Kalarsys: The After Chronicles

[Child of Flame]

Wonderful. Moving on for the moment... DC, you mentioned that mechanics and game play is more of your top priority in working with the book right now. Well, from the session that I have been playing recently, I have a few comments to make about the class/race that I had made, as well as a few comments that Lurid made about his class that I'll throw in here so he can save himself from making a brief post.

First off, so far, Defenders seem over powered. The Defender that I have created is a strong tank that can take hits (as well as Defenders should, as their name implies) and dish out the hits with relative ease. I will emphasize the "relative ease" part of my last sentence, because accuracy is not much of a problem.

I believe one of the solutions we came up with in an earlier session was that along with a stat boost that a certain class would get, there should also be a stat penalty (for example, I can easily see a Defender being slow, and see a DEX penalty in that area). I do not think there were many other ideas that were very good, and I know my own personal idea of giving the Defender class a VIT boost of just 1 rather than 2 probably would not help very much.

Another point I wanted to address was Mighty Guard. There is no mention in the book if this ability should or could be used more than once (per battle, or even per session). Because of it's powerful effects (I believe my Defender would have had 14 DEF if it worked), I would imagine it would be a once-per-battle sort of option.

Moving right along...
Lurid believes the Goliath Eidolon is working out rather well, and considers his character the red mage of the party. I agree with that, dunno what Zain thinks.

And then there are the mulititudes of NPCs that Zain has made in this story already. He would be the one to list any discrepancies in the characters if he thought anything exists. I personally thought some of his characters were too tough; but I also know Zain tends to pump up his NPCs. So I don't know too much about those.

I dunno. My biggest thing was the Defender class, and their seemingly over-powered-ness has come up in practically every session. In any case, I look forward to testing out more classes and races in the future.

[DC_Desperado]

CoF: I understand completely what it is that worries you about the defenders. I have come up with a few ways to help make things challenging for them.

1.) magic dmg is soaked by rolling WIL instead of VIT. this nulls the "Mighty Guard" abillity.
2.) In the story that im running I, as the talespinner, I have to plan things out according to who my players are. I have an Oracle, Tamer, Eidolon, defender, assassin, and zenshou to plan battles for. First thing I have done would be take a stat average of all players and npc, this is your opponents stat minnimum. then look at whos on the field. I have only one mage and one defender. So i would send out seven monsters, five would be melee type and two would be mage type. the mage(s) would target the defender, while the rest would just berserk everything. this method has proven useful on keeping the battles challenging without dooming the whole party.

as for when the "mighty guard" is used and how many times. The abillity is activated when being on the receiving end of the attack, and the player before hand must stat that they are actively defending a party member; then there is a fate roll... is you win then your VIT is doubled. As for how many times.... any time you take an attack in defence of a party member. with all the requirment and loop hole a talespinner can throw at you... its only fair to give them unlimited as long as the requirments are met. Please note however, as a TS I have on many occation denied a defender their "Mighty Guard" because they did not stat they were defending the person directly behind them... I can be a prick like that ^.^

[Lurid Sorcerer]

Here's a discussion DS_D and I had about The After Chronicles (and other stuff):

