The MSF High RPG is a table-top roleplaying game set in the world of the webcomic MSF High. The player characters are heroes in training at a high school for the best and brightest from around the galaxy. Although the world has many science fiction elements (laser beams, FTL battleships, and galactic-scale civilization), magic runs rampant and dragon-slaying adventurer is valid career choice.
This game was originally released in mid-2007 on self-publishing site Lulu.com, but the printed version was apparently discontinued. The “full rules” were made free in November 2013 at this website, but the entire GM chapter with encounter guidelines, treasure tables, and rules for pets and companions is missing. The author of the webcomic is the sole credited author and designer. Supposedly the book was edited, but it is still rather unpolished – almost every page reference points to “page XXX,” a pattern continued with the web version. The tone is highly informal, and rules are written as if the immortal ghost/author stand-in Wraith was explaining the rules to a group of players. There are several places where this results in needless words spent claiming things are complicated instead of actually explaining them, and makes separating rules from flavour text more difficult than it needs to be.
Several pieces of GM advice interspersed with the rules encourage throwing them out the window for the sake of “the story” (and encourage players to go along with it), half of the members of the brief NPC list are excuses to screw over your players at any time, and there's a rant about character optimization in one of the spell descriptions. That said, there's also a lot of encouragement for the GM to work with the players, and the setting lends itself to episodic adventures. Also, if you weren't on board with random magical transformations at any time you probably wouldn't be playing an RPG based on a transformation webcomic.
TL;DR List of Major Issues
The core mechanic is needlessly obtuse. You have to roll multiple sets of exploding dice for each roll, and one attack could generate five rolls or more. Probabilities are difficult to estimate without computer assistance, and neither success nor default difficulties for non-combat tasks were defined. The game is literally unplayable without stealth houserules.
Specialization begets further specialization. The higher you push a single skill, the more you benefit from increasing a single attribute. The higher you push a particular attribute the higher that one skill can go before you reach the point of diminishing returns. You will only need one skill.
Padded Sumo demands every +1. Attacks are unlikely to hit people with similar skill totals unless your attack stat is much higher than their defence. If you're fighting someone taking a full defence action your attack has four points of failure. If you don't take every +1 to your attack skill that you possibly can, combat will never end.
Nothing is priced appropriately. Levels hand out bonuses that you can just buy for two hours' work at entry-level jobs. One class can turn money into power more efficiently than the others. Races are balanced based on once-per-day abilities of vastly divergent utility. The worst specialists are also the worst generalists.
Power Now for Power Later Multiclassing. Low XP costs to enter new classes encourage taking levels for the HP in the early game, but in the long run you need to spend every point of XP on your specialty. The two parallel level tracks are nothing like equal in utility.
Specialization begets further specialization. The higher you push a single skill, the more you benefit from increasing a single attribute. The higher you push a particular attribute the higher that one skill can go before you reach the point of diminishing returns. You will only need one skill.
Padded Sumo demands every +1. Attacks are unlikely to hit people with similar skill totals unless your attack stat is much higher than their defence. If you're fighting someone taking a full defence action your attack has four points of failure. If you don't take every +1 to your attack skill that you possibly can, combat will never end.
Nothing is priced appropriately. Levels hand out bonuses that you can just buy for two hours' work at entry-level jobs. One class can turn money into power more efficiently than the others. Races are balanced based on once-per-day abilities of vastly divergent utility. The worst specialists are also the worst generalists.
Power Now for Power Later Multiclassing. Low XP costs to enter new classes encourage taking levels for the HP in the early game, but in the long run you need to spend every point of XP on your specialty. The two parallel level tracks are nothing like equal in utility.
MSF High has a bizarre blend of dicepools and the Savage Worlds step system. The standard dice notation XdY means to roll X Y-sided dice, with the highest roll being the actual result. Furthermore, all dice explode indefinitely on their maximum roll. Usually, the stat used for a roll determines the die type and the skill determines the number of dice rolled. Unskilled rolls (or rolls penalized below zero skill) are made by taking the lesser of two rolls. It is never stated whether your roll needs to equal or exceed the target number to be considered a success, an editing oversight that causes every die roll to have undefined results from first principles.
Even without knowing what's considered a success, several features of the random number generator are clear. First, basic action resolution takes far longer than it needs to. A single attack could generate five rolls (Attack, Defence, Soak, and two for damage), each of which involves rolling several dice and checking for explosions. This also makes calculating probabilities of hitting a given target number much more difficult than it needs to be. I suspect that this system falls prey to the Savage Worlds problem where one die type has a higher average, but the die type below it is more likely to hit particular target numbers. Whether or not those particular target numbers are as common in MSF High as they were in Savage Worlds I do not know because there are no listed difficulties for anything except combat and spellcasting.
Investing in a single skill eventually has diminishing returns, but it doesn't matter because most characters only need one skill for every combat roll. Having higher stats (and thus larger dice) pushes back the point of diminishing returns significantly, so people with higher stats are mechanically encouraged to specialize more. Stat-boosting spells are more effective on characters that have high skills and provide better returns for characters that already have high stats. Almost everything about this system encourages hyper-specialization.
Several other rules, including some spells, advantages, and disadvantages, make reference to a “spectacular failure” rule. Apparently spectacular failures occur if every die you roll for a check comes up as a one. It is not clear what a spectacular failure is supposed to do; no such rule appears anywhere except in other rules that modify when spectacular failures occur. This might be a hidden rule from the GM section that never made it to the free PDF or the website. At least being better at something makes spectacular failures less likely if they even exist.
The Level System
MSF High employs two parallel sets of levels with open multiclassing within each set. Facets are the equivalent of D&D classes. While every facet is on the same XP track, the cost to purchase a facet level is dependant on the level of that facet and not on your total level. For example, it costs 500 XP to become a Level 1 Student and an additional 1000 XP to become a Level 2 Student, but a Level 2 Student can buy the first level of Mage for 500 XP. Facet levels provide bonus HP and MP as well as class features. They also determine your weapon proficiencies and hand out bonuses to their specialty skill. However, you may only have some of your total facet levels “active” at a given time based on your racial levels and equipment.
Racial levels are the other means of advancement. In addition to HP and MP, they provide skill points, stat boosts, and increase the maximum number of facet levels you may have active at a given time. Unlike facet levels, the total number of racial levels you possess are added together to determine the cost of the next level. Furthermore, you have to be a member of a given race to take its racial levels (easily solved with magic that comes online between fourth and sixth facet level). The cost per racial level increases by 1000 XP every four levels, so a 4th level human will have spent 3000 XP to advance to that level and could either spend 2000 XP to buy the fifth level of human, or wait until he is transformed into something else and buy the first level of that race.
The gap in costs between facet levels and racial levels encourages dabbling in half the facets and putting together eclectic enchanted outfits that permit all of those facets to be used at once. However, the skill bonuses from specialization and the maximum MP of the spells you can cast through each facet scale with levels in a single facet only. Buying into a new facet increases your HP and MP now, but you pay for it by having to wait longer to increase your existing facets and racial levels later.
Character Generation
The first step in character generation is to generate your basic attributes or “stats”. There are six stats, each one starts at six, and you have twelve points to spend increasing them. No stat can exceed ten before the modifiers generated later, so it's possible to max three stats and ignore the other three if you want. However, the die type rolled for each stat increases on odd stat numbers, so it's probably a good idea to spend at least one point on a few attributes you don't expect to use as much. Setting a base stat to nine instead of ten is the first of many choices between power now and power later this system offers.
