Austiusmap.png)

Wastes
The land is still recovering from the Blight. However, while the Blight is no longer lethal on contact, and there is a hint of green among the dead trees, prolonged exposure to it is incredibly dangerous, causing many people to go insane, develop odd diseases, or simply die. In addition, many of the odd, altered monstrosities that the Blight has created have found a home there, and very few of them are friendly...

Cities


Separida
Population: 0
Government: None
Major exports: None

Separida, formerly the most prosperous city in the known world, now sits vacant in the middle of the wastes. Some bold adventurer parties have returned from the city alive to tell of the vast riches practically untouched behind it's white marble walls. However, in all likelihood, due to it's position at the heart of the Blight, that is the way it will remain.

Basitus
Population: 35,000
Government: Military dictatorship
Major Exports: Worked metal, weapons, armor, ships

Basitus, after the destruction of Separida, is now the most powerful city state in the known world. It has tried to replace the power vacuum left by Separida several times, but it has repeatedly found that it is nearly impossible, do to the fact that difficulty of maintaining supply lines to any armed force do to the strange monsters who now wander the wilderness. The city was initially run by one dictator, but when he passed away, he had two generals of equal rank, who both attempted to seize his power for themselves, but have now apparently come to an uneasy truce and share the power in the city.

Important Figures:
Lady Yanin (dictator): Kind but slightly shallow young woman at first glance, but upon further examination, is actually much older than she appears, and frighteningly clever and calculating, as well as deadly with a rapier.
Lord Dygan (dictator): A gruff, middle aged man, who has on multiple occasions shown himself to be a brilliant strategist, and is himself a force to be reckoned with.

Sybas
Population: 10,000
Government: Aristocracy
Major Exports: None (relies on income from coliseum and tourist attractions)

Sybas is a city that has been built arround the biggest coliseum in the world. (If any of you have read any of the Magic the Gathering's Odyssey and Onslaught cycles, think the Cabal's Pit.) There are two districts in the coliseum, the Rich and the Poor Districts. The Rich district dominates most of the docks, about a fifth of the city's land, and is literally walled off from the poor district. The Rich district is filled with beautiful architecture, and filled with entertainment for the tourists who come to see the fights at the coliseum. The Poor district, however, is little more than a large clustering of wooden houses, housing the people who work to maintain and fight in the arena.

Important Figures:
None at this time.

Arbiryl
Population: 7,500
Government: Oligarchy
Major Exports: Magical devices

Arbiryl is a the only city north of the wastes, which puts it in the arctic circle. As a result of the think glaciers in the area, and the wastes barring it off from the rest of the world, it is only reachable by sea and during the summer. This city, from its size and location, would have easily lost its place on the map, except for its ancient libraries and world renowned academy, the best of its kind for both general and magical educations.

Important Figures:
None at this time.

Atcyrof
Population: 20,000
Government: Oligarchy (Skilled craftspeople)
Major Exports: Machinery, Unworked metal, Firearms

Atcyrof is a city based on a small volcanic island. The island is completely developed, without a single bit of land to spare. The city is the most technologically developed of all of the cities on Austius, largely thanks to the vast amount of electricity produced by the large geothermal energy plant the dominates the center of the city. The city has developed many things, such as trains, small aircraft, and short range radios. These, unfortunately, are still very expensive to produce, and heavily dependant on the electricity produced by the volcano, and given the price and inefficiency of batteries and smaller generators, are not of much practical use to other cities.

Important Figures:
None at this time.

Races
Before anyone gets too excited here, I would like to say that both of the non-humanoids are going to be very hard to play, and most of the other races are distrusted by the majority of the human population. However, I would not completely disallow playing as any of these races, although it would require strict consideration on my part.

Humanoids
All of the non-human, humanoid races are the result of magical experimentation on humans, resulting in creating an ultimately different race.

Humans
Humans are the most populous sentient race in Austius. They are the most varied and versatile of all of the known races.

