Wild West Science versus Magic RP

Invigorate is cast on a target, since it brings out the essence of vitality in them.

That doesn't answer my question. How is it cast? Does he have to be touching them or at least in melee range with them? Is it fired like a magic bolt that can miss, or worse, potentially hit the wrong person? Does he just point at them and they're healed, no missing possible?

I need to know because as I explained to nman, I will balance how easy it'll be to succeed and get a better result with, based on how difficult it is to cast it in the first place.

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He just points at them.

Alright, thank you.

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If I might ask, would it be possible for a spell to have multiple ways of casting? Like you said, via touch, shot, or just cast on the target?

I'd have to think about it; maybe chat with my friend since it's as much his system as it is mine, if not more so. Off the top of my head I know that in the way my friends and I use the system, spells like lay on hands ala a DnD paladin and cure/cura/curaga ala the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games are two different and distinct spells that function in different ways but overall have the same outcome. (That is, healing someone.)

If I did allow it, such a spell with that kind of versatility would have to be inherently weaker than spells without the versatility, at least in that context of casting. Again, for balance purposes. (Because why take the limited spell if the versatile spell is just as good?) Right now I'm leaning towards "no" though, since it does kind of inherently clash with the idea of skills specifically doing one thing.

edited 23rd Jun '15 1:38:25 AM by FirockFinion

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What about a skill that allows for it? Something like Spell Manipulation. In other words, you use the skill to change the method of casting, but due to the incompatibilities, the spell is much weaker, but every level in Spell Manipulation decreases the penalty, but will never be as good?

Oooh, I like that. To make it function like most skills though, I'd have it take its own activation and die roll, complete with choice of either putting MP into it to make it more likely to succeed or doing it for free with a lower chance as long as it's at least level 2.

Then whether the resultant spell is weaker than an equivalent spell of the same type or is just as strong or just fails to cast that way entirely is based on how good the die roll is.

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ok, edited.

Alright like I said before no main thread going up yet guys, my apologies; instead I bring you a discussion thread so we don't have to post everything relevant to the game here still.

As what should be my last announcement posted in this thread I'll just bring up that I will be adding money as its own thing to the signup sheet. So everyone who's already been accepted that would like their character not to start piss broke will have to edit that in once I've added it to the first post. EDIT: And done.

edited 24th Jun '15 3:52:53 AM by FirockFinion

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Character sheet

• Name: Valetto Kantos
• Gender, age, race, and faction: Male, 29, Human, Exla
• Appearance: An elegant man of refined features, somewhat feminine in both face and build, with caramel skin, a short lush black wavy hair and bright green eyes. He dresses in simple, refined, ye not opulent tastes, often seen in button up shirts, covered by waistcoats and double breasted coats, as well as slack and short heeled shoes, donning caps and hats out on the field. Of this is composed his preferred attire but that is not to say that he'll don something else if the situation calls for it.
• Personality: He enjoys being with people, in pleasant places, yet not being the center of attention. Ideally he'd like to have his cake and eat it that is to say the power of a royal without the celebrity. Melding in the crowd is where he feels at home. He considers himself a witty man of good taste but, he probably isn't as witty as he thinks he is. He tries his best to be pleasant in general. He's a worldly man, some would say wise beyond his years. Despite his line of work he takes no pleasure in killing, instead seeing it as a necessary evil in the best of the cases. He has always cherished life. In pettier dislikes he has a dislike of needles and overly bitter foods and beverages.
• Back story and credentials: Valetto is the fourth born of an aristocratic house in a kingdom vassal to Exla. He enjoyed of the benefits of his name with mostly none of the pressures of being the heir to the head of the family. His story really begins when he met an old gentleman, Manfredo Silvari, the one that would become his mentor. Silvari saw something in Valetto, potential , and took him under his wing, grooming him and training him in order to initiate to him his job. As it would happen Manfredo was an agent of the Royal Duelists Society which was a cover for an institution of spies, assassins and informants working for the sake of the Exlan crown. Valetto was entered into this society and was further trained within it, and as his first real test of his mettle he was sent to Seliin. He and another handful of men of mystery and femme fatales were sent in to intercede for the interests of the Exlan Crown.
• Crunch stuff:
  • HP/MP: 4Hp/6Mp
  • Starting money: 50 notes of Exlan money; 20 Seliin coins
  • Skills:
    • Marksmanship (Lvl. 2): Through his training he has learned not only the maintenance of many gun types and even some types of crossbows, but to be accurate with them.
    • Fencing (Lvl. 2) He has skill in hand to hand combat, particularly swords and daggers, and specially to fighting with not much armor on.
    • Stealth (Lvl. 1) He knows how to hide and conceal his presence.
  • Items:
    • Cane Sword: A cane made of black wood with an inconspicuous brass headpiece, concealing a long sleek blade, a release mechanism for the sheath is hidden in the hilt.
    • Sitonn Field-type: A revolver, colored in black, sleek and elegant, its mechanisms are a tad complicated but on the flip side it allows to be reloaded by speed loaders, and it has great performance.
    • Fuel-cell Rounds: These bullets have casings around their explosive payload that allows them to be transported and fired safely. He usually carries a speed loader with these explosive rounds in case they are needed.
    • Derringers: A pair of compact single shot guns he keeps hidden on his person as a safety measure, they are borderline undetectable.
    • Switchblade: a small blade concealed in its own handle meant to be concealed in his coat or shoes.