The six stats roughly align with D&D attributes. Strength is used for most damage rolls, some to-hit rolls, and encumbrance. Defence is used for soak rolls and doubles as your Fortitude save. Agility determines your movement speed, can be used for to-hit rolls, and is your Reflex save. Accuracy is used for perception, some to-hit rolls, and damage on ranged weapons. Intelligence is used for some spell-casting and to resist distraction attempts. Personality can be used for spellcasting, distraction attempts, and is also your Will save.
The second step is to pick a race. There are twelve racial groups plus a number of subraces, but that's just flavour because the subraces have completely different stats than the racial groups they are nominally a part of. The first level in your starting race is free. Purely for flavour, you can say that your character looked quite different before their arrival at MSF High, but you still start with one level in whatever race you are at the actual beginning of the game.
The third step is to pick a disposition, a general outlook on life that gives you various modifiers to your stats. Every disposition gives out a combined total of +3 and -3 in some combination, and there is a little customization as to which stats get bonuses or penalties within a given disposition. High-level mind control magic and some racial abilities can forcibly change a character's disposition.
The fourth step is to spend your skill points. There are ten skills, each of which corresponds to class taught at the school. Raising a skill from level X to level X+1 requires X+1 skill points, and skill points per level range from one to six depending on your race. You are explicitly allowed to save your skill points for later in case you don't have enough to buy the next level of the skill you want, which would create a choice between power now or later if putting all your points in one skill wasn't mandatory. Gym and Martial Arts are used to disarm, kick, and grapple, but other than that it's always possible to buy equipment that uses your main facet's specialty skill to attack or defend with. Investing skill points in multiple skills is therefore a losing proposition.
The fifth step is to buy advantages, disadvantages, and facet levels. You start with 500XP which can be spent on Advantages or a Facet Level and can get additional XP by purchasing Disadvantages. A major failure of this section is implying that a facet level is optional. Facet levels are 100% mandatory. Without a Facet Level, you have no weapon proficiencies. Without weapon proficiencies, you cannot attack.. This isn't explained anywhere, but it is a direct consequence of the rules for attacking in the Combat section.
Advantages are said to be cheaper to obtain at character creation than in play, but no discount is ever given. However, Disadvantages only give you XP if you take them at character creation. The GM is encouraged to cap the total XP gained from disadvantages to 2000 XP, which is more than enough to make a reasonably specialized character without letting you start with a Level 3 Warrior that is physically incapable of anything but powering attacking every round.
The sixth step is purchasing equipment. Everyone starts with $500, which is enough for some basic weapons and armour. Some spellcasting classes need to pay money to learn spells, and others need to pay money every time they cast a spell, so make sure you save some of your cash for that.
One of the rules that didn't make it from the book to the website is your character's Allowance. There's a spot to list it on the character sheet, but no listed way to determine what a character's allowance is or how often they receive it. According to the incomplete but still available Free Rulebook, your allowance is equal to $5 times your Threat Level and is received weekly. Threat Level is equal to the sum of your racial levels, active facet levels, and adjustments for advantages and disadvantages, so I guess everyone sleeps in their armour on allowance day to make sure their threat level is at a maximum when they receive it.
The last step of character generation is filling in your character's background and cosmetic details. This is pretty basic and has no game-mechanical effect whatsoever, but the character sheet has spaces for height, weight, age, and whatnot. The narrator made a few comments on what those spaces were for in the book that didn't make it to the website, like saying he wasn't going to force people's real weights out of them and that they should just put something reasonable. While I disagree with the tone this RPG was written in, those comments fit it perfectly.
Stats and Skills
Contrary to the name of this section, stats are only described under Character Creation. This section actually opens with a rehash of Rolling. Moreover, there is an inconsistency between the core mechanic as stated here and the way it is stated in the Rolling chapter. Characters with stats above 12 (possible for specialized starting characters) have their stat die listed as 12+1, 12+2, etc. Rolling states that this is to be interpreted as d(12+1), so a roll of twelve on the die would explode as thirteen plus another roll. This section states that the extra +1 should be added to the final total of the roll, so a roll of a twelve would explode as twelve plus another roll plus one. I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes since d12s only explode one time in twelve, but it's indicative of poor editing and bound to be significant over a large number of games.
The ten skills are Gym, Martial Arts, Science, Magic, History, Music/Theatre, Home Economics, Art, Math, and Language. Basically every skill is the casting skill for facets that specialize in it, and every skill has multiple potential weapons and at least one shield. Gym class at MSF High includes combat training, creating some overlap with Martial Arts. Science includes all of the actual sciences as well as crazy magitech devices. Magic is used for both magical theory and practical applications. History doubles as a weapon skill for some archaic weapons. Music/Theatre is used for disguises and lies. Home Economics cover cooking, cleaning, and the use of improvised materials. Art covers expressing ideas in visual media and thinking outside the box. Math is a usable skill for every ranged weapon in the game. Language only comes up for people with one overpriced advantage and one disadvantage, but would presumably be used to translate ancient hieroglyphics and such if there was so much as a single example task on the entire site.
Since everything about skills outside combat is magic tea party, you probably don't need more than three skills to be trained at all. You will specialize in one skill based on your main facet, Gym could cover just about every physical activity, and you may want one of the others for flavour. Knowledge skills can always be covered by members of the party the use them to cast spells with. Don't try to dip skills for their combat applications because there is very little difference between weapons and there are weapons and shields usable with every skill.
Combat
MSF High uses ten-second combat rounds. Each character has an action for each of their hands, movement (including dodging attacks), and talking. Hand actions can be used to attack, block, parry, or (if permitted by your active facets) cast spells. Movement can be either used to move normally or expended on dodging or kicking. Your Talk action can be used to communicate normally, cast spells, or attempt to distract people. There are three types of distraction, and using the same type of distraction more than once per character per combat suffers increasing penalties to prevent distraction spam. If you have to pick one type of distraction to defend against, defend against Infatuation because their are more items that give Infatuation bonuses than the other two types.
Initiative is rolled at the top of each round. Your initiative roll is a single die given by your Agility score. Actions are resolved from highest to lowest initiative, so people can be knocked out before their turn begins. If your initiative roll is particularly high (11 or higher), you get to take an extra action at the end of the round.
Attacking requires entering one of three “attack stances” which determine the stat your attack roll uses, the result of a critical hit, and which of the three defence rolls is most effective against you. Strong attacks use Strength, deal extra damage on a critical, and are best countered by Dodging. Fast attacks use Agility, give a bonus hand action once per round on a critical, and are best countered by Parrying. Precise attacks use Accuracy, disable an enemy action for the round on a critical, and are best countered by Blocking. Attacking with a one-handed weapon requires one hand action, while using a two-handed weapon requires two hand actions. If the target applies the appropriate defence, five points are subtracted from your total attack roll.
The default target number to hit somebody is 5. At their option, the defender may expend an action to make some sort of defence roll when they are targeted or when they would be hit. They may also choose for each attack whether to apply any of the defence rolls they have already made. In either of those cases, the target number is the result of the defence roll. If no defence roll was made or the attack roll is double the defence roll or greater, a critical hit has been scored.
Characters can make one soak roll per round, and excess soak carries over to later hits in the same round. Note that this is a recent revision and in previous versions a soak roll was made for every hit, which is still referenced by some of the Disadvantages. The behaviour of these Disadvantages with the new soak rules is undefined.