Lurid: I updated the core rulebook. I chucked out the Spyre chapter and wrote a couple more sections. I just need to add Removing Flaws, Example Equipment and a gameplay example.
Lurid: So...it's almost done. ^_^ Well, the 0.7.0 version of it, anyway.
Lurid: *facepalm* Well, shit, I forgot to add the stuff for ranged weapons... Guess I should do that, too.
DC_Desperado: i'll have to talk a look at it
Lurid: It's up on the main site. It's got an all-new layout and stuff. I used some CSS for that, which made the HTML a bit easier to write.
Lurid: How's the After Chronicles coming along?
DC_Desperado: slowly... but it is at least a steady pace.
DC_Desperado: ... I've been trying to work out some bugs... and balance some systems...
Lurid: I see. We've told you the problems we've been having, but we haven't really tried out much of the magic yet. My Goliath Eidolon has healed some people up, but there hasn't been any offensive magic yet, so we don't have anything to report there.
DC_Desperado: magics are pretty much the same as before
Lurid: True, but much of everything else has changed, so we have to see if it still fits.
DC_Desperado: Korey in my session has offensive magic... and its handled itself pretty well
Lurid: That's good to hear (or read?). I hope when Zain introduces us to some mages that they're strong enough. He's been pouring experience on us in the same way you splash water on to hot teenage chicks at a charity car wash.
DC_Desperado: thats not entirely a bad thing...
DC_Desperado: .... with a bunch of xp... it makes it easier to see character development in the long run that way
Lurid: So far I like how these characters scale. You know that feeling you get when you're playing a video game with tons of customization and you get to develop your character any way you could possibly want? I get that feeling when I spend EXP in Kalarsys. It's truly awesome.
DC_Desperado: meee toooo...
DC_Desperado: The main hang up right now is keeping the specialty classes in check
Lurid: Yeah. So far we've been trying to run a story, not just purely playtest so we keep getting snagged on the class and race descriptions. There's certainly enough description there to do some mock battles and what-have-you, but for everything else, I think compared to the descriptions in the book, Zain has made up twice that amount of description off the top of his head to keep the story going.
DC_Desperado: Its hard to come up with info on races and classes without stiffleing a talespinner creativity.
DC_Desperado: ... especially with classes
Lurid: I don't think you should be afraid of that. There are other roleplaying game systems that are way more restrictive and people have been quite creative with those. And besides, a Talespinner can just toss out any rules he/she doesn't like anyway.
DC_Desperado: true true...
DC_Desperado: ... I should spend more attention on Races.... and how certain classes are looked at. I know that it has been decided that in Goliath culture being a defender is a high honor. A ritual for defenders is sort of violent.... the goliath that is in training has to get pummeled by the other defenders... for every hit he takes without falling is sets them a rank higher.
Lurid: Yeah, that's exactly the kind of stuff we need!
Lurid: (I hope that didn't come off as sarcastic...I'm serious. )
DC_Desperado: .... I know... ^.^
DC_Desperado: I was tossing a few ideas around ideas when I was working today...
DC_Desperado: .... about the other specialty classes
DC_Desperado: I was thinking that since Oracles are blind yet thet still see. The phidiasan treat them as elders even if they are only teenagers.
DC_Desperado: Assassins.... I think would be a little more messed up.
Lurid: Do you have this stuff written down somewhere? XD It all sounds pretty good so far.
DC_Desperado: ... Like they are valuable to have on your side... but also expendable.
DC_Desperado: and no... not yet.
DC_Desperado: saved this convo to notepad... i can referance it later...
DC_Desperado: the other classes... im not to sure about...
DC_Desperado: I really don't think there is a ritual or test to become a thief...
DC_Desperado: ... if you can steal.... and you do steal... then i think that all the qualifications
DC_Desperado: ya know...
Lurid: I had a weird idea about Zenshou... Perhaps when a Zenshou is killed, each Zenshou part would have something about a 25% change of not decaying. These are collected and sold on some black-market-esque thing. But by attaching one to oneself, through some ritual, they can become Zenshou, gaining that part and probably growing a couple of others. Kind of going out on a limb, I think, though.
DC_Desperado: It could work
DC_Desperado: ... it would also make a zenshou a rare site to behold... which was how they were when we started the zenshous

Thoughts?

[Zain Winters]

ah i love the part of the zenshou thing, but really i cant say much was exactly explained in the convo? i mean it still needs more in depth. although what is there will pretty much work, buuuuuuuuut again its easier to have it in a formal way for me to really get where things are going <.< or maybe im just skipping sentences and not getting it

[Perilaxis]

Why must the assasins be expendable? I make a useful character for once and as soon as everyone starts saying he's expendable he nearly dies.... TWICE! Admittedly he did agrievate the boss but still the dice didn't start hating me until after my character was determined "expendable".