edited 25th Jun '15 12:30:27 AM by Sanojutsu

The graceless warrior, wielder of the edgeless blade, prophet of the old religions, writer of fluent nonsense, saviour of soul and song.

@Sanojutsu: Certainly an interesting character, and in line with the Exlan style; however, that's a bit much in terms of items and money put together, especially compared to the other characters.

For the record, he only has the one load of six fuel cell rounds, yes? Those are the kind of thing that would need to be limited and not run on the hollywood ammunition rule. Same with the mine.

But anyway, 8 items, (technically 9, since there's two of the derringers) plus a decent surplus of the more valuable money? I don't know, I'd like to see about... 3 of the (9) items taken off.

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Ah alright, I'll get rid of the more gadget-y items. And yes the explosive rounds are a "once per encounter" type of deal. If you'd also like I'll lower his starting cash

The graceless warrior, wielder of the edgeless blade, prophet of the old religions, writer of fluent nonsense, saviour of soul and song.

The money wasn't actually that bad, thinking in retrospect and given what that could actually buy for someone; it was a bit more than most of the other players had though. The items was the main concern which is why I directed my attention there.

I meant once total, not once per encounter. I have no problem with him buying more between missions and whatnot; heck buy up a surplus of more than just one load if you want. But being that kind of item, once it's used, it's used; it won't get refilled for free.

Anyway, looks fine now. Valetto is accepted.

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Sure that could work.

The graceless warrior, wielder of the edgeless blade, prophet of the old religions, writer of fluent nonsense, saviour of soul and song.

Been awhile since I did one of these, apologies if I botch it up somewhat.

Name: Fredrick Foley

Gender, Age, Race, and Faction: Male, 33, Human, And Exla

Appearance: Somewhat of a small and quiet guy, with light clothes and small glasses to frame his darting eyes

Personality: Skittish and uneasy, he isn't fond of fighting but understands why it must be so. Prefers the "tried and true" method of Exla as opposed to the "magical bullshit" ways of Dorothan.

Backstory: He lived in a cottage with his mom and pa all his life, until an arcane accident blew up his home. Orphaned, he was taken in to one of the small cities and used his know-how of herbs and spices for general medicines and cooking. He grew into a doctor, when the industrial revolution hit and took him into more... subjective terms of medicine. This is how he met Count Escom, and why's he's part of the effort in Seliin. A doctor needs money to help his patients...

Crunch Stuff: HP/MP: 4/6

Skills:

Medicine(1): Can treat various wounds from breaks to lacerations to restore a small amount of HP.

Call the doctor(1): Sometimes it's a life or death situation, granting increased speed and mobility.

Paranoia(1): Occasionally notices little, out of place things.

Pistol proficiency:(2) A specialized revolver, this is how he applies most of his medicines to "unruly" patients. Naturally he isn't prone to missing, whether it's a bullet full of healing or a bullet full of lead.

Items: His pistol, given to him through the count to apply his medicines. He also has a small backpack of general medical supplies for applying more hands on doctoring, and a set of pouches for medical and non-medical shots.

Money: Due to him being a doctor, he should be well off, but not rich. So... 75 Exla and 25 Seliin sound good?

Edited! Hope this is better!

edited 26th Jun '15 11:47:18 PM by romanmyth

Pokedy Poke-poke

Been busy with friends since I got back from work, but let's see.

It's all good except for caffeine and suppressant shot skills; those would be items, not skills. You could give him a skill specifically about knowing where to shoot injections into people or something.