Grappling is risky but powerful. It takes two hand actions to initiate a grapple which is then resolved as an attack using either Gym or Martial Arts. If you successfully grapple someone your size or smaller, they can't take any actions other than talking and trying to break the grapple while the grapple is maintained. This means that the target cannot make any further defence rolls, so anything that hits them on the second round of a grapple is guaranteed to be a critical hit. Maintaining a grapple requires a hand action, and attempts to break the grapple use two hand actions and require an opposed nonskilled Strength check.
Disarming people is a Gym/Martial Arts roll with the potential for huge magic tea party penalties. Grabbing things your opponent is holding is a -5 penalty, and “well secured” objects might apply up to a -10 penalty. Tearing off clothing that covers the torso or covers multiple slots increases the target number to disarm. Stripping someone pretty much guarantees victory because most of their usable facet levels will come from enchanted clothing and being unable to use facet levels reduces their HP, MP, and specialization bonuses. This leads to situations where the best way to stop underage sorceresses from burning down the cafeteria is to strip them naked in public. Not cool.
Combat is swingy, but tends toward padded sumo. Several rounds generally pass between a pair of opponents successfully damaging each other, and the battle is decided by a few lucky crits. Between specialists (and everyone should be a specialist), an off-hand defensive action will usually negate a primary-hand attack. This becomes even more likely as the two specialists increase in level because the difference in average roll per skill level decreases at high skill levels. Strong attacks become more useful at high levels because dodging is a nonskilled roll, but they become only slightly better at mid-level when the opponent's skill bonuses are high enough that they are more likely to successfully block or parry a Strong attack than dodge it.
Spellcasting cuts through some of the padding because it's harder to defend against spells, but low-level characters can only use two or three level-appropriate attack spells per day. Still, the save DCs (“Oppose Rolls”) are high enough that most people will fail them. It's not entirely clear whether soak rolls apply to magic: only weapon attacks trigger soak rolls, but once a soak pool exists all damage the character takes is subtracted from it first.
Kicking is a very niche option because it uses up all of your movement, which also prevents you from dodging that round. It can still be useful you've rolled a very high block or parry already, but it's inferior to ordinary attacks (even punching is better). Still, if you somehow have movement left next to an opponent you might as well try kicking them. It's also useful for dealing extra damage to grappled opponents if you don't mind making yourself a sitting duck as well.
Sword-and-board characters should always reserve their shield until they would be hit anyway. Shields provide a small bonus to your soak when used to make Defence rolls, so you should either block or parry every round even if you are exclusively targeted with Strong attacks because the bonus soak will help you. Hold your action until an attack would hit so you can choose which defence method to use at the time. If you really want to fight defensively, you can probably block or parry with your weapon as well.
Two-handed weapons are a joke because they force you to choose between attacking and parrying. With high Strength they can deal enough extra damage to cut through the soak bonuses from shields, but if your opponent will probably get to act first and you're wide open to Fast or Precise attacks. Heaven help you if your opponent lands a Precise critical – they'll disable your primary hand for a round and your only available attacks with be punches and kicks.
Dual-wielders are less of a joke, but I'm not certain they can keep up in the long run. At low levels they can hold their own by turtling and only attacking with both weapons when they have a very good opening. However, that tactic becomes less viable as to-hit bonuses and defences converge at higher levels. Specialization bonuses disproportionately favour defence by reducing the number of critical hits without significantly changing the number of actual hits between equal-level characters. This reduces the chance of landing a Precise critical and giving yourself a chance to make two attacks.
Martial Artists with maxed-out Strength might be the optimal melee characters. They get huge bonuses to attacks with their bare hands, which can help them start a grapple. Once they start grappling the opponent cannot defend themselves at all, so they can be mercilessly crushed with repeated Fast and Strong attacks that are guaranteed to be criticals. A three-handed Martial Artist (5000 XP Advantage) could even tear the opponent's clothes off with relative ease, removing most of their Facet levels and draining both their HP and their ability to fight back rapidly. This is a high-risk, high-reward strategy that leaves both you and your target vulnerable to attack by each other's allies, but combining decent offensive power with some of the best action denial in the game probably pays off.
Most of this goes out the window if there are multiple opponents. As far as I can tell, the optimal strategy is for whoever goes first on your side to use their best attack and have the rest of the party focus first with different attack types, greatly increasing the odds of inflicting damage unless the opponent spends all of their actions defending. Defensively, it is always best to dodge if you weren't planning on moving and hold your off-hand action as long as possible to block or parry the first attack that would otherwise hit. Ranged weapons are still the only two-handed weapons you should ever use, and you will probably be making Precise attacks with them every round.
The dodging rules are such that one should never, under any circumstances, create a character with an Agility less than four. The number of dice rolled to dodge depends on how much movement you give up, and both your movement speed and the die type for dodging depend on Agility. If you cannot dodge, anyone with high Strength will obliterate you with Strong attacks even if you can block or parry. You want an Agility of at least eight if you can get it so that you can get 2d8 on your dodge chance. Blocking and parrying scale with one of your skills, and you should be specializing enough that you can afford lower Defence or Accuracy and still stop anyone near your level from touching you by switching between blocks and parries. Nerds and Maids are the only classes that have to worry about having multiple skills for defence because they are the only classes with specialized shields that cannot parry.
Other Rules
This section covers recovery and environmental hazards. If you're out of HP or MP, you're unconscious. Like D&D there's a special not-quite-unconscious effect for being at exactly zero in either of them. HP and MP recover at one per hour naturally, but are also fully refreshed once per day by the Magical Self-Repair mechanism. The Magical Self-Repair mechanism restores you to full health and wellness even from complete atomization. It also reverts any physical or mental transformations affecting your character unless you (the player) want to keep them.
The falling rules are ridiculous. You take (Height of Fall / 20)+d8 damage (i.e. add some number of exploding d8s), which isn't too bad on its own. However, falling at least twenty feet prevents you from taking any other actions for your entire ten second round.
Lighting people on fire is the best debuff ever because they may not take any action other than trying to put themselves out until they succeed. They have to stop, drop and roll, and cannot jump in a lake even if there's one like two feet from them because movement is prohibited. Quicksand and Ice are also very effective means of action denial.
You're allowed to carry up to your Strength score plus size modifiers squared in pounds of equipment at no penalty, and carrying up to twice that cuts your Agility in half. Due to a hilarious typo, throwing things is impossible. The rules as written state that the maximum distance you can throw something is “weight of the object in pounds divided by your strength score squared” with no defined measure of length. The example indicates that should have read “a number of feet equal to your strength score squared divided by the weight of the object is pounds,” but RAW is that being stronger makes throwing things harder regardless of what length unit is used.
Swimming is simple. You move at one quarter of your normal speed. If there's a current, you move a distance per round based on current. If you have to hold your breath more the 3 minutes (18 rounds), you need to make a Defence roll every round or take twenty damage. Climbing also makes you move at one quarter of your normal speed.
Hiding works, but following people is completely broken. To hide, you tell the GM where you'd like to hide, make a nonskilled Agility roll to hide, and people trying to spot you make an opposed nonskilled Accuracy roll. However, every time you move while hiding gives you a cumulative -1 penalty on your next check, so following someone and hiding for more than a round or two is flat-out impossible.
Riding is easy – you can't use your movement to move if you're on a mount, and controlling animals is a DC 6 nonskilled Personality check with arbitrary MTP modifiers.
