Ok folks,
I will be adding to this thread over the next month or two -
but to get things started, here are some rules that we'll be
trying out for the 2009 season :

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Clarifications :

Weapon Damage Cap : A weapon may only deliver damage equal to or less than its cap.
There has been discussion about rules for exceeding damage cap and breaking a weapon, but we have not been able to actually document the rule.
We are now officially setting the rule that you may exceed a weapon’s damage cap for 1 strike / attack.
That attack will break the weapon, and it will not be able to be used again until it is repaired.
For now - this rule is in effect ONLY for melee weapons.
The effects of over-charging a firearm are usually, well, BAD ! ...

Firearm Damage Bonus : Firearms are afforded a bonus of +2 to any called damage.
Let us clarify that this +2 does NOT effect the damage cap of the weapon.
It only allows you to call more damage for the ammount of stamina spent.
You must spend at least 3 stamina (giving a base damage call of "2") to get the +2 bonus. It is a bonus to "called damage".

Harvesting Raw Resources : Gathering / Picking / Digging up any raw resource takes 10 seconds of RolePlay time.
It is something that we are not always remembering …

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Rules Playtest for 2009

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Backstab [Spiritual/Thief 8]: When using a short melee weapon (under 36”) from behind, this skill allows you to add the prefix “Double” to your Call. This skill costs the same number of Spiritual Stamina points as the Physical Stamina cost of any skill it is used in conjunction with. You must make the strike from behind, defined as being able to see both of the target’s shoulder blades, and both feet must be planted. For example, if calling “4-Damage” would normally cost you 5 Physical Stamina, Calling “Double-4-Damage” will cost you 5 Physical Stamina PLUS 5 Spiritual Stamina.
When using a Backstab, weapon damage caps are NOT considered.
The bonus for landing this very difficult attack is that you have a chance to deal much more damage than you normally could with a smaller melee weapon.
All other normal rules for the call of “Double” apply.
This skill may be used with any melee attack (called damage, Stun, Maim, etc.)
Double effect calls of Stun, Main, Agony, etc. have no other bonus / effect than to simply be harder to dodge / avoid.


Dodge [Spiritual/Other 6]: You may call ‘Avoid’ to negate any weapon strike (melee / missle / thrown weapon) that would otherwise affect you.
To use this skill, you must spend 1 KARMA point. The call for this skill is “Avoid by Karma”. This skill may be used as long as the player has Karma Points to spend.
This skill is only usable against attacks delivered by a weapon-based attack.


Outer Calm [Mental/Other 5]: You may touch your target with a packet and call ‘Grant Sanity by Will.’
The recipient receives a bonus of 1 to 3 Sanity Points, depending upon the quality of focus used.
Requires an attuned Minor Focus to Reinforce 1 Sanity Point, an attuned Major Psi Focus to Reinforce 2 Sanity Points or an attuned True Psi Focus to Reinforce 3 Sanity Points.
It costs the 3 mental stamina per point of Sanity granted, and 1 minute of roleplay per point of Sanity granted.
Sanity granted by the use of this effect stacks on top of a players base sanity, and these granted points are the first lost if a player suffers a Sanity loss.
Sanity points gained by use of this effect may not be healed - they are first to be lost & may not be regained except by recasting the effect.
A player may only have a single casting of this on them at any time.
If the effect is cast on someone who already has this effect on them, the stronger bonus will replace the weaker one.
( Jon has a 3 point Outer Calm on him, and loses 2 Sanity during a fight. The lost points may not be healed, but if John gets his friend to recast the
3 point Outer Calm on him - John will then have 3 points of bonus Sanity again. The 1 point left over from the first casting is lost. )

Psych Out [Mental/Psionic 4]: When using an offensive Psychic attack (Slow, Enervate, Entrance, Feeble-mind, Fumble, Pain, Pin, Psychic Scream, Repulsion, Sleep, Still Tongue), this skill allows you to add “Double” to your Call. This skill doubles the Mental Stamina cost of any skill it is used in conjunction with. For example, if calling “Root by Will” would normally cost you 5 Mental Stamina, Calling “Double Root by Will” will cost you 10 Mental Stamina. The advantage is that rarely will the second half be avoidable.
Note that most (if not all) of the possible effects this skill can be used with have no additional effects when applied twice.
This Skill just makes it harder for the target to avoid the effect.
Note that the skill “Horrify” may NOT used with Psych Out.




More to come, I am out of time for tonight ...
-Chris


Second Wind [Physical / Other 5]: Mental Focus [Mental / Other 5]: Spiritual Center [Spirit / Other 5]:
All of these skills work the same way. You may buy each skill up to 5 times. For each time you purchase these skills, they will reduce the ammount of time you need to rest when resetting the appropriate Stamina Pool. You may still only reset one pool at a time. For each level purchased, you reduce your reset time (on that pool only) by 30 seconds. If bought to the maximum level of 5, it would eventually allow you to reduce your normal reset resting time from 5 minutes, down to 2 minutes and 30 seconds. There is NO WAY, except by using Karma, to reduce your reset time to less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Remember, this time must be spent "at rest", using no game skills, and must be lying, sitting, or kneeling for the entire time.