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The reason I wanted it as skills is because it limits the amount of times I can use it, rather than just unload caffeine on my team and literally supress the other. That, and since we were in the wild west, it'd be hard to be like "oh, I need to order more medicinal bullets for my gun. Post office please?"

I figure using them as skills would be easier, cause it's automatically limited to (at most) 6 shots a day, and I can handwave crafting more as my MP recovers or something.

But if you'd rather they be items than skills, I can rewrite it, no prob.

Pokedy Poke-poke

Just stopping in before work.

Yeah I'm still gonna need that to be items, not skills. The main reason being that, in this particular mechanic system skills are about what characters do, not what they have. (Even if they're skills about what they do with what they have, like weapon proficiencies.) If we were talking about a Dorothan character using literal magic to conjure the items out of thin air, that would be fine, but as an Exlan character it doesn't make thematic sense for him to be able to do that. And more to the point, it would actually be against my rules.

While your preemptive concern about game balance is commendable, it loses a bit of meaning when one considers that if I allowed those to be skills, you could spend your first 20 experience to get them both to level 2 and then would be able to use them literally infinite times. Besides, trust me when I say that one character being able to theoretically buff and debuff as much as they want limited only by their personal stockpile couldn't really break combat in this system; you still have to succeed in said buffing and debuffing for one thing, and it's not like your opponents are going to kindly stand still and just let you. If that sort of character could break the system, Thrall's character would already break the system because she could do the exact same thing and a whole lot more with her potion brewing; if anything allowing someone on the Exlan side the same capability would just make things fairer.

Also don't worry about the Wild West thing. I'm just using Wild West as a shorthand because I know it'll conjure an image in peoples' minds that's close enough to what it is: It's all in dry deserts and wild prairies and there's lots of ponchos and wide brimmed hats about. But it's not the Wild West; it's a fictional monarchy set between and influenced by two other fictional monarchies, so it's got a spattering of steampunk and clockwork tech, and magic. The only thing that will prevent your character from being able to buy more medicinal darts or order them delivered is not having the money to buy them or order them delivered.

... Um, sorry that got more ramble-y than I intended. I'm not annoyed or angry, honest; I just wanted to make sure everything about that was clear.

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Lawls, I understand bossman. Gonna throw it a quick edit then and patch it up.

Edit: Annnnnnd done! Hope that helps! I kinda struggled with how many of said medical bullets I should have, so if you want it toned back / up then thats completely fine by me. Figured 6 would be balanced since I would have one clip of each, but mehr. Now I'm rambling. XD

Double bonus edit cause derp: Just doubled back on thralls character, um... sorry for stealing your template somewhat. I removed the item limit and just made it various shots.

Like I said, final call is yours. Oh, and I made the doc paranoid and speedier, technically.

edited 26th Jun '15 11:49:09 PM by romanmyth

Pokedy Poke-poke

Okay, had some other stuff to catch up on after work. Still feeling exhausted and I need to copy character info to some text documents before I start working on the opening post; so it'll be a while, if I even can do it tonight.

@romanmyth: Looks good now; six each of his special shots would be fine. Fredrick Foley is accepted.

EDIT: Oh hey, now Exla actually outnumbers Dorothan. How about that.

edited 27th Jun '15 1:36:19 AM by FirockFinion

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I guess it really was too early to say switch...

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On a positive note, more enemies = more XP (possibly, at least).

edited 27th Jun '15 8:33:13 AM by DemKimochis

Actually, call me Dem or Dem Kimos I hope they add a name change soon...