Orcs
Orcs are larger and more heavyset than humans (almost twice as wide), with bulging muscles coated in thick, dark grey skin and and a height averaging over seven feet tall, with an almost proud posture. Their almost catlike eyes, long fangs and sharp teeth almost remind one of a saber toothed tiger, and show their carnivorous nature. They have practically no hair on their bodies, but have evenly space horns on the tops of their heads, running from a few inches above their eyebrows and running down to the base of their skull, diminishing in size as they go.
Orcs typically live in wilderness areas, organized as small nomad bands, numbering from 10-30. They make their living entirely through hunting, but are very connected to the land they cross. They use everything they can get from the animal, to the limit of which they can carry, after which they leave the as a shrine to honor the animal (note that no edible parts of the animal are ever left, but as a small band of hunters, there is only so much equipment made from bones and hides that they can reasonably carry). They generally view many of the other races as infringing on nature, and while this is most often manifested as a haughty, disgusted view of these races, it has been known to escalate to the point of hunting groups of other races that they view as heavily upsetting the balance of nature.

Goblins
Goblins appear small humanoids, about 4 feet tall for an adult, with a hunched posture, and thin, disproportionately long limbs, ending in clawed digits. They typically have moist, ivory skin, rows of small, sharp and pointed teeth, as well as gigantic fish-like eyes. They dislike the sun, as it is quite harmful to their eyes. When out in the daylight, or in human areas, they typically wrap themselves in cloth, so as to avoid any contact with the suns rays, and wear large tinted goggles to dim the light on their sensitive eyes. Aside from this, they are physically weaker than the average human, and much frailer as well. However, they make up for these flaws with two redeeming features: they are much quicker and more graceful than their size or posture would suggest, both in thought and in form, and have the ability to scale walls, much like a gecko. Goblins typically live underground in caves, or (when inside large cities) in sewers. Most goblins are scavengers by nature, and often make livings by selling information and stolen or salvaged goods.

Vampires Vampires appear almost identical to humans, and, are in fact not truely their own species, but the result a recessive trait found in humans. They are distinguished by a pale, grey-tinged complexion, cat like pupils, and pronounced canines. Their condition prohibits them from producing their own blood, and forces them to rely on drinking the blood of others for survival (they still eat normally as well). In addition, their skin is vulnerable to sunlight, and, will begin to die on contact with sunlight, and will slowly decay into a substance that is poisonous to the vampire. As a result, vampires find direct sunlight excruciatingly painful, and if exposed for a long enough period of time, lethal. However, they make up for these flaws with surprisingly beautiful, if haunting, appearances, and heightened reflexes, as well as increased physical strength and resilience.
Vampires, for the most part, seek to maintain a normal place in human society, either by hiding their condition, or in some cases, pressing for acceptance by the community. However, there are small bands of vampires, referring to themselves as the Treshun, who have broken from human society, and hunt other humanoids to fuel their constant need for fresh blood.

Non-Humanoids

Demons
Demons are the rarest and most mysterious group of creatures on Austius. They come in many different shapes and forms, many of them seeming to be about as related to each other as a human and a mouse. They all have dark purple, bordering on black, bile smelling blood, clearly visible through practically transparent skin. While most of them have semitransparent exoskeletons, larger demons are additionally supported by an internal webbing of cartilage. Beyond this, their forms vary immensely, from a tentacled creature about the size of a dog, to creatures resembling two story centipedes coated with clawed tendrils. Dissections of the few demons that scholars have found have revealed surprisingly little about them as well, as it is still unknown how they reproduce.
Another surprising thing about these creatures is that they all seem intelligent to at least some extent. Even the least intelligent ones are capable of some form of communication, believed to be based on a mixture of pheromones and grating screeches that, for the most part, are far outside the human hearing range. In addition, while none of this has been confirmed, there numerous are reports of demons using technologies and magics far beyond the capabilities of any known mage or artificer.
Demons have no known lands, and have been seen all over Austius since long before Separida ever dreamed of conquest.