Called Shot [Physical / Other 5]:
This skill may be used with ANY weapon attack - melee weapon, packet arrow, nerf bullet, or thrown weapon. This skill allows you to add the call of "Double" to your damage call, which means you will do 2 attacks for the called number. You must pay the full stamina cost for your damage call (the total damage of the attack with the 'double') , Firearms do NOT add the usual +2 damage, and you MAY NOT exceed the damage cap on your weapon. If you have a sword with a damage cap of "6", you may spend 7 stamina and make a call of "Double 3", or you may spend 5 stamina and call "Double 2". If you have a firearm with a cap of 8, you may spend 9 stamina and make a call of "Double 4", 7 stamina to call "Double 3", and so on. You must at least call "Double 2" - there is no call of only "Double"

The advantage to this attack is that a dodge defense only avoids one of the attacks.
While you may hit for less damage, you are almost assured of hitting your target for <some> damage.


-Chris

I'm not chris, so he would have the final say, but while dodge by karma is a bit clunky, it lets whomever attacked you know that you dodged, and the reason you dodged is that your good fortune helped you along. but again, Chris would have the final say on it.

Well, as one of the colony's gun-bunnies, I am going to re-suggest a skill I suggested once upon a time. Dwayne, James, and I , and a few others I'm forgetting, discussed this at length, once upon a time, and I still think it's fair.

Skill: Rapid-Fire Physical/Warrior ??

This skill represents training in repeating firearms or rapid reloading. In order to use this skill, the player declares "Rapid Fire", then fires one UNCALLED shot from their pistol or rifle for every point of Physical stamina they choose to expend. These shots may be fired as rapidly as the weapon can be operated, but ALL the shots are UNCALLED damage. After the Rapid Fire, the firearm may not be fired again for one full minute. No other damage boosting effect may be combined with Rapid Fire for any reason.

So, for example: 2 Generic Small Enemies are bearing down on JD. JD snaps his rifle to his shoulder, declares "Rapid Fire!" and expends nine Physical Stamina. He then empties the 5-round magazine in his rifle as fast as he can work the action, slaps in a second mag, and peppers the approaching enemy with 4 more shots. 6 shots total hit the lead GSE, dropping it to unconsciousness, and the other, much damaged, is beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea....

Opinions welcome, flames cheerfully ignored.

-Todd

OK, so the description fo backstab is now:


This is good. It is a marked improvement over the old version and may compel me to actually pick it up. A question does come up however. In my characters race writeup (which was approved by plot) I have a racial skill:



Up to now, I have not picked up my own race's racial skill because there has been a zillion other things to buy, there were few skills that would apply to it and I never seem to have enough XP. This change to backstab has radically shifted it up in my list of skills to buy, which is good.

But how would Backstab and Ungaurded Moment combine? Would it reduce the stamina cost to both the physical and spiritual pool? Would it only reduce the cost to one pool? Would it be split between them?

I would allow that Unguarded Moment would reduce the cost of both phys & spirit stamina in this case.
The practical end-result : For each level of Unguarded Moment, you can add 1 point to your backstab damage call.
(Note : Unguarded Moment is a racial ability, at this time only availible to the Graxx)
-Chris

Actually if I may offer my opinions on this, I like the fact that we have a cap. In a way it's like old DND where a PC couldn't have more then 18 in any stat because he was mortal. I feel the same way about this, 10 Physical Stam is like a really in shape person somoene who lifts daily and eats completely right. Anything higher then that is Heroic. So an 11 or 12 is absolutely amazing and should be rare, (like how I had 12 this past weekend from my necklace, again that was for /one/ weekend). Anything above that should be reserved for Gods and Power Beings.

Just my Opinion,

-Vinnie

I like the idea of trying to break the cap. I know there are items out there (like crovel's necklace) that can give bonuses to certain pools. I agree with both posters here, It should be possible to do so, as some races can already break the 10 barrier i believe, however i also agree with vinnie, in that a limit is there for a reason, whether it be to keep things sane on a game level, or to signify that as mortals, there are just some certain things we cannot do.

I propose the following, taking a bit of each person's viewpoint here. I like the buying up of pool past 10, but make it *double* the cost of what it would be if you were to progress normally. (i.e in Dwayne's example he says 11XP for an 11th pool point, I'm saying 22xp for an 11th, 24 for a 12th, etc and so on.) This makes it much more difficult to raise multiple points at once, signifying the difficulty we mortals would have to overcome to earn that extra ounce of strength, be it physical mental or spiritual. Also, I would suggest only being able to raise one pool point (over 10)per update, with the exception being the winter break, where we could upgrade two or three. This again is to show what a difficult thing it is to train one's mind/body/spirit past their known limits. This also plays into game balance, as monsters would not have to be scaled to rapidly growing stats of players.

The other way would be to make magic items like we've seen already (the necklace) either makeable (possible, with enough research perhaps) or more readily available. (Kind of cheesy i think, but that's just me)

Thoughts, questions, Concerns?

I have to say i really like the concept of "gifted" skills. I think it is a perfact skill introduced ingame as an "advanced" skill. Like chris talked about now the that gate is open "guild" teachers are coming thru to teach us skills we didnt have access to. Or Maybe intoduced to those players who have "gone native" and get it taught by some elder after earning thier trust.

So to be clear i love this idea but I dont think it should not be able to be learned without first some role playing involved.

David N

Isnt this covered in first aid? if you first aid someone who is unstable, they are at 0 vitality for 10 min ( i think, could be 5, i forget) until they wake up, where they would be at 1 vitality. Which is a simple tap with a weapon. Feel free to correct any wrongs in my thinking, but I dont see a need for a stabilize skill if my thinking is correct.

right the way dwayne is explaining is a way to capture someone without waking them up if you dont have first aid