• Name: Refran
• Gender: Male
• Age: 27
• Race: "Warfs", As they like to call themselves. Really they're just humans with a few wolf-like visual properties, slightly shortened lifespan and a different culture.
• Faction: Dorothan
• Appearance: Refran looks mostly like a human, having basic white skin, the limbs are where they should be and the few differences are mostly unimportant changes. For example, alongside the striking white hair that covers most of the side and back of the head a pair of ears stick out on top of his head of the same colour. These replace the ears of a normal human naturally, it'd be pretty odd to have two sets of hearing mechanisms. Alongside that, the eyes are coloured cyan everywhere aside from the single black dot in the middle of both, the pupils. There's also yet another thing of white sticking out, a tail at the back of his waist... Where you'd expect one to be placed, really. Otherwise Refran has a rather ordinary stature, a bit on the muscular side though. A meter sixty-five in length, roughly. Refran dresses pretty lightly, a silver cloak for his upper body in colder climates which he binds to his back as a form of cape for warmer ones being one asset. Others are a shirt which covers the entire length of his arm, maroon coloured and leading into a pair of leather gloves. His pants were a darker shade, almost brown, having a hole for his tail and secured by a belt which also held a sword hilt, where Refran keeps their longsword sheathed.
• Personality: Loose and easygoing, also a bit of a fool. Normal Warfs would be wary and cautious, preferring to wait but... Ref's just too damn impatient and energetic. Considering he's still in his young years, this shouldn't be very surprising. There's also a verbal tic they can't get rid of, ending almost all sentences with "-es". They also become very uh... Docile when promised delicious meat as a reward. A rather odd quirk.
• Back story and credentials: In the past it was common for Warfs like Ref to live in the woods, but more and more just migrated into cities and now they're just as easy to find as any other race... Well, maybe not as easy but certaintly easier than in the past. Hell, Refran was born in a city state. Growing up along with the locals and getting a small job as a deliverer, they led a relatively simple life. Then someone entered a town, and adventurer of sorts. They seemed to be a swordsman of... Some renown. It was obvious as they had a shortsword at their side at all times. Out of the blue the person took a notice of Refran, working his way around to get a bit of income. At that time, Ref was still 16. The adventurer started up a conversation with ref which he didn't refuse because, honestly, they looked kind of awesome to him. The adventurer told Ref about "Spellblading", the art of mixing swordplay with magic. It was something that piqued the young Warf's curiosity. Later, much after the time the wanderer left town, he did some digging on it. The more he read the more he wanted to practise it himself and, honestly? Become an adventurer himself. Screw the war nonsense! He'll make a name for himself and carve out something, starting from a rook! From that point on, his free time was often occupied with self-taught swordplay and magic lessons from books, both with varying results. Once they were satisfied, they left town with a handful of coin, their clothes and a blade to start their great journey! Which honestly, after about a year, he both regrets and loves it. Why does he? Well, He loves it because he DID make a small name... But he also regrets it because in order to expand his name Ref volunteered to help in a war between city states. He wants to be able to come home proud though, so increasing his fame... He'll do even this for it!
• Crunch stuff:
  • HP/MP: 7/3 (8/4 after level-ups)
  • Skills:
    • Flame jolt(2): Refran shoots an arrow-like pellet of flame out of one of his hands. A very simple spell.
    • Element shield(2): Due to the lack of an ACTUAL shield, Ref can cast this to give him a fairly resilient one made out of a nearby force of nature he can use. Only Ice, Earth, Wood and Metal are able to be transformed though.
    • Nightvision(1): A simple utility spell that allows Ref to see in the dark for a limited period of time.
    • Swordplay(2, Leveled skill): Refran set out to hone his fighting skills after the first run-in with the exlans, finding that he was too weak to protect anyone.
  • Items:
    • For one, the longsword he keeps on him. It's his main way of fighting, although it isn't special in any kind of way. Can be wielded both with one hand or two. His old sword has been lost and Refran has bought a replacement. A standard 1-and-a-half longsword which is fairly made. Came with a sheath.
    • His leather gloves serve to protect from burns on the, also leather, hilt of the sword and block a hit or two... If he's lucky.
    • A new trinket he picked up along the way, his little silver dolphin necklace. It has a small enchantment of holding breath on it.
  • Money: Ref isn't rich in any way. He's gotten a bit of Seliin gold, roughly 32 coins and a bit more Dorothan marbles, checking out at 40.
  • Other: Whenever a loud clanging sound occurs, Refran's ears begin to uncontrollably vibrate somehow.

edited 31st Oct '15 9:43:42 AM by Nickpws

Awake now; we're not full yet. I'll only start considering this full if we reach around 6 players on each side. Now let's see...

A bit lengthier than it probably needs to be, and I'm curious why he would willingly join the fighting of a small, independent country based on his personality, but other than that it looks mostly okay save for a couple of notes on the skills.

I'm unsure why you'd include metal in a list of stuff for a skill based on natural elements; but that in itself isn't actually a problem. I'm just going to say that I'm definitely not going to allow you grabbing one of your opponent's guns and transforming it into a shield, if you were thinking of doing that; it would be highly unfair.

And in order for nightvision to fit in line with the way other skills work, it shouldn't have a set duration; the duration achieved would be dependent on the success of the roll. (It also probably wouldn't get as high as 45 minutes normally.)

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There is a circle of the elements Fire, Water, Wood, Metal and Earth if I recall correctly.

edited 27th Jun '15 6:43:22 PM by Blackie