Dragons
Several dragons have throughout history have learned to speak one or more human tongues, and have given humanity insight into dragon culture.
Dragons are huge, serpentine creatures, thick, segmented, bonelike plating coating their entire body. They have four, triple-jointed arms, connected to the second segment behind their head. Their bodies range in length from 5 to 50 meters, and in width 1 to 5 meters. They are completely blind, but have an extraordinary precise echolocation ability, apparently capable of detecting grooves in a structure less than a centimeter deep. Their echolocation is a very low hum, imperceptible to the human ear, and they apparently communicate to each other through small variations of this.
They have a complex written language as well, evidenced by the numerous carved runes in each dragon's plating and in the trees throughout their forests.
Dragons love knowledge and nature above all else. While they find magic captivating, and have many skilled mages among them, they disdain technology, and are fiercely protective of their forests. While they do not mind allowing humans or any other creature to walk through their lands, they have been know to destroy entire human villages as retribution for the destruction of a single tree. As a result of this, human travelers in dragon territory are quite rare.


Magic
Magic in Austius is very different from Vancian spellcasting. Spellcasting, through one for or another, is the art of gathering energy from your surroundings, and then using it to bend the energy around you to cause the desired effects. A spellcaster, rather than learning specific spells, learns specialties, much like how a scientist will specialize in a certain area. A specialty can be as specific (Flaming Touch) or as vague (Fire) as one would like, but focused specialties generally yield much more powerful results than vague ones.

All magic requires a focus to cast spells, through which to focus their energy. The reason for this is that the energies drawn through the body are highly damaging to organic tissue, and if they are cast without a focus, can be lethal. Focuses can range from a rune drawn in the air, to a dagger, to a staff, to a gigantic siege machine. Of course, the size and complexity of the focus is related the power and ease of control of the spell. A spell cast from a small simple focus will lack the power of one cast from a large, complex one, but be far easier to control.

There are four known ways that casters channel their energies. While the source of power for all of these types of casting differ, there is a very small amount of physical difference between these types of casting. All casters can, with proper training, achieve the same effects any other type of caster can with the same amount of effort.

Magic Theory
Through an intricate understanding of how the world works, magic theorists learn how to bend those rules to their advantage. Magic theorists require a daily focusing ritual to gather energy to power their spells.

Spirit Contracts
Casters who use spirit contracts, commonly known as shamans, create a relationship with an intelligent magical entity, which they draw their energy from. Shamans have no need to prepare their spells, but since their spells come from an intelligent, if non material being traveling with them, they must remember that their spirit can refuse to give them spell should it wish to deny them. Every day, their spirit goes dormant for several hours while it recovers it's energy.

Blood Magic
Blood mages have innate magic. They typically gain this through exposure to heavy magical energies, although the heavy magical energies radiating from the Blight make this fairly common. However innate this talent may be, it must be developed and honed: a person with the potential to be a blood mage will not become one unless they actually pursue it. Blood mages gain energy each time they wake up, related to their physical state (fatigue, hunger, how many spells they have cast that day and how wounded they are all affect how much energy a blood mage acquires after rest.)

Divine Channeling
These casters, commonly called clerics (this varies immensely between different faiths), channel the energies of their god to achieve magical effects. Clerics gain spells from their god automatically each day: however, they are incapable of using their magic to do something that their god would not approve of.

Cosmology
The world Austius is located on revolves around a sun much like our own, and has two equally sized moons. Both of the moons are apparently artificial, made with technologies and magic long forgotten. The first moon, Ghilt, also known as the Bright Moon, is a perfectly round, metalic silver sphere, with visible dents and scratches from a thousands of years of galactic debris. The reflected light off of the moon seems to dampen the effects of magic. Ubmar, the second moon, also know as the Dark Moon, is a complex dark greyish purple sphere, with deep, thin crevasses forming complex, unintelligible symbols coating the surface. The light reflected from this moon has the opposite effect of its sister moon: it causes magic to act more powerfully, and often uncontrollably, even unintentionally. The Ghilt rotates once every month, and is full every first day. The Umbar has a regular orbit as well, but it rotates much slower, and is full once every 3 months. Every 10 years, both moons are full at the same time, and causing very unpredictable and often powerful magical effects. In addition, strange creatures have a tendency of appearing on nights when Umbar is full...

pseudovere
2008-03-31, 05:15 PM
Game System:

Note (IMPORTANT): This game system is not designed for hack and slash campaigns. It is better suited for a more roleplaying intensive setting, and (due to the fact that one or two solid hits with a weapon can easily disable a character) favors espionage over combat.