This page also has subpages for free time, item crafting, and jobs. Basically all of these are ways of turning time into money or better results on schoolwork. Given that the results of schoolwork are completely undefined, this mostly means making money. Different ways of spending your free time accrue different bonuses, most of which are useful for whoever iconically performs those actions. For example, searching for scrap is more profitable than a job but can only feed back into item crafting and Scientist spell-casting. Volunteer time can negate the monetary cost of Priest spells, meditating under waterfalls gives you floating soak bonuses, and spending time shopping can get you discounts on items. There's a lot of magic tea party involved, and some free time activities only have magic tea party benefits, but for the most part people are mechanically incentivized to do things their character would want to do with their free time.
The Jobs system ties in with Threat Levels, which is really, really weird. Jobs have a base pay of $10 per hour, some of which can be traded for various perks like access to raw materials for crafting or the potential to earn tips (which you should almost always take if possible). Every job has associated stats and at least on associated skill – having more associated skills increases the base pay. At the end of each week you need to make a roll using a skill/stat pair associated with the job, earning a bonus for a high roll and losing the job if you fail too many times in a row. However, the difficulty of the roll is based on your Threat Level, so your job gets harder the longer you work at it. Combined with the fact that at higher levels you skill won't scale as fast as your threat level, it eventually becomes difficult for high-level characters to hold a job at all. Given that promotions are also tied to Threat Level, I think the easiest fix would be to remove the direct coupling and have jobs pay based on the difficulty of the roll.
Item crafting boils down to spending some time and money on raw materials, then making a lot of rolls. If you roll well, you can end up with masterwork items. If you roll poorly, it will take longer to finish. There's bound to be a point where it's effectively cheaper to just go to work to pay for an item than to craft it, but that's true of any crafting system.
Races
This page describes magical transformations and links to the individual races and subraces. Several races have abilities that aren't all that great, though subraces tend to have more powerful racial abilities than the generic racial groups they are part of. In any case, the only thing that changes when you are transformed into a member of another race is your set of racial stat adjustments. All the actual abilities are either part of the racial levels (which you don't get automatically) or “racial Advantages/Disadvantages” for some subraces (which aren't stat adjustments so you don't get them automatically). Pretty disappointing for a game that's halfway about transformation.
Humans are everywhere, especially since a significant portion of planets are “AltEarths” full of humans with similar geography and history. Humans have average HP and skill point scaling, but below average stat point and MP scaling. Their racial abilities are a bonus to blending in with crowds and a reduction in penalties when using technology they aren't familiar with. Notable subraces include beautiful con-artists and Amazons that get bonuses with bows.
Demi-Humans are human-animal hybrids created for use as slaves by the Golden Alliance. They come in “domestic” and “martial” varieties (non-furry and furry, respectively). They have above-average Facet Level and stat scaling, but below average everything else. Their useless racial abilities are a once per day bonus to-hit, but only from hiding (yes, really) and a bonus to following people. As previously established, following people and remaining hidden is completely impossible, so that leaves them with a tracking bonus they can't use because there are no tracking rules. Most of the typical furry population is represented in subraces: wolves, cute cats, savage cats, rabbits, etc. In fact, Martial Neko (furry cat-people) are better than the default Demi-Human in pretty much every way.
The Mythic racial group includes standard fantasy races like Elves, Dwarves, and Fairies. They have above average Facet Level and Stat Scaling and well below average HP scaling. Their completely useless racial ability is not getting laughed at for failure a few times per day, and they also get a small bonus on rolls to detect faint sensory input.
The Redeemed racial group includes the standard villainous fantasy races, all of which were drafted by the Golden Alliance in the past (the GA are dicks like that). They have the highest HP scaling, but are otherwise below average. However, their special abilities are almost useful: bonuses to hiding in the dark and reduced penalties for fighting in darkness. Subraces like Orc and Dark Elf are a little more specialized but probably flat-out better. That seems to be a theme.
The Divine look like angels and want everyone to know it. They have a highly militarized caste-based society and occasional Lawful Stupid tendencies. Mechanically, they have pretty good HP but are otherwise lacklustre. They can heal people for a substantial number of hit points once per day, but you'd be better off with a real cleric or medical scientist. The Valkyrie subrace has an awesome buffing ability and can detect evil, which more than makes up for their poor Facet and Stat scaling. Archangels appear to reference outdated armour rules, but are otherwise a good contender for best Warrior subrace in the game.
The Devilings are demonic creatures from the edge of the galaxy. They have above-average skill point and Facet level scaling, but are otherwise below par. Their ability to teleport a few times per day is cool. They also gain bonuses on rolls to enforce any contracts they've made, but it's pure fluff because combat is explicitly excluded and the GM is encouraged to ignore that ability any time the contract isn't completely frivolous. Honestly, I'd prefer to let it work all the time because demons getting vengeance when the terms of a deal aren't met is exactly what should be happening. Subraces include one with a short-range per-encounter teleport and Succubi with one of the few MP damaging abilities in the game.
The Mecha racial group includes any constructed being. They're tied for best HP scaling, have above-average skill point and Facet level scaling, but low stat growth and the lowest MP scaling. Their racial ability partially makes up for it because once per day they can adsorb damage from a spell and use it in place of MP. They can also reduce the difficulty of casting spells on them if they want. Subraces include Puppets with glass-cannon extra lives per day, living armour, and intelligent oozes.
The Legion racial group includes any race that makes more of itself by transforming others, but don't expect to actually do that anywhere near the start of the game. They have above-average MP and stat growth, but everything else is below average. Each level gives them a few “form points,” which they can spend on making someone look more like themselves once per day. As a first-level Legion, you can make someone's hair and voice look at sound like yours if and only if you can hold them down for six rounds straight. The attempt is lost if you start to transform someone and they break out of the grapple before all six rounds are up. Several abilities cost more than two form points, so you'll have to save your points until you level up again.
The True Legion subrace is a race of Borg-like plant-girls created in a terraforming accident, and also the biggest discrepancy in racial abilities between a racial group and its subraces I've seen. The first-level ability of a True Legion is turning someone into an exact duplicate of herself once per day. The generic Legion race would have to be at least level 8 to do that, and two of those levels are dead levels where they had to save their form points. Furthermore, the True Legion's transformation gets even better as they level up and they can chose to get more daily uses or a faster conversion rate – things that detract from a generic Legion's ability to transform people at all. They also get much better Skill Point scaling, and they pay for all that with slightly worse MP scaling and lower stat boosts. That is the level of balance this game achieved – half a spell less per day in exchange for better transformation abilities than any spell in the game.
Elementals are average at everything and get bonuses to casting spells of their element. This pretty much makes them the best possible race for Priests, who can only cast from a handful of elements to begin with. There are few reasons to create a specialized caster of any kind that is not an elemental.
Spirits are a decent choice for non-specialized spellcasters because they have high MP scaling. Their second-level racial ability is turning intangible for a few minutes each day, and six rounds of immunity to weapons is a long time for a spellcaster going nova. Their other racial ability is a poorly-defined bonus to remembering things.
Generic shapeshifters get a few points to spend each level on shapechanging abilities. Like the Legion, there will be times where they have to wait two levels to have enough points to buy the ability they want. Shapeshifters purchase each form separately, although for the price of one actual form they could buy the abilities to change sex at will and make minor adjustments to their appearance. Other than that they have good HP and skill point scaling, so being a shapeshifter is a pretty solid choice. There's also a doppleganger subrace that's worse than generic shapeshifters at mimicking people until it hits second level, at which point it becomes the best at disguise and the best way for high-level characters to boost their skills despite the poor skill point growth on the class itself.