[Lurid Sorcerer]

Maybe by "expendable" he means they are treated as mercenaries or hired blades?

[DC_Desperado]

Thats what I was going for.... Assassins in shade culture are seen as valuable but also "Expendable". It doesn't mean there useless.... its just like playing chess. The Assassin like the Rook, a powerful piece, but if the time calls for it... can be sacrificed.

[Lurid Sorcerer]

I guess when I asked for everyone's thoughts I should have been a bit more specific?

1.) The layout of the book has changed. Some different sized fonts are now used, plus other similar things have been changed. Is everyone okay with how it looks now?

2.) How do you like the class explanations? Do they make sense? Want to make any suggestions for other races/classes?

[DC_Desperado]

I thought it was pretty clear the first time you asked.....but extra clarity couldn't hurt...

[Lurid Sorcerer]

Oh, here's a few things I forgot to ask about:

Could a goliath's horns be used as weapons? I can't think of any Earth animals with horns that don't use them for some sort of combat.

Do any of the races have any noticeable gender differences? (For example, do male goliaths have larger horns?)

How many ability points does each race get? Humans get six and I see no reason why any other race should get a different amount.

And of course, the question all of us were probably thinking: What happens when a member of one race gets it on with a member of another race? You just -know- this is going to come up sometime.

[DC_Desperado]

1.) I guess the horn could be used as a weapon. It would yield STR dmg with an odd or even roll to do an additional +1.

2.)I would leave gender differences to the talespinner.

3.)this one is in the book. Goliaths, Shades, and Phidiasans... get 6 ability points. Humans get 8. The reason for this is that the other races get an automatic 1 in both race based advantages. Humans have no race specific abilities so those 2 autos are just added to the Ability point pool.

4.) this would fall to the talespinner to handle 1 of 3 ways.
1.) character just isn't attracted to other races.... period.
2.) the child would be of one race or the other.... *olden day Demons sessions*
3.) hybrid.

[Child of Flame]

My turn, my turn!! Okay, so it's obvious that after some usage, a weapon or some armor is going to deteriorate. But as the weapon and armor deteriorates, shouldn't the strength of that weapon or the protection that the armor decrease? How would this work?

Now I had an idea that's likely to get shut down because I'm not very good at math or working out each minute detail of things. But, I'm posting it all the same in hopes it gives someone a better idea.

So, I was thinking that at about 75% of max durability, the weapon damage or armor defense decreases by one (for example, an iron sword would lose a +1 damage when it has 30 uses left), and it would decrease by another point at 25% durability (using the same example, the sword would lose another damage point when it has 10 uses left). Now I know this doesn't always work out very evenly so I just rounded up or down to multiples of 5.
(again for instance, a steel weapon would lose 1 damage at 41.25 uses left. Heh heh. No. 40.)

But what of the weapons and armor that have exactly 2 DMG or VIT or less, you may be asking. Well, for those, I thought at 75% that the DMG/VIT would decrease by one and at 25% it would just be a lot easier to break. For weapons such as knives that do not give any damage bonus (you know, +0), it would just be a lot easier to break in general.

But that had me wondering...obviously, knives are more easier to break than a huge warhammer, right? Perhaps durability should rely on more than just the material it is made out of; it should also rely on what the weapon is. Perhaps this isn't so big of a problem with armor. I dunno.

(Speaking of armor, where's the leather durability? ;-; I'm going out on a limb and guessing 40 for my own sake.)

For instance, a knife, regardless of what it is made out of, would have a starting durability of 20 or something, whereas a warhammer would be more like 40 (bad numbers, I know. Play along for now. Of course, if you guys use my idea, the numbers can and should and will change).

Now, with the current material durability, this would make the total durability really high yada yada I know. So for the sake of illustrating my point, I'm just going to halve the max durability of the materials (now an iron weapon would have 20 max durability rather than 40, steel would have 25 instead of 55 (rounding), and so on).