Character Creation

Abilities:
Each ability is described by both what it effects (physical, social or mental), and how it effects that feature of your character (power, finesse & resistance), creating 9 separate abilities: Physical Power (PP), Physical Finesse (PF), Physical Resistance (PR), Social Power (SP), Social Finesse (SF), Social Resistance (SR), Mental Power (MP), Mental Finesse (MF), and Mental Resistance (MR). These abilities are referred to throughout the rules section as its abbreviation.

The nomenclature may seem complicated at first, but is much easier to reference off of the table on character sheet (see below), and also ties related abilities together.

Ability Table
{table=head] |P|S|M
P||
F||
R||[/table]

Physical Power (PP): Determines how strong your character is. A character with a high PP has a larger muscle mass, can lift heavier objects, and exert more physical force, while a character with a low PP generally has very litter muscle, can lift only light objects, and exert only a small amount of physical force.
Physical Finesse (PF): Determines your character’s reflexes and coordination. A character with high PF can be graceful, with sharp reflexes and good hand-eye coordination, while a character with low PF is often clumsy with slow reflexes.
Physical Resistance (PR): Determines how physically durable your character is. A character with high PR can shrug off physical damage, heal quickly, resist disease, and continue strenuous activity for long periods of time without harm, while a character with low PR takes damage easily, recovers slowly, gets sick easily, and can only continue strenuous activity for short periods of time without risking physical injury.
Social Power (SP): Determines how likable your character is. A character with a high SP has great leadership skills, and is viewed more favorably by the people they run across, while a character with low SP has difficulty with crowds, and is often viewed disfavorably by the people they run across.
Social Finesse (SF): Determines how good you are at getting people to believe what you say and respond how you want to it. A character with high SF can lie easily without being detected, and control the emotions of the people they run into, while a character with low SF has difficulty doing these things.
Social Resistance (SR): Determines how well you can control your emotions. A character with high SR can prevent otherwise aggravating experiences from altering their actions, and easily resist resulting depression and rage, while a character with low SR often will let emotions control their actions, and may have trouble with anger or depression.
Mental Power (MP): Determines how well a character can process information, and how powerful the spells they cast are. A character with high MP can cast powerful spells more easily that one with low MP, and understand complex concepts, while one with low MP can have trouble doing these sort of things.
Mental Finesse (MF): Determines how perceptive a character is and how quickly a character can think on their feet. A character with high MF is very aware of their surroundings, and can act quickly, while a character with low MF is often distracted and unaware, and can be easily surprised by their surroundings.
Mental Resistance (MR): Determines how well a character can endure pain, fatigue, and damage when they are past their physical limit. A character with high MR has a high pain tolerance, and stay conscious after taking heavy damage, while a character with low MR has a low pain tolerance, and easily falls unconscious after taking heavy pain, fatigue, and/or damage.

When starting, each character receives 90 ability points, to divide among these 9 abilities on a one for one basis (i.e. spend 10 points on PP, and you have a PP score of 10, and 80 ability points left over).

You may spend the up to 15 on one ability score, or as few as 5, but you may not have more than one score of 15 or two scores of 14 or higher.

In addition, you gain 1 ability point for every 50 XP you gain over 50. (100 XP, 150 XP, 200 XP, etc.) This will be explained in further detail in the advancement section.

Skills
While abilities represent the innate abilities of your body, skills represent areas that you have trained in. (Combat skills and Magic skills are variants of this general system, so see the enclosed Magic Skills and Combat Skills section.)

Skills are bought with XP at a 1 for 1 basis, but can only go up to one tenth your XP total. (i.e. A character with 50 XP can have a maximum of 5 points invested in any given skill, while a character with 100 XP can have 10 points in any given skill.)(Another way to think of this is simply leveling up after every 10 xp given.)

The skill list is not by any means set, and the system promotes creation of skills on the players part (subject to GM approval.) It is worth noting that skills in this system are the equivalent of not only the skills in the dnd system, but all non-combat class abilities.