The last racial group are the Watchers, three-eyed clairvoyants that act like they own the galaxy. They keep everyone else off various planets for reasons unknown even to the few Watchers that have left their society. Mechanically, they have the highest MP and skill point scaling in the game and poor stat growth. Their racial abilities are seeing absolutely everything withing a sizable radius once per day and instantly locating anyone they know a few times each day. Their racial stat modifiers make the pretty good archers or spellcasters.
Several races have listed subraces that don't have mechanics yet. There's a note at the top of the page about contacting the author if there's a particular subrace you're interested in playing, which is kind of nice.
I stopped listing Facet level growth about halfway through because it is utterly inconsequential. A single facet level can be added to a piece of equipment for between $20 and $60, so unless you're earning money at a much, much slower rate than you're earning XP it's not going to be an issue. The only time it matters is if you're attacked while taking a bath or something, and even then the few facet levels you get from racial levels aren't going to be enough to stand up to someone in full battle gear. That's unfortunate because low facet level scaling seems to have been considered a balancing point on some races.
Technically having facet levels from your race can help if somebody is trying to strip you, but if they can manage it your defences are way too low. Nobody is likely to be able to remove an item that covers the torso (+3) and three other slots (+6) unless they completely outclass you and/or you have terrible Defence and Agility. Your levels in your highest facet should always be provided by such an item. You should also prioritize items that can be considered “well secured” over items that can't when buying random extra crap for spare facet levels.
Facets
As previously stated, Facets are much like character classes in other games. Dabbling in many facets is a good way to boost your HP and MP, but the only way to obtain powerful spells is to have a high level in a single facet. Given the same amount of XP, a character with a single facet will probably have a lower threat level despite access to more powerful magic, which almost makes sense because they won't have enough MP to cast more than a few spells. Overall it's probably a good idea to focus on one facet, but there's a few with enough synergy to consider dipping.
Every Facet except Student has a Specialization, and you get +1 to rolls using that skill for every level of the facet you have active. Specializations are also referenced by armour to determine which facets it can be enchanted to enable cheaply. There was exactly one facet with each specialization when I started writing this review, but two of seventy-seven more planned facets have been released since then. Facets also grant a small number of Subjects, which are actually your weapon proficiencies. You can use a weapon if and only if one of the skills that can be used to attack with that weapon is a subject or specialty of one of your active facets. For the most part you're going to buy gear that uses your main facet's specialization exclusively because specialization is the key to power.
Basically every facet gets spellcasting of some sort. Everyone has the same spell list, but each facet has slightly different restrictions on their spells. This means that taking three facets will probably give you three separate means of spellcasting with their own spells known and limits on how powerful the spells you can cast are, all of which draw from the same pool of MP. Several facets also have to spend money each time they cast their spells, which I think is intended to overcome the fighter-only gear dependance issue of D&D but is applied pretty haphazardly.
Some facets have special rules for summoning creatures using their facet. This is entirely irrelevant because there are no summon spells or rules for summoning creatures. They're probably hidden away in the unpublished GM chapter.
Students can use any weapon type but have no specialty. While there are no items that can be cheaply enchanted to access Student levels, you get a free school uniform that lets you use as many as you want. However, you probably won't use it except in emergencies because Students cannot cast spells and don't get any bonuses to their skills. Their class features are studying for tests (completely useless without the GM rules on what success on tests is supposed to do) and spending MP for bonuses on tasks that take over a minute. There's no reason to specialize in this, but it probably wouldn't hurt to pick up a cheap level or two later on if you're a Warrior or Scientist.
Mages are the best generalist spellcasters. Their specialty is Magic. They have no limit to their number of spells known, but they do need to either scribe spells into their spellbook or have a copy in front of them to cast them. They get a small amount of free MP worth of bonuses to each spell they cast, the simplest use of which is usually boosting the oppose roll (save DC) by a small amount. If you don't mind being a glass cannon, you can carry your spellbook into battle for a significant bonus to your spellcasting rolls. Casting spells without a spellbook requires your talk action and one hand action, but using your spellbook takes both hands so you can't block or parry while doing so. This is definitely a solid class.
Warriors are reasonable melee characters with a large number of arbitrary fuck-yous in their class abilities. They a whopping $900 worth of masterwork bonuses on one weapon for free, but they can never cast Warrior spells again if they lose it. They also get free transforming magic armour that can grant them all their Warrior levels and XP to spend on Companions which is impossible because those rules are in the GM chapter. Warrior spellcasting is like Crono Trigger double-techs. You have a very small number of spells you can cast once per day each (which the GM is specifically allowed to choose for you), and an even smaller number of double- and triple-techs known that require a specific other Warrior or group of Warriors to perform them with, and if anything ever happens to those people you are screwed out of your double-techs forever. Just like actual double- and triple-techs, they aren't enough better than normal techs to bother with most of the time. Warrior is still a reasonable choice because their specialization in Gym makes them the best with all the best melee weapons and shields, but don't expect to actually use your class features at all.
Scientists are very efficient at turning money into power. They can spend money and a few minutes to build a device that duplicates a spell. Scientist devices are powered either by permanent reactors that generate a certain number of MP per day or cheap batteries that have a fixed charge before burning out. Scientists going nova with batteries are terrifying because they can spam dangerous attack spells long after mages have run out of MP. This dovetails nicely with other facets that do use MP because they can use both abilities at full power. There are some rules about taking time to maintain devices, but it's never stated how long devices can go without maintenance. Also, if the summoning rules existed they could be used by Scientists to make androids.
Priests are mages that can cast slightly more powerful spells at the same facet level, but only from a few elements. They also specialize in History, which gives them access to decent melee weapons like swords and hammers. Priests have to spend money on donations to their deity every time they cast a spell, but they can choose to spend a point of karma instead. Karma is generated by wearing priestly vestments, volunteer time, and GM pity. Still, low-level Priests can generate enough karma to use all of their spells per day without spending any money. All Priests have access to Light, Purity, and one other element of their choice. Elementals make good Priests because they specialize in one element and Priests also specialize in one element.
Martial Artists specialize in bare-handed combat and have better spellcasting than Warriors. At low levels you can get away with your bare hands because of their bonuses to punching things, but eventually you may want masterwork brass knuckles or something. Several places in the text treat a Martial Artist's “chi pool” as if it's something completely different from MP, but their actual spellcasting entry says that they cast spells completely normally which means using MP like everyone else. The GM is encouraged to deny access to spells he doesn't think fit your particular martial art, but you won't have the MP to cast very many of them in any case. Martial Artists also get a mostly useless bonus to kicking which might make kicking people useful in some niche scenarios. This is a nerf – they used to get magic resistance instead.
Idols are Music-based spellcasters with long casting times and a huge AoE boost. They have to sing for three rounds while casting, but the song affects either everyone within a reasonable distance of them or (with amplification) everyone that can hear the song at all. However, they have the slowest maximum MP cost scaling of any facet and can't actually cast spells at first level. Their first level ability lets them either exclude a target from any AoE spell they cast or target only a particular person within the area of effect. This can actually be used with any spell whatsoever, so Idol is a good one-level dip for other spellcasters. There's also a minigame for arranging concerts and getting bonus cash, which you'll need because you need to either pay double the standard cost to learn a spell or pay a sizable amount of money every time you cast it. Also, you're supposed to keep track of every time you have cast every spell because you're penalized for spells you haven't cast enough.
