Modern-day fantasy game with a military theme.
A character has six attributes, two for each physical, mental, and social. In each category, one is offensive in nature and one is defensive in nature.
More updates to come.
Two physical-
Fitness: Grants bonuses to physical skills
Endurance: Grants bonuses to physical defense
Two mental-
Focus: Grants bonuses to mental skills
Willpower: Grants bonuses to mental defense
Two social-
Charisma: Grants bonuses to social skills
Personality: Grants bonuses to social defense
A character has three "stress" pools (kind of like hit points, but simpler). One physical, one mental, and one social. Each one is used in a different kind of conflict: Physical is obviously for direct combat and violent spells. Mental is used against non-physical magic and in particularly stressful or insanity-inducing situations. Social is when confronting someone through speech instead of violence; intimidation, persuasion, influential magic, etc.
Every couple of points in an attribute either gives a character a +1 bonus in their skills relating to that attribute, or a bonus to their stress pool.
A stress pool is a certain number of points (10, for sake of example) that are depleted as a character is attacked through physical, mental, or social means. As long as a character has stress points in a specific stress pool, they aren't injured by attacks.
A character can deliberately take a hit to reduce the amount of stress an attack inflicts.
A minor injury reduces the stress damage of an attack by 2 points.
A moderate injury reduces it by 4 points.
A severe injury reduces it by 6 points.
A critical injury reduces it by 10 points, but automatically removes the character from combat for the rest of the fight.
The exact type of the injury depends on the kind of attack. For example, if you're taking damage from a sword, a minor injury might be a long cut. A moderate injury might be a deep puncture wound. A severe injury might be a very deep, bleeding slash. A critical injury might be being impaled through the gut. If you're getting hit with a fire spell on the other hand, a minor injury might be a small painful burn. A moderate would be trouble breathing because the superheated air burned your lungs. A severe could be widespread major burns. A critical is a limb painfully burned to a crisp and rendered unusable.
Injuries are very flexible, because they're not specifically defined. They can be anything. A player and/or a GM can invent their own injuries, and agree on one that they both think appropriate for a situation.
Injuries also give their related skills a penalty, depending the the severity. -1 for minor, -2 for moderate, -4 for severe, -8 for critical.
If a person's stress pool is depleted, he automatically takes an injury based on how much damage the next attack does. This stacks with previous attacks.
Example: Billy has a physical stress tolerance of 10. If he's shot at by an enemy and the bullet has an attack of 5, his stress tolerance would be reduced to 5. He could, however, choose to accept a minor injury and reduce the stress damage down to 3, leaving him 7.
If Billy were at 0 stress and took a bullet with an attack of 6, he automatically takes a serious injury. If he then took a bullet with an attack of 4, instead of recieving a moderate injury, he takes a critical injury because he'd already taken 6 damage earlier (leaving him with both a severe and critical injury, and in a very bad situation indeed).
Every point in Endurance, Willpower, and Personality increases their corresponding pool by 1 point. A character with Endurance of 3 would get a physical stress pool bonus of 3 points.
Fitness: Grants bonuses to physical skills
Endurance: Grants bonuses to physical defense
Two mental-
Focus: Grants bonuses to mental skills
Willpower: Grants bonuses to mental defense
Two social-
Charisma: Grants bonuses to social skills
Personality: Grants bonuses to social defense
A character has three "stress" pools (kind of like hit points, but simpler). One physical, one mental, and one social. Each one is used in a different kind of conflict: Physical is obviously for direct combat and violent spells. Mental is used against non-physical magic and in particularly stressful or insanity-inducing situations. Social is when confronting someone through speech instead of violence; intimidation, persuasion, influential magic, etc.
Every couple of points in an attribute either gives a character a +1 bonus in their skills relating to that attribute, or a bonus to their stress pool.
A stress pool is a certain number of points (10, for sake of example) that are depleted as a character is attacked through physical, mental, or social means. As long as a character has stress points in a specific stress pool, they aren't injured by attacks.
A character can deliberately take a hit to reduce the amount of stress an attack inflicts.
A minor injury reduces the stress damage of an attack by 2 points.
A moderate injury reduces it by 4 points.
A severe injury reduces it by 6 points.
A critical injury reduces it by 10 points, but automatically removes the character from combat for the rest of the fight.