Current Skill list: (subject to expansion)
Scribe: Literacy is a rare skill among the dwellers of Austius. Scribe entails the ability to read and write. Key ability: MP

Resist (_____): Used to resist the effects of the declared situation or substance. (poison, hunger, cold, fatigue, pain, etc.) May be further specialized (i.e. resist (arsenic) rather than resist (poison)) to give a +2 bonus on that use of the skill, at the expense of Key ability: PR

Running: Used to temporarily increase movement speed. Key ability: PR

Sprinting: As running, but only usable for short periods of time. Key ability: PF

Animal training: Used to train animals for handling. Must be specialized (Animal training (cats), Animal training (birds), etc.) Key ability: SR.

Craft (______): Used to create the item named in the skill. May be phrased differently with same effect. (Gunsmithing, Blacksmithing, Silversmithing, Sewing, Carving, Carpentry, etc.) Key ability varies with item being crafted (Blacksmithing PP, Sewing PF, etc.)

Combat Skills
Combat skills are skills specifically chosen for combat. They include any form of weapons training (longswords, knives, throwing knives, staff, longbow, shotgun, etc.), martial arts (punch, kick, grapple, etc.), and defensive skills other than dodging (longsword:parry, defensive roll, parry, block, heavy shield etc.)
Each combat skill has a difficulty, a base damage, and an action cost.
The difficulty is a penalty to attack, representing the difficulty of hitting somebody with a heavier weapon. (example: A longsword takes longer to swing than a dagger, so it is easier to avoid. Because of this, a longsword has a -4 difficulty, while a dagger has a -2 difficulty.)
The base damage is fairly obvious: it is the damage that the weapon does without factoring in strength (PP) or skill (XP invested into skill). (Example: A dagger has 3 base damage, while a longsword has 9 base damage.)
The action cost of a weapon is how much time the weapon takes to use. Each character receives a certain number of action points each second (more on that later), which they may spend on any action they see fit. More difficult and larger weapons tend to have a larger action cost, resulting in a slower succession of hits. (Example: A dagger has an action cost of 11, while a longsword has an action cost of 13.)

{table]Weapon Name| Difficulty | Base Damage | Action Cost |Notes
Punch|-1|2|10|
Low Kick|-1|3|10|May only hit the legs or torso.
High Kick|-2|5|11|You may not have more points invested in this skill than your flexibility skill.
Block|-1|*|10|Defensive skill
Grab|-1|*|10|Begins, maintains or ends grapple on targeted limb.
Throw|varies|varies|varies|the amount of damage varies with the type of throw (determined when buying skill)
Body Shield|-3|*|10|Uses the grappled creature as a shield against attacks from others.
Dagger|-2|5|11|
Short Sword|-3|7|12|
Long Sword|-4|9|13|
Great Sword|-5|11|14|
Short Staff|-3|6|12|Ignore differences in difficulty when parrying
Parry_____|Same as weapon used|*|Same as weapon|Add the difference between the selected weapon and the weapon you are being attacked with to the difficulty.[/table]
In addition to these skills, there are 4 special skills that every character has, and automatically has full ranks in, as they are vital to combat. They are Physical Evasion, Mental Evasion, Physical Damage Reduction, and Mental Damage Reduction:

Physical Evasion represents your ability to dodge physical attacks (such as a punch, a longsword or a fireball) and is calculated by adding your PF score to 1/10 of your XP. (PE=PF+(XP/10))

Mental Evasion represents your ability to avoid the effects of attacks that are targeted by nonphysical means (such as a spontaneous combustion effect or a charm effect), and is calculated by adding your MF score to 1/10 of your XP. (ME=MF+(XP/10))

Physical Damage Reduction represents your ability to avoid damage, either through resiliency, or just bending your body out of the way. You calculate this through adding 5 to your PR and then adding 1/20 of your XP. (PDR=5+PR+(XP/20))

Mental Damage Reduction represents your ability to resist or lessen the effect of mental effects (such as a charm spell or a fatigue touch), and is calculated by adding 5 to your MR and then adding 1/20 of your XP. (MDR=5+MR+(XP/20))

Magic Skills
Magic skills function almost exactly like combat skills for the purpose of buying them at least. (More on differences in the magic section.)

However, you must have equal or greater ranks in a magic source skill (Magic Theory, Blood Magic, Divine Magic or Spirit Contract) in order to purchase magic skills.) For example, if you wanted to buy 10 ranks in Fireball, then you would have to have at least 10 ranks in one of the above skills, illustrating your ability to channel the required energy to cast more complicated spells.