Artists cast spells by hitting people with giant pencils and paintbrushes. However, they need to hit someone four times to successfully cast a spell, and given how hard it is to land a hit against anyone who defends themselves that isn't likely to work. Giant art supplies are actually decent weapons though, so if you don't mind putting all your skill points in Art you can be a pretty effective melee character as an artist. If there were any summon spells, Artists would be able to transform defeated targets into subservient sculptures.
Nerds are billed as spellcasters that can only cast spells sometimes. They can only cast spells of the element opposing the last spell cast in the area, and they have to cast their spell within five minutes of the previous spell being cast. However, a quick check of the items section reveals that every ranged weapon in the game has Math as a usable skill and deals damage based on your Accuracy stat. Math is the Nerd's specialty skill, Accuracy is one of their two casting stats, and Nerd spells only require a Talk action to cast. This means Nerds are incredibly powerful snipers that can use magic to double their firepower if there's even a single other spellcaster in combat. In fact, Accuracy-focused Warriors with crossbows are the only other characters that have any business specializing in ranged combat. Even then the Warrior had better pack a side-sword while the Nerd can just unload a pistol at point blank range.
Maids are melee fighters that gain special bonuses when “defending their master,” one particular person chosen when their first Maid level is taken that can never be changed. They can also spend a few bucks to cook up magical meals that cast spells on whoever eats them. This gets more economical at higher levels when they can cook multiple servings at the same time. There might also be an editing error because Maids gain the ability to cook a single serving of magical food before they gain the ability to cast any spells using it. Still, it's not a bad class to dip if you use weapons at all. While all Home Economics weapons are melee weapons, there's nothing specifying that you have to use a melee weapon to benefit from their Loyalty bonus. Also, there's nothing stopping a male character from being a Maid, it's just the name of the facet.
The final core facet is the Mystic, a Language-based spellcaster that has to either purchase scrolls ahead of time or perform time-consuming magic rituals to cast. Being a Mage is much more economical in the long run, but their ability to pull arbitrary spells out of a hat with a five-minute ritual makes them the most versatile spellcasters in the game. However, the Language skill is pretty useless in comparison to most other skills, so their specialization bonus is virtually worthless. The only other advantage of Mystics is that they have some choice in which actions are used to cast their spells, but since having a free hand to block is essentially mandatory they're actually going to just eat their scrolls and use the same actions Mages would have anyway, except their mouth is full of paper.
The newly-released facets are Sorcerers and Shield Maidens, Magic and Martial Arts specialists of the Castaways Treaties Systems and Angelic Protectorate respectively. Sorcerers are mages with less spells known that can add extra damage to spells in exchange for a chance of a misfire. Shield Maidens gain slight bonuses to their soak pool and choose a number of abilities from a class list instead of casting spells. I haven't thoroughly read either of them, but neither has anything that immediately jumps out as insane. That said, with seventy-five facets yet to be written I have little hope that playing MSF high won't end up being an exercise in dumpster-diving. There are supposed to be some role-playing prerequisites to them or something, but that actually just makes it worse because it ties character power to character background.
Advantages
Advantages are mostly used to further specialize your character. The majority of the are priced at 500 XP, but there are a few available at a lower price and some are much more expensive. The section opens with a note about how losing advantages may be “part of the story,” implying that your advantages are supposed to be taken away from you any time the GM likes but stipulating that you must either get them back eventually or get roleplaying XP for rolling with the loss. Given that there is no mention of how much XP should be awarded anywhere, this is just explicit rules support for GMs nerfing characters after the game has started.
I won't go through every advantage, but there are several advantages that allow you to specialize in one particular type of attack. There's one advantage for each stat that lets your dice explode on the second-highest number if you're rolling a d10 or a d12, which seems like a massive boost for hyper-specialized characters because of the feedback loop of higher skills working better with higher stats. You can get advantages for attacking with or defending against particular types of distraction attempt. Alternate size categories and flight are also advantages. Flight is notable because it is split into several advantages with no discount for upgrading from the cheaper versions to the more expensive versions, so choosing to glide or hover instead of saving XP is another choice between power now and power later. For some reason photosynthesis is valued the same as weapon specialization even though all students get free meals on campus.
One advantage definitely does not work as intended. It turns all of your MP from facets and racial levels into extra HP with a pair of exceptions that don't actually exist. Neither “tech MP” nor “Chi Pool MP” are ever defined anywhere, so this turns every point of MP you have into HP, putting you at 0 MP and -2 to all actions forever. This is considered such a huge advantage that it adds two to your Threat Level. Note that first-level characters can't actually cast Warrior or Martial Artists spells, so even if it did work as intended you'd have to take another 1000XP worth of disadvantages or be at -2 for everything until you earn 1000XP in play.
Disadvantages
This section opens with conflicting rules on how to buy off disadvantages. You need to pay either three or five times the initial amount of XP you gained from it at character creation depending on which conflicting rule you use, possibly with a discount if the GM feels like it. It also encourages the GM to give you extra disadvantages if he doesn't think you're roleplaying your existing ones.
Most disadvantages give you 250 XP. Many disadvantages are mirrors of the advantages. Logically, they give less XP than their mirror advantages and hand out larger penalties than advantages give bonuses. There are also a large number of Magic Tea Party disadvantages, but unlike most systems they usually require you to make an actual roll to act “out of character” for the disadvantage. Strangely, being racist against everyone has the same XP value as being racist against one particular group.
Several disadvantages interact with rules that have changed or were not given. Being weak to a particular material like silver prevents you from making a soak roll against weapons composed of it, but since you only make one soak roll per round you actually can soak damage from your weakness if you were hit by another weapon earlier that round. The “Weak Point” disadvantage has a similar noninteraction with the new soak rules. “Bad Luck” references spectacular failures and makes them more likely, but there aren't any rules for spectacular failures. “Poor Grip” prevents you from getting bonus dice for wielding weapons two-handed, but there are no bonus dice for wielding weapons two-handed. Damage Magnet references the GM rolling to determine NPC targets, which is apparently one of the rules in the missing GM chapter.
The only disadvantage that stands out as a no-brainer is Non-functioning Ability, but only because the racial abilities are so crappy. It's not like a demi-human's Pounce is going to be as useful as weapon specialization or an extra level at chargen. Another 1000XP disadvantage worth looking into is MP Overload, which sets your HP to zero if your MP hit zero. Succubi are the only ones with any MP damage until the new spells hit, and they have a hard time landing it.
Items
The main Items page appears to link to outdated information, so I'll jump right in to the clothing section. Clothing will be your main source of available facet levels. The cost to enchant an item to give you access to facet levels depends on the type of clothing and whether or not that facet has the same specialty skill as the item, but it's a purely linear cost per level. Clothing is arranged in a number of groups based on skill, and every group contains a few empty items that exists purely for added facet levels.
The disarming rules encourage placing as many levels of your highest facet as possible on your torso. This will also be your primary source of armour, which determines how many dice you roll when you make a soak roll. Most clothing that provides an armour bonus greater than two also penalizes your initiative.
Other than that, the distribution of item slots encourages filling empty slots with either cross-class specialized equipment or random crap that happens to grant a bonus. I don't think it would be odd to run across a student at MSF High rocking a lab coat and top hat with magic bracers under his sleeves. Even if he's not also a wizard (a sound choice for any scientist at this school), the top hat improves his oppose rolls and the arm guards grant a bonus to parrying. Most items don't do anything, but every slot has at least one item that does something.