The exact type of the injury depends on the kind of attack. For example, if you're taking damage from a sword, a minor injury might be a long cut. A moderate injury might be a deep puncture wound. A severe injury might be a very deep, bleeding slash. A critical injury might be being impaled through the gut. If you're getting hit with a fire spell on the other hand, a minor injury might be a small painful burn. A moderate would be trouble breathing because the superheated air burned your lungs. A severe could be widespread major burns. A critical is a limb painfully burned to a crisp and rendered unusable.
Injuries are very flexible, because they're not specifically defined. They can be anything. A player and/or a GM can invent their own injuries, and agree on one that they both think appropriate for a situation.
Injuries also give their related skills a penalty, depending the the severity. -1 for minor, -2 for moderate, -4 for severe, -8 for critical.
If a person's stress pool is depleted, he automatically takes an injury based on how much damage the next attack does. This stacks with previous attacks.
Example: Billy has a physical stress tolerance of 10. If he's shot at by an enemy and the bullet has an attack of 5, his stress tolerance would be reduced to 5. He could, however, choose to accept a minor injury and reduce the stress damage down to 3, leaving him 7.
If Billy were at 0 stress and took a bullet with an attack of 6, he automatically takes a serious injury. If he then took a bullet with an attack of 4, instead of recieving a moderate injury, he takes a critical injury because he'd already taken 6 damage earlier (leaving him with both a severe and critical injury, and in a very bad situation indeed).
Every point in Endurance, Willpower, and Personality increases their corresponding pool by 1 point. A character with Endurance of 3 would get a physical stress pool bonus of 3 points.
Skills are pretty straightforward.
A character has three sets of skills. Physical, mental, and social.
Examples of physical skills might be
Athletics
Melee Weapons
Hand-to-Hand
Stealth
Strength
Examples of mental skills might be
Arcane Lore
Knowledge
Guns
Investiagation
Discipline
Vehicles
Awareness
Examples of social skills might be
Persuasion
Intimidation
Performance
Deception
Insight
Characters get skill points to spend on skills. Skills progress not in points, but in dice. Every skill is set at 1d2 for every character. A character who spends a point to increase a skill gains a larger dice to roll when using a skill. The dice progress like so:
1d2 (Middling)
1d4 (Average)
1d6 (Skilled)
1d8 (Great)
1d10 (Expert)
1d12 (Master)
Every point spent on a skill brings the skill up to the next dice level. To use a skill, you roll a dice based on your skill level, then add bonuses. So if a character was an Average hand-to-hand fighter but an Expert with guns, he'd roll a d6 when fighting with his fists, but would roll a d10 when shooting. Any points spent on a skill after the 6th (Mastery) gives a +1 bonus to that skill's roll.
The attributes Fitness, Focus, and Charisma give +1 bonuses to skills in their category for every 2 points in that skill. So a character with 2 points in Fitness but only 1 point in Charsima and Focus would get a +1 bonus on all physical skills, but no bonus on mental or social skills.
A character has three sets of skills. Physical, mental, and social.
Examples of physical skills might be
Athletics
Melee Weapons
Hand-to-Hand
Stealth
Strength
Examples of mental skills might be
Arcane Lore
Knowledge
Guns
Investiagation
Discipline
Vehicles
Awareness
Examples of social skills might be
Persuasion
Intimidation
Performance
Deception
Insight
Characters get skill points to spend on skills. Skills progress not in points, but in dice. Every skill is set at 1d2 for every character. A character who spends a point to increase a skill gains a larger dice to roll when using a skill. The dice progress like so:
1d2 (Middling)
1d4 (Average)
1d6 (Skilled)
1d8 (Great)
1d10 (Expert)
1d12 (Master)
Every point spent on a skill brings the skill up to the next dice level. To use a skill, you roll a dice based on your skill level, then add bonuses. So if a character was an Average hand-to-hand fighter but an Expert with guns, he'd roll a d6 when fighting with his fists, but would roll a d10 when shooting. Any points spent on a skill after the 6th (Mastery) gives a +1 bonus to that skill's roll.
The attributes Fitness, Focus, and Charisma give +1 bonuses to skills in their category for every 2 points in that skill. So a character with 2 points in Fitness but only 1 point in Charsima and Focus would get a +1 bonus on all physical skills, but no bonus on mental or social skills.
More updates to come.