Merits/Flaws
Merits describe benefits to your character that cannot be described by the skill system, either because they have a maximum amount that you can put into them (i.e. speak language, ambidexterity, etc.), you are born with it, or it comes from your background (i.e. good looking, a high ranking official owes you a favor, good reputation, etc.). After character creation, you can advance merits based on training by spending XP on them, but merits the character has to have been born with or that come from the character's background may not be advanced in this way. For obvious reasons, you may not advance or add merits that the character would have had to be born with after character creation, and merits based on your background must be obtained by roleplaying. At character creation, a character may freely buy merits with XP, although the price of each individual merit will vary.
Flaws, are the opposite of merits: they impede your character's effectiveness, but give you bonus experience points for taking them.

Making Rolls
Almost all rolls are based off of the d20. In order to accomplish a task, the player rolls a d20, and then adds both the ranks they have in the appropriate skill (if applicable) and the appropriate ability score, and compares this to the difficulty of a task (determined by GM).
For example, a character with 10 points in PF and 3 points in Balance wants to run across a frozen pond. The character rolls a d20 and gets a 14, then adds their PF (10) and their Balance (3), giving them a 27. Unfortunately, the difficulty for running across ice is 30, so the character fails, most likely falling on their face after a few steps.

In addition to this, if a character rolls a natural 20, they may roll again and add the results of this new roll to the previous roll. If they roll a 20 on this new roll, they may repeat this process.
Example: The character from the frozen pond example instead rolls a 20. They then roll another d20, and it also turns up a 20, giving them a total unmodified roll of 40 so far. They then roll a 3 on their next roll, giving them a total unmodified roll of 43. They then add their PF and Balance, giving them a total of 56, allowing them to run across the pond with ease.

Besides getting a benefit from a natural 20, you also receive a penalty from a natural 1. If you roll a natural 1, you roll again, and subtract the results from your Ability and Skill. If you roll a natural 20 on this roll, you roll again, and subtract the results again.
Example: the character running across the ice rolls a 1. They then roll again, getting a 14. This gives them a natural roll of -14, which gives them a total of -1 when they add in their PF and Balance. They have failed so badly, that they most likely sprain their ankle in their fall, or some other situation oriented penalty. (determined by GM)

Combat
Combat takes place in 1 second rounds, and is broken into 4 steps: Dividing your action points into the actions you want to make, declaring your actions, making rolls to determine your success, and the GM's narration of what the result is.

Each turn, every character is given a number of action points to spend equal to the sum of their PF and their MF, giving the average human (a 10 in each score) a total amount of 20 action points to spend each round. These action points are spent on any action other than speaking and basic dodging that you might take in a round, and vary with the difficulty of the task that you are attempting. In addition to these limitations, each character can spend a maximum of one half of their action points on one type of action (punching, parrying, moving, casting multiple copies of the same spell) in one round, preventing an average human from spending more than 10 actions on any one action. If a character tries to do an action that takes more action points than they have available, then they do not complete the action on the same round. Rather, they spend all of the action points they are able to spend on that action during that round, and the action occurs on the next round, after the character spends the rest of the actions points required to complete the action. Example: A character swings a greatsword. (14 action points) However, they may only spend 10 action points on it this round. So, they spend the 10 action points they have available to swing the greatsword, but they do not actually hit anything until the next round, if they choose to spend the remaining 4 action points to complete the action.

Next, after you have told your GM what you will be doing during the round, you make rolls to determine your success at these tasks.

Magic
Work in Progress

Equipment
Work in Progress

pseudovere
2008-04-08, 12:14 AM
Alright, it appears that nobody is reading my work, maybe might have something to do with overabundant spoilers (gone now) or something of that sort. Any constructive criticism/comments/suggestions would be highly appreciated, and would make me feel less like the time that I've poured into this for several months has not been completely and utterly wasted.

I will continue to expand on this post once or twice a week through editing my post, although I will bump it each time with a post describing what I changed.

Today's post removed the 50+ spoiler tags I had breaking apart each section, and added a bit more on the skills system.