Actually, putting facet levels on clothing that doesn't suit them only costs an extra $20/level. You probably can't afford that as a starting character because all of your money will be spent on the basic equipment you need to live, but if you ever have money to burn there may be better choices than the default loadout for your class.
Two pieces of clothing actually have undefined behaviour. Both the Cosplay Outfit and the FenrisCo Uniform have an entry in the Special column that just says Special. While I can probably guess what the FenrisCo Uniform does, it really should be in the rules.
Two other sets of clothing allow large groups of people to obtain arbitrarily large benefits. The Sentai Suit has armour equal to number of Sentai on the team, so a group of 100 sentai would roll 100 dice to soak and pick the best result. Even worse is the Cheerleader Uniform, which provides +1 to Infatuation attempts for each cheerleader. This allows large groups of cheerleaders to force anyone they choose to fail at absolutely everything for an extended period of time.
Weapons are sorted into five groups of melee weapons plus bows and guns. The weapon specialization advantage covers an entire weapon group, so even if you specialize you'll have a little leeway in weapon choices. Some groups are larger than others, and some have more diverse skill requirements than others. Home Economics is the only skill with at least one weapon in each melee group, so if you're not a Maid you can rule out half the weapons before you even begin looking.
Different weapons have slightly different amounts of damage and speed modifiers. They might also be limited in which of the three types of attack they can perform. The majority of weapons deal damage based on their wielder's Strength, but some are based on Accuracy, Agility, or Personality instead. Many weapons have positive speed modifiers, so dual-wielders will often have higher initiative than someone with sword-and-board. Also, while this is the only place it's mentioned, each empty hand you have gives you a +2 bonus to initiative because that hand is “holding” a Fist.
In addition to damage and speed modifiers, bows and guns have range, ammo, and burst amounts. Ammo is the number of shots that can be taken before you have to use a hand action to reload the weapon. Burst is a maximum number of extra bullets that can be fired in a round, trading accuracy for damage with one. Range gives the range increment in feet – each range increment after that incurs a -1 penalty.
Every ranged weapon has Math as one of it's usable skills, so everyone with Math proficiency should be carrying a pistol when they can afford it. Other than Math, Science can be used for all guns, and Gym and Martial Arts each have two types of bow. There's no penalty for firing into melee, and if your opponents aren't returning fire you can take a few potshots while they close before switching to your melee weapons. Kiting opponents with bows can also be effective because they can make Strong attacks, forcing the enemy to choose between closing and dodging.
Shields are boring. They let you choose which skill to use to block or parry, and if you spend a defensive action to use them they provide a small bonus to your soak pool for the round. I'd also like to point out the utterly and completely worthless tower shield, which takes two hands to use and therefore decreases your chances of successfully blocking an enemy attack while simultaneously preventing you from doing anything useful. Trying to use a greataxe in this system is funny, but trying to use a tower shield is just sad.
There are no rules for dropping, stowing, or drawing weapons. I suspect that it takes a hand action to shuffle equipment, but that's never specified. Changing clothing takes one minute, as does changing active facet levels if your equipment permits more than one configuration.
There's also a section on item enhancements. Items can be made masterwork with various bonuses, which is probably something you'll want to do eventually. There's a strict limit to how masterwork items in different slots can be to prevent you from wearing masterwork+20 eyepatches for huge armour bonuses to any outfit. There's also a note about inferior quality items which are just masterwork items with all the bonuses reversed, and the GM is advised to occasionally try to trick players into buying them.
Items can be made spell-storing, which is a useful way for anyone to turn money into power. It's cheaper to recharge an item that isn't entirely spent, so always try to buy one more charge than you plan to actually use. However, the total number of charges an item is capable of holding is completely random, and GM fiat may prevent you from filling the item or buying powerful spells.
Items can have also have sockets, but neither socketed items nor the magic gems that fill them are given prices. I haven't looked too closely because it's GM fiat for them to show up at all.
Spells
The basic idea of magic in this system is that there are ten elements that can be used to perform magic, each of which has an opposite. In addition to the four classical elements the system has Body and it opposite Mind, Light and its opposite Sound, and Purity and its opposite Entropy. Most elements have a range of basic blasting spells and a few more specific ones. New versions of spells can be created with the metamagic system and are learned as separate spells.
Casting a spell requires spending a number and type of actions determined by your facet and expending cash and/or MP to power the spell. You need to succeed at a roll to successfully cast a spell, but you don't lose money or MP if you fail. If you succeed, your target is entitled to an Oppose Roll, a non-skilled attribute roll against a target number set by the spell and modified by the degree of success of the casting roll. If they succeed, the spell is negated. As there is no way to get bonus dice to oppose rolls or take action to defend against magic it is much easier to damage opponents with spells.
Each facet that allows you to cast spells will have a maximum MP cost. This is the maximum final cost of spells cast by that method. You can use metamagic to create a version of a spell that has a lower MP cost, usually at the expense of its oppose roll or the difficulty of casting it. If you have a high spell-casting skill, it may be worthwhile to create versions of the spells with higher casting difficulties and higher oppose rolls at the same MP cost. Doing so is slightly riskier, but has a better payoff because many spells are already very difficult to save against. You should also always reduce the oppose roll as much as possible on buff spells for the the completely free lowered MP cost.
The spell list is in an inconsistent state right now. There's a page for “new spell rules” that has more spells and various changes to the existing spells, but no long descriptions. There's also a page for each element that has the long-form descriptions of all the old spells. I'll step through the old spell list and mention any notable spells from the new spell list.
Body includes the basic stat buffs for the three physical stats and some physical transformations. Stat buffs are random and benefit from the standard exploding die rules, so you end up with a boost somewhere between one and positive infinity. There's a spell to reattach lost limbs despite the lack of rules for severing limbs. The Minor Alterations spell is intended for disguises but has undefined interactions with characters of sizes other than medium – adding ten pounds to a human is a lot less noticeable than adding the same weight to an 8” pixie! The new spell list adds stat debuffs and drops the body swap spell due to overlap with Mind Swap.
The basic Earth blasts have an extra rider: anyone affected has to make a second Agility check or be pinned in place for a few rounds, making them easier to hit with magic or Strong attacks. Earth magic also includes creating stone walls, instant-death earthquakes, petrification, plant growth, and replacing food with magic. The new spell list includes attracting or repelling metal, granting a burrow speed, and creating rock armour.
Entropy has basic blasts that deal terrible damage and might fail to injure your opponent at all. Better spells include turning land to quicksand, messing with luck, and destroying nonmagical equipment. The new spell list adds magical aging, MP damage, and anti-magic.
Fire has the most damaging basic blast spells. It can also be used to create flaming swords. The new spell list adds equivalents of heat metal and tiny hut.
Light gets lasers, silent image, blinding, and teleportation. It also has a spell that changes the colours of your other spells for a few minutes just in case you want to burn ten MP to look slightly cooler. The new spell list adds darkness, clairvoyance, and darkvision.
Mind has all the basic stat buffs for mental attributes. It also includes telepathy, telekinesis, and a spell that can change a character's Disposition. The most powerful spell is Mind Swap, which directs the targets to switch character sheets and play their own character with all of the other character's statistics and abilities for the duration (probably the rest of the day). The new spell list adds stat debuffs and hideous laughter.
