I can try!
So, everyone who played during the Star City Massacre will have to adjust to some new stats: depending on whether or not StarFyre will have her system in place where we can input values, then play with the click of a button or not, stats will look a little different.
Base Stats And Changes
HP gets a big change: the base damage for a human-sized creature is 10; if you are bringing in a dragon character, we are using the
Universal Size Chart to modify their base HP, so that for every size category above 'Small' you add +2 (or if, say, you're using a flit, you'd get -2). A medium-large dragon's base HP would be 16, and a massive dragon's base would be 22. This is to reflect how much meat they have to bonk!
The Four Stats: Attack, Resist, Magic and Evade are changed! In their place we have these four!
Active Physical: This encompasses your character's intents to attack; how likely they are to hit, and how much damage they do. this also is the stat that is used if your character readies an action (and by that I mean, for example, "Jolene watches the zombie shuffling forward, and holds out her whiffle bat, ready to strike should it come in range." It's an action that is triggered when its criteria are met!) Lastly, Active Physical is the stat you'd use if your character were doing something challenging, physically, like jumping or climbing or swimming.
Reactive Physical: This is similar to 'resist', in that it indicates how difficult it is to scratch up your character. It counts for evasion in that sense, as well, as anything that the character must perform that they weren't expecting to. Leaping from the ground that's giving out from under them, for example, or dodging arrows that fly from the walls after a trap has been tripped.
Active Mental: MAGIC CASTING! PSIONICS! Active mental is the stat that characters use who are actively thinking, searching, performing magic, or outwitting an enemy. It works similarly to Active Physical, in that you can prep an action to cast a spell if an enemy comes near, for example. Healing spells count, here!
Reactive Mental: This stat affects how much your character notices from the corner of his eye; they might just manage to avoid setting off that trap, or spot the enemy who's about to leap from the shadows in a surprise attack. Anything that they aren't actively thinking or searching for is covered by this stat.
Setting up a character!
Everyone gets 10 points to divvy into their four stats + HP, regardless of whether they are human or dragon.
Example 1) A psionic medium-sized dragon who prefers to stay in the background and control the field:
Base HP: 14
After divvying up the ten points:
HP: 14
AP (Active Physical): 1
RP (Reactive Physical): 1
AM (Active Mental): 5
RM (Reactive Mental): 3
He's balanced so that if he stays in the background and casts spells for the entire game, he will do fairly well; however, he is relatively weak and is likely to accrue a lot of damage if he gets close and personal with any enemies!
Example 2) A Large Warrior Dragon who prefers to smash her foes with teeth and claws:
Base HP: 18
After divvying up the ten points:
HP: 20
AP (Active Physical): 4
RP (Reactive Physical): 2
AM (Active Mental): 1
RM (Reactive Mental): 1
She could probably stand around all night soaking up damage from enemies and not worry too much about needing a heal. She's more likely to do physical damage against most enemies because her AP is high, as well!
Example 3) A bounty-hunting humanoid who can get into a dirty fight but prefers to strike from a distance:
Base HP: 10
After divvying up the ten points:
HP: 12
AP (Active Physical): 3
RP (Reactive Physical): 2
AM (Active Mental): 1
RM (Reactive Mental): 2
He could probably do fair damage in a fight, but he's a little more durable than a magic caster; he would do better with a ranged weapon than with spells, and would be half-decent in defending against attacks. He's fairly balanced.
Items and Abilities
This part gets tricky, because every dragon in the Nexus is unique... more or less. Here's the basic breakdown:
Humans: each get one item that gives them a +3 bonus to one of their stats.
-You can make up what this item is (Coke-Bottle Glasses (+3 Active Mental); Flaming Sword (+3 Active Physical); Plate Armor (+3 Reactive Physical); Eyes-In-The-Back-Of-Your-Head Medallion (+3 Reactive Mental)) and what it does.
-As a bonus to the item, you may choose to give your item a special ability on a natural 20 (for example, the flaming sword could do 1 point of fire damage for the next few rounds, or the plate armor could reflect the damage back to the attacker!)
Abilities: First off, does your dragon's ability seem like it is combat oriented? (Telepathy, verbal speech, for example, do not require dice rolls!)
If it could be used in a fight, determine if it is magic/psionic (it will require the Active Mental or Reactive Mental stat to use!) or if it is something that the dragon would use physically (it will require Active Physical or Reactive Physical in order to use.)
Eg) Lightning Magic --> Active Mental
Invisibility --> vs Reactive Mental
Acid Spit --> Active Physical
Rock Skin --> Reactive Physical
Determine what the ability does by using this template:
Damage: The amount of damage that a character causes is equal to their Active Physical or Active Mental stat, +1d3. Abilities that deal damage will follow this template:
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+1 (x) damage. On a 17, +2 (x) damage. On a 20, bonus effect.