Let's go back to the knife and warhammer and plug those numbers in!:

So if a knife has a beginning durability of 20 and it's made of iron, it's total durability would be 40.
Similarly, an iron warhammer would have a total of 60 durability.

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The above seems really confusing to me. I dunno. It would be a matter of having two different types of charts (one weapon, one material) and putting the two durabilities together to figure out the total weapon durability while still keeping in mind that knives are still easier to break. Maybe.

But you see where I'm getting at? Whether you take my idea or not, we need to figure out what happens as the weapon or armor begins to deteriorate. Should it's damage/vitality decrease? Should it have an easier time of breaking, especially if it didn't offer too much in damage/vitality in the first place?

...Good luck? o.o?
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EDIT
Oh, and regarding your solution of how you thwart the overpowered-ness of a Defender, I really like your first solution and hope that Lurid puts that in the rulebook soon if he hasn't already. That's really important to know, that soaking magic isn't based on Vitality.

However, the second solution using the formula you stated seems like a neat little solution that would be up to the Tale Spinner. Is there any solution that could be rulebook material rather than house rules? Not saying that your solution is bad; it's a very good idea. ^^ But I could see many Talespinners wanting to do something different and it really doesn't circumvent the over-poweredness of the Defenders in that sense. You get what I mean?

Or am I just overthinking this too much?

[Zain Winters]

"1.) character just isn't attracted to other races.... period.
2.) the child would be of one race or the other.... *olden day Demons sessions*
3.) hybrid. "

no offense but doesn't that just void the number 1 if your saying what would happen if that happened?

and from COFs stuff i agree with pretty much all of it, maybe some fine tuneing on the formulas but i do like that a dagger is easier to break, etc etc

[Lurid Sorcerer]

I agree with CoF as well. And as far as "interracial fornication" is concerned, I figure we may as well just leave it to option #2. We can't stop players from wanting to do this sort of thing if they really want to.

Saying they are not attracted to each other at all seems, to me, to be a bit overarching when you consider the messed up porn you can find all over the Internet. I figure there's going to be at least one human somewhere who gets off on checking out Goliath babes.

Creating a hybrid is a bit complicated at first and extremely damn complicated in the long run. If we have a pure human getting it on with a pure phidiasan and producing an offspring, how do we determine what stats they should have and what abilities and traits they possess? Before you answer that, consider that each combination of races must be considered. Then, if that's not enough trouble, think of the grandchildren, who will have, at best, a 25/75% concoction of genes. And if that's not bad enough, consider crossing a half-phidiasan half-human mix with a shade or goliath...

This is just way too out of control to worry about. Flip a coin and be done with it. ;-)

And one final thing: During Zain's stay over the holiday we discussed, for about two hours, some of our thoughts on The After Chronicles. I've recorded the conversation, though the quality sucks and there's lots of background noise. I'll have to give them a good scrubbing and then listen back and see what we came up with.

[Perilaxis]

okay so in the past session or two with DC the question of what makes a Zinshou a Zinshou came up... Lurid had a way for freelancers to become Zinshou but there was no explanation of how a born one got their abilities. I had just come down off a House marathon high (I wish I could be that much of an ass and get away with it) and one of the episodes had a child with Mosaicism (sp?) which is a form of a genetic condition called Chimerism (root Chimera).

For those without a medical degree or vast amounts of generally useless trivia answers Chimerism is a condition where the body for some reason has two distinct and seperate strands of DNA that govern it. In most cases there is usually some form of visible defect. In some cases however one of the two sets is completely ressesive leaving no sign of defect but that can screw with paternity testing in that there is a chance you can pass on your secondary DNA rather than your primary.

My theory is that Zinshou are just a form of Chimera having a human DNA (default form) and then a "modified DNA" (Zinshou form). In cases of a Zinshou having imperfect form the human DNA is either damaged or ressesive and the body simply uses the Modified DNA to make up the shortfall.