Purity has healing spells instead of blasting spells, and most of the rest of its spells are also healing or buffs. There's a resurrection spell here which might be useful for extremely high-level characters that have somewhere to be that afternoon. Its only attack spell is Smite, a touch-range spell that deals large amounts of damage and might deal double to undead. New spells include Reincarnate, which comes online five levels before Revive, and Know Authority, a divination that determines who or what upholds law and order in the area.
Sound has cone-shaped blasts, and an area-of-effect action denial that costs more MP to maintain the more people are inside. It's most powerful attack is a burst centred on the caster that debuffs knocks back and debuffs everyone else in the area. The new spell list adds silence, amplification, deafness, and a spell to copy voices.
Water allows you to shoot icicles as a basic attack. It can also douse fires, create patches of ice, or freeze a target in a solid block of ice for several hours. Another fun water spell is surrounding a target with water for several minutes using nonstandard drowning rules that are much more favourable to the caster. New spells include water-bending, high-pressure jets, and making people drunk.
Wind knocks people back with its basic blast attack. Flight, the violent thrust version of telekinesis, lightning bolt, and wind wall are also air spells. There's even an area of effect healing spell. The new spells include chain lightning and summoning a tornado.
Overall, the current spells are mostly useful for direct damage. When the changes to the spell list are completed, spellcasters will have many more useful options. The creation of debuff spells might make specializing in a single stat less useful, though they will not affect the problem of characters being dependant on a single skill. The only new debuff I can see significantly affecting a character's defences is Drain Agility because of the disconnect between dodging and the other defence types.
Some of the spell descriptions are amusing, like the line about a war between silicon-based lifeforms and opera singers from the next planet over. Most of them contribute to the informal tone of the rules, especially saying “By now you know the drill” as the first line of the description of a buff immediately after some other buffs. The description of Personality Boost calls anyone who performs character optimization a “munchkin” and notes that Charisma is typically their dump stat, then gloats about how that's a bad idea in this system. Parts like that are the most grating thing about this entire RPG, especially given how trivial it is to optimize.
Final Thoughts
Most of my analysis has been focused on the combat engine. That's because there are no non-combat rules. I think most of them are in the unpublished GM chapter. There are no example difficulties for tasks, so everything not covered by the combat section require the GM to pull a number out of his ass. Moreover, the unintuitive probabilities of success in this system make any GM ass-pulled numbers even more suspect than usual.
Several rules are pointers to other things that are never defined. The most notable of these is whether a roll succeeded or failed, a part of the core mechanic that the entire remainder of the system is built on. Apparently schoolwork and tests are important enough that you're expected to spend XP being good at them to the exclusion of combat. but those rules aren't there. There are no monster statistics or encounter tables. There are no summoning spells despite frequent mention of them in individual facets. The rules for sidekicks are a pointer to the missing GM chapter. I plan to ask the author about the missing material. There's probably a complete game somewhere, but I don't have it in front of me.
There are also several inconsistencies that could have been caught with better editing. The game throws a divide-by-zero error if anyone's stats are above 12 (possible at character generation) or somebody tries to buy off disadvantages. References to Page XXX somehow made it into a public document. Vague wording is the norm. I know the editor was probably a volunteer, but these are trivial oversights clearly visible to anyone that looks.
Most of the design decisions do not fulfil their apparent design goals. Attribute selection is supposed to result in reasonably balanced characters, but the core mechanic encourages specialization. The skill point costs are designed to reduce skill specialization, but all available skill uses encourage pumping a single skill as high as you can get. The use of clothing associated with class levels was intended to get people to wear thematic outfits, but it encourages stripping underage characters. Combat is based around rock-paper-scissors between attacks and defences, but the benefit to the defender is too great. Racial classes are intended to encourage transformations, but the races are unbalanced and race changes end up being just another debuff.
Most of the differences between races feel like useless dials to tweak in the name of balance. For example, racial facet level scaling could save maybe $300 over your whole career. The only time the difference matters is immediately after character generation, where some people can fight back if the three-handed grapple monk strips them and some cannot. At higher levels the piddly two facets levels from your race will not be enough for you to survive because you just lost half your hit points and four points off the skill your entire character is based around. Scaling facet levels the same with all racial levels and finding some other way to get people to wear thematic gear would go a long way toward fixing the multiclassing system. Putting all the racial abilities in racial classes also undermines the feeling of change when characters are transformed into another race because race changes just move some numbers around.
Some might say that basing your entire character around one skill is a bad idea. They would be wrong. One skill is all you need to attack and defend with, and defending is so much easier than attacking that you need every +1 to your attack bonus you can get. Padded sumo was such a problem that the mostly-compatible play-by-post RPG changed the rules so that soak couldn't remove every point of damage from an attack. Four potential points of failure is too many for basic actions. Also, skill scaling on racial classes is such that low skill point scaling completely bones your character because you can't specialize fast enough and you don't have enough skill points to be a generalist even if you wanted to. Something like 3.X D&D's skill rank caps are probably a better solution.
The use of cash to balance character abilities probably has to go. There's nothing to spend money on except better equipment, so why wouldn't every Scientist light every dollar on fire to be certain he's not going to run out of ammo for his plasma cannon? Fees to learn spells should be enough of a control on them. Low-level characters can only cast a few spells per day in any case, so paying money for spells won't limit their spellcasting any more than it already was. The exception is Scientists who can get three times everyone else's daily spellcasting out of an hour's wages. They swing too far the other way where money isn't a limit because they aren't being charged enough, and that needs to get fixed. Building a power now or later choice into the class with power plants that take at least fifty days to pay off is also a bad move.
This system could seriously benefit from some explicit rules for retraining. Warriors and Maids in particular are forever locked into choices made at early levels. The threat of losing hard-earned class features is a terrible reason to decide who to spend the rest of your life with. You can't take the first level of Maid without having someone to serve and protect for as long as you live, and Warriors essentially lose any dual-techs requiring people that moved away. On top of that, Warriors must not use new magic swords under any circumstances because their spellcasting is tied to whatever rusty hunk of metal they bought with their starting funds. I can understand not wanting people to change things up during every combat, but making those choices part of activating the facet instead of taking the levels for the first time would probably be enough to prevent problems in play.
The level system is a sea of trap options, and its shores are cliffs filled with wreckers using low XP costs to lead ships astray. Racial and facet levels are in no way balanced with each other and should not be coming out of the same XP track. At low levels where you can actually increase your skills by taking racial levels they are flat-out better despite not granting any real abilities. Once you stop being able to increase your skill with every racial level, there's no reason to take any more until you can buy enough levels to increase your skill for less XP than your next two facet levels. Even then it's a choice between raw numbers an actual, useful abilities like higher level spells.
Dipping racial levels is not an option because none of the racial levels abilities are worth it. You can probably get your stats way higher than they should be by taking the first level each of about half the racial classes, but you will be behind on skills if you choose to do so and skill specialization is more important. Dipping into other facet levels is also a bad idea because they do not directly contribute to the skill you need to survive. Combat demands every +1 you can muster because without those bonuses you cannot hit and your enemies will land more criticals.
In conclusion, the MFG High RPG does not actually work. It has some interesting ideas, but it is technically unplayable as written. Whether or not reaching the target number exactly is a success needs to be defined – the answer significantly affects every roll in the game and one answer is better for wizards than the other. The missing pieces need to be filled in, and some vague wording needs to be cleaned up. After that, combat might even work well enough as written despite severe padded sumo in one-on-one fights. The game is unfinished, but it's not impossible to finish, and as a long-time reader of the webcomic I hope that someday it is.