For example, a dragon has the ability, 'Ice Breath' and an Active Physical stat of 2. Using this ability, she can deal 2+1d3+1 Ice Damage. If her d20+AP score is 17 or higher, she does 2+1d3+2 Ice Damage. If she rolls a 20, she freezes the target, vs a number to save against it. (11 is easy, 13 is medium, 15 is hard, 17 is very difficult, 19 is impossible!) -- the GM would then roll a d20 to try to save the target from the freezing effect at the end of its turn.
On a 20, if you were using a fire/poison/acid sort of ability, you might say that it deals 1 damage per turn, vs a number to save.
Healing: Works exactly the same as with damage, except that the character is adding points to HP instead of subtracting them! Use this template:
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Heals 1d3 damage. On a 17, heals 1d6 damage. On a 20, heals6+1d6 damage.
Abilities that slow, freeze/paralyze, confuse or hypnotize a target but don't deal damage might use this template:
Physical Effects like Freezing, Slowing, and Paralyzing:
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On a 13 or higher, effect lasts 1 turn. On a 15 or higher, effect lasts until the target saves to end. On a 20, effect does 1d3 damage on the first turn, and the target must save to end.
Mental Effects like Confusing, Hypnotizing, and Controlling:
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Your character's Active Mental+d20 vs the target's Active Mental+d20. On the character's success, result lasts one turn. If the character gets 10 or more than the target, the result lasts until the target saves to end. If the character rolls a 20, effect deals 1d3 damage on the first turn, and then the target must save to end.
Eg) A dragon wants to cause an enemy to attack its allies; he succeeds on his roll. For the next turn, the enemy will attack another bad guy! If the dragon rolls ten or more higher than the target, the enemy will continue attacking other bad guys each round until the GM saves against the mind control. (11-15 is a good number to try to reach to save against this kind of ability, since it's quite powerful!)
Manipulating the Battlefield: Putting up walls, changing surfaces to glass, summoning pits of flame, etc.
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Character's Active Mental vs. 15 establishes effects that will only last 1 turn. vs 17 for effects that will last several turns or which are particularly potent (this will be up to the GM!) vs 20 for permanent effects or those which are really freakin' potent.
A dragon can create a chaos vortex. She must roll 15 (that's the d20+her active mental) to establish it for one turn, and it will deal 1d3 damage. If she rolls a 17 or higher, it will last for several turns. If she rolls a 20, it will be there for the rest of the game, and may do 1d6 damage to anyone who falls (or is pushed) into it!
Manipulating the Self: Invisibility, Intangibility, Shape Shifting, Size Shifting, etc.
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Character's Active Mental (For Invisibility, Intangibility, Camouflage, etc.) or Active Physical (for Shape/Size Shifting) vs. 11 for effect that will last 1 turn, vs 13 for effects that will last for several turns, or vs 20 for effects that will last until the character bids them over.
Some changes to med-packs, healing trinkets, or other magic/technology that can be carried around and used at will by those who don't have healing abilities:
Stims and the equivalents heal 5 damage. This can go above and beyond the character's base HP. Don't take too many, or your character may begin to gather -1's to their stats, at the GM's discretion.
Bandages and their equivalents heal 10 damage. This only tops a character up to their HP max, and never exceeds it. (Use bandages/smaller healing spells on humanoids and smaller dragons.)
Medpacks and their equivalents heal 20 damage. This only tops a character up to their HP max, and never exceeds it. (Use medpacks/large healing spells on bigger dragons.)
Anti-venoms, Burn salves, pH Stabilizers, etc. automatically save a character from ongoing damage of that type; these specialized healing trinkets and tech don't work to fix damage of other types. (eg: burn salves will not heal poison, and defrosting-spells will not heal acid.)
Medpacks, spells and kits can turn up if a character searches an area, but only at the discretion of the GM! (eg: a GM can roll a d100; if they get a 10, 20, 30, ... 100, the character finds a random item!)
That's it for now! I know it's huge and ungainly, but I hope that it helps to give everyone an idea of how to get their uber-powered dragon characters their abilities, and what amount of damage/kinds of effects they should be working for -- this way Yakima won't have to write up every single ability for characters, and people can get a feeling for the game mechanics.
A large part of the RP is still about writing and interacting with one another and with the GM's characters, this just helps to build a framework for defeating foes and gaining treats!
And now, time to collapse into sleep. X3 I may go through and edit this if I find that some of it is making no sense in the morning!
I'm very illiterate with all this technical stuff. lol
) Considering it's happening to the rest of the house, with or without my computer updating the OS, it's not the computers. My mom agrees with me on that. I'm wondering if all the pretty features my mom picked on the Router is what's causing it (you know, 'We have higher security features then the other brand!' type thing...but it is hindering all our access? *shrugs*
)? I know Dray said she'll try to make it. You can bring anyone. Once the fighting starts you can have the rest of your group show up. It's up to you if you want a healer, though.