Body Abilities Resources: Tiers (Mortal, Magic, Mythic)

[Judging__Eagle]

So far, this game idea of a system based on the basic elements that a character in a story can have has been working alright.

I really have to give a lot of credit to everyone at The Den for my ideas, and tons of this has been inspired by a lot of the stuff discussed when talking about D&D (and all of the Tomes and related material), 40k (and Dungeon Crusade; specifically the fact that there are discrete tiers of power that have to be realized), Discussions on 4E (and specifically ways to go about fixing it)


The basics of the system are based on trying as much as possible, to break things down into categories. Everything, from grades of items, to power schedules, to power tiers, to the basic elements that make up a character; have been broken down into three groups.

I'm not really sure why three, but it's really seemed to work so far.

Currently I'm working on most of this in a mind-mapping/spider-diagram program called Freemind; since trying to do the whole "idea shuffling" has seemed to repeatedly fail for me when it comes to working on lines of paper, or typing on a computer screen. Mostly because I'm developing the structure as I develop the content; and the structure has changed multiple times over the months that I've been on-and-off working on this.

The basics I've got so far are as follows:

[*]A Character in a story tends to have every element that is a "part" of them show up in one of 3 main types: A Body (or Form, I might even scrap "Body" for "Form"); Abilities; and Resources

[*]Abilities:
-3 Tiers of Abilities (Mortal, Magic, Mythic) [Most "magic" and "mythic" powers are just Mortal powers which are easier to-use, or more effective]
-3 Power Schedules (Continual, Encounter, Rare)
-Continual Powers are things like "You can lift concealable and 1H weapons; as well as any weapon you can describe as needing Technique to use effectively (from a crossbow to a sniper rifle) or "You can fix (organics/objects/immaterial) things" or "If you burn a whole of your round, you can fire a bolt of energy" or "you can block attacks with weapons"

-Encounter Powers are things like "An attack of yours has a status effect" or "You can defend against someone else's status effect" or "You can kill a person who is down without going all PTSD about it" or "knock someone unconscious" or "DoT a target" or "HoT a target". Things that are noticable, and effective, but aren't going to be thrown out in every single combat

-Rare Powers are things like "If you hit with this attack, you lower a target's Hit Points to the Base for their Tier (Mortal: 3, Magical: 6; Mythic: 9); your next hits will take off 1 Hit Point each strike until you or they are out of combat for 1 minute"

--A Creature must have a Contiunual of a Tier to buy an Encounter of the same Teir, and an Encounter to buy a Rare of the same Tier (so,
-3 Grades (Minor (1d6), Moderate (3d6), Major (6d6))
--Creatures get 45 Minor Powers, 15 Moderate Powers, and 5 Major Powers per "Tier". Character defining things will probably be character defining; however people who picked the same powers, actually picked the same powers, they are not treading on each others toes by having powers that seemingly overlap

Dice Pools for abilities: I honestly want a hard cap of 10d6; successes are on 4+. Players can trade out dice for auto-successes (not sure on the exchange rate; I'm currently using a 3:1 rate; so a person with Moderate Martial Technique gets 1 sure hit, and 1 dice; while a person with Major Martial Technique has 3 sure hits, and 1 dice to roll).

That's the baseline. If you have a Mortal/Magical Tier ability; and then buy the Magical/Mythical; then your dice are changed into 3+ or 2+ to succeed.

Using non-specialties more effectively:

Sometimes you need a build-a-house montage, or a Creature needs to do something that they only have a Minor in; and having them suck at it is sort of dissatisfying.

I'm toying with the idea that a Character may "add" dice to any Dice pool (subtracted from their currently largest Dice Pool; or select a Dice Pool if there are more than one 'largest' Pools to pick from), a number of dice equal to 1/2 their Major powers in the Tier that the power they want to use is (no fueling a Mythic grade minor power to 10 dice unless you actually -are- a large enough Mythic badass who already has 5 Major Mythic powers). Dice removed from a Pool remain removed for the rest of the "day" or "scene" (I'm not sure how to chop up in-game time up yet; it's something I haven't really looked at yet; Encounter, Scene, Adventure is something off of the top of my head)


The ability rotation/track:

Creatures use Minor powers first; then Minors or Moderates as they so choose; however two Moderates cannot be used in a row, the Creature needs to alternate between Moderates and Minors.

When they use a Moderate, they can then use a Major power. However, using a Major power puts a larger cooldown (1 round), and can't use anything except a Minor power again when they next act.

Of course, nothing stops a creature from using a Minor, then a Moderate; and then relying back on Minor powers until they see a good place to use a Moderate or Major.

Abilities are sub-divided into 3 main groups: active, reactive, and non-combat (crafting goes here; probably knowledge skills, and social skills)

Resources:

-3 main grade (Mundane, Magic, Mythic) [I might replace previous instances of "mortal" with mundane, not sure yet]
-9 sub grades (primitive, standard, exceptional; master-work, imbued, enchanted; Personnel*/Personal, Regional, Global)
*: not a typo, these items give you minions

Note on weapons and Hit points:

Weapons all do the same amount of damage (1 pt); with only 2-handed weapons dealing more (2 pts). Some abilities allow a creature to deal extra damage (The Major Mortal Martial Physique power allows the creature to always deal +1 damage with any attack they deal, whether via magic or via carried/wielded items; Some encounter powers allow the using creature to deal +1 damage on a hit)

All creatures get 3 Hit Points for their Tier, and +1 per Major Power they have. Thus, a standard mortal creature has 3 HP, a Magical one has 6, and a Mythical one has 9. Advanced versions will have 8, 9 or 12 Hit Points. Yes, this math isn't very good, since mortals get to close the gap in terms of HP easier, however there are other benefits to being a non-mortal, mostly access to powers that simply let them ignore attacks that are below their Tier.

Body:
I'm considering making things like Giants, Ettins, Trolls, etc. be things that anything could possibly turn into. By making them powers that a creature can buy. A Lizardman, or Yuan-Ti that takes Giantism to Major levels, Wings, and can already channel elemental powers at will is... not that different from a Dragon. A Human that takes Ettinism to Major levels is going to look a lot like a Hecatoncheries; while one at minor levels will be an Ettin, albeit a small one.

I've always been a fan of creature creation transparency; and having monster abilities be things that a PC can buy will help both in making monsters that are unusual, and let players know that things are not "being made up for the fuck of it" all the time. A Chimera is a Lion with moderate Ettinism, wings, and a fiery breath; so it's dangerous because it has 3 possible rounds, can move pretty much where it wants, and can hit with a ranged attack

there's obviously a lot I'm not mentioning, or haven't really hammered down; but so far these are some of the more important ideas.