Rizban
2008-04-08, 01:32 AM
I like the ability table concept, but it seems a bit over complicated. I sometimes have trouble keeping 6 abilities straight, let alone 9 that are so similarly named.

Since that and some fluff seems to be the only real thing published, I'll say that it looks interesting, but there's not much else to comment on. I will say that the amount of math necessary to compute the how high you can raise your skills seems a bit much as well, but then, I'm the kind of guy that would rather "role" play than "roll" play. It just seems like you're going to need some really fancy character sheet to figure this stuff out.

pseudovere
2008-04-08, 03:01 PM
Alright, I added some example skills, and explained the basics of the rolling system.


Since that and some fluff seems to be the only real thing published, I'll say that it looks interesting, but there's not much else to comment on. I would like to note that this is still very much in progress.


I will say that the amount of math necessary to compute the how high you can raise your skills seems a bit much as well, but then, I'm the kind of guy that would rather "role" play than "roll" play. Not really, its a simple rounded up division by 10, or if you want to this of it more simply, think of it as leveling up every 10 XP. It's much simpler than DnD's system of leveling up every (current level squared) * 1000XP, and having a maximum of 3+level skill points in any given skill, plus having a different number of maximum skill points for each character class.


It just seems like you're going to need some really fancy character sheet to figure this stuff out.I don't think this (http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg27/pseudovere/Charsheetpic.jpg) looks too fancy, do you? I would like to take this time to note that the charactersheet is also a work in progress, and needs much formatting. I wasn't originally going to show it off until I finished writing up all the rules you would need to understand the whole sheet, but it does illustrate that it is pretty simple.

And yes that character sheet does not yet have an equipment section. The back to it will be entirely devoted to the character's possessions, and a section for notes.

batsofchaos
2008-04-08, 04:14 PM
It looks interesting so far. Although I can't speak directly for Rizban, I believe he was stating that there's not much that can be said currently, with the understanding that that may change as more crunch is available to critique. It's understood that it's a work in progress, so no current critique is going to be "it's not polished enough" or "you're missing ____." It's just difficult right now to make a judgement call.

That said, the fluff of the world is off to a great start, if not really my taste. I like the revamped goblin especially, the flavor is very unique. From what crunch is available, I think the skill system is fairly elegant so long as there will eventually be a defined method of determining the DC. One of my pet peeves with DnD is how nebulous skill DCs can be to determine.

pseudovere
2008-04-09, 11:22 PM
I added a section on combat skills. I plan to add the current list of weapons with their difficulties, base damage and action costs tomorrow.


I like the revamped goblin especially, the flavor is very unique. That's actually one of the main things I've been trying to do with the flavor. My goal is to recreate many common mythological/ Tolkien-esque with a heavy spin on them. However, I haven't had much luck with the humanoid races, which may partially have something to do with many of my sounding-boards for this project having an unhealthy obsession with vampires. (It's kinda funny how they almost universally lost interest once I included the flaws of dieing in sunlight and having to drink blood, seeing as that's pretty much the main thing about it...)


From what crunch is available, I think the skill system is fairly elegant so long as there will eventually be a defined method of determining the DC. One of my pet peeves with DnD is how nebulous skill DCs can be to determine.Yes, I hate that as well, and I am working to come up with something. However, I haven't been doing so well in that regard... hopefully I'll come up with something.

pseudovere
2008-04-12, 12:08 PM
I think I finally came up with a way to make the orc more interesting.

What this game looks like it lacks are just plain, "Mwahahahaha, we are all evil, so you may feel justified in the extermination of our entire village" evil creatures. Oh well. I don't think I'm really sure that that makes much sense anyway. I can't see an evil society working very well anyway, seeing as if it didn't destroy itself, then it would get on everybody else's nerves and make them collectively beat the tar out of it. The campaign setting looks like it's gonna favor the "self-interested evil mastermind," or "Miko-esque annoying fanatical people."

pseudovere
2008-04-15, 10:19 PM
I added a magic skills section and a table with a list of basic combat skills.

pseudovere
2008-04-29, 12:09 AM
I added to the combat skills section, describing Physical and Mental Evasion (dodge for physical and mentally targeted attacks) and Physical and Mental Damage Reduction (how resilient you are to such attacks after you are "hit" with them.)