<Untitled IAQ Project>: Round 4: Characters, Status, Equipment, Specials, etc

[AndrewRogue]

EDIT: Due to a lack of steam, I'm expanding this round to cover a multitude of subjects. Post on any/all of 'em.

<Insert Your Own Clever Thing Here>

We're moving on to characters now. Hurrah. Let's try to rough out some designs and what not. For now, we'll be using a layout that looks something like this.

NAME
Brief descriptive thingy

HP:
MP:
Strength:
Dexterity:
Vitality:
Intelligence:
Spirit:
Speed:

Accuracy:
Evasion:
Magic Accuracy:
Magic Evasion:
Move:

Weapon Groups:
Armor Groups:
Accessory Groups:

Resource Description:
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas:
Method in Which They Learn Moves:
Just a general summary of the idea:

Since I'm lazy, I'm going to rank stats on a scale from G (Absolute worst in the game, and possibly the universe) to C (Average) to S (Absolute best in the game, and definitely the universe). So... G, F-, F, F+, D-, D, D+, C-, C, C+, B-, B, B+, A-, A, A+, S. Got it? Good. If someone wants to make up numbers to go along with this, feel free.

Noemi
Our heroine. Graduate from the Dissonance School of Dissonant Magic for the Dissonant, she would really like to cure the Disquiet. She's gonna end up saving the world (TM) because that's what main characters do, goddammit. She doesn’t need a love interest, because she’s that damn cool.

HP: C
MP: B-
Strength: C-
Dexterity: B
Vitality: C
Intelligence: B
Spirit: C
Speed: B

Accuracy: C
Evasion: C
Magic Accuracy: C
Magic Evasion:
Move: 3

Weapon Groups: Knives/Daggers, (Others will open as the game progresses)
Armor Groups: Light (Medium opens up as the game progresses)
Accessory Groups: Limited (opens up to nearly all of them as the game progresses)

Resource Description: MP (Regenerates 10% or so at the end of every battle)
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: Should have a broad away of abilities, including damage (elemental variety), buffs, debuffs, status and a bit of healing. In other words, she should have just a little bit of everything.
Method in Which They Learn Moves: Studies other PCs and adapts their moves to her style of Dissonance. Also acquires a couple via plot. May or may not create final techniques by combining earlier techniques.

With Noemi I'm aiming for the Jack-of-all-Trades thing for Noemi. Her big plot point is she’s a gifted student, to the point of being a prodigy, so giving her a huge edge in the learning curve (able to develop a ton of techniques) makes a lot of sense. She’s not individually as good as any other PC, but has an amazing full package. Gameplay wise, this makes her pretty solid as the go-between-groups PC, as she can fit in anywhere, really. I err on the side of using the general MP for her, as it’s one of the better ways for her to use a broad skillset. All in all, I’m imagining her as something of a less ridiculous Mouse (Ephemeral Fantasia) to keep her in line with the other PCs. It should be noted that, although I want to err on the side of her being averageish stat wise, I erred a bit on the positive side in magic and/or girly stats. Because true average is lame.

Isolde
Military master of multiple martial methods. She is surely slick, surviving several sad scenarios. And I’m out of alliteration. She’s the other girly main character, and by girly, I mean the cold, pragmatic, thoughtful, intellectual military commander type who specializes in heavy weaponry and blasting. She’s TECHNICALLY still a member of the military, but has been officially let go as a matter of public opinion after making a tough mission call and getting a bunch of people killed. It may have been the only option for people to get out alive, but that didn’t make it popular. Also, she killed a rich dude’s kid in that time.

HP: B+
MP: n/a
Strength: A-
Dexterity: D
Vitality: B
Intelligence: A-
Spirit: B
Speed: C

Accuracy: B
Evasion: C
Magic Accuracy: B
Magic Evasion: C
Move: 2

Weapon Groups: Polearms, Large Blades, Large Axes
Armor Groups: All of 'em
Accessory Groups: Heavy Armor types, Girl types

Resource Description: Cooldowns. She has to wait a certain amount of clockticks after using a specific move (or move from a category) before using that move (or moves from that category) again.
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: I'm thinking Isolde specializes in mixed magical/physical damage, with debuffs or status attached. Most of her attacks should be two-hit combinations of magic + physical.
Method in Which They Learn Moves: Plot unlocked. As the game progresses, Isolde starts resorting to her classic power techniques.
Just a general summary of the idea: Somewhat standardized slugger, with an additional quirk in being mixed magic and melee damage. Debuffs give her another dynamic. She's not too fast, but she should hit hard enough to make up for it, and she has no resource concerns.

Mirek
Resident emo and down on his life swordsman who will be redeemed by love and stuff.

HP: D+
MP: n/a
Strength: C
Dexterity: A+
Vitality: C-
Intelligence: D
Spirit: C-
Speed: B

Accuracy: A
Evasion: B+
Magic Accuracy: n/a
Magic Evasion: B+
Move: 3

Weapon Groups: Guardian Blades, Swords
Armor Groups: Light Armor
Accessory Groups: Light Accessories, Guardian Accessories

Resource Description: Focus Meter. Gauge starts the battle at 25%-ish and increases every clock tick. Also increases via some other means (taking damage, dealing damage, evading, etc)
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: Initiative. Higher his meter is, the higher some sort of stats go. High crit moves, high accuracy moves, ITD moves. Possible some sort of self-buffing/counter-stance type moves. Should be largely single target damage. Probably has fairly strong full meter move.
Method in Which They Learn Moves: Emotional involvement. Unlocked via optional plot scenes.
Just a general summary of the idea: Fire Emblem crit whore, essentially. Hits very hard and emphasizes evasion over durability. Is surprisingly slow for his type but, ideally, has some sort of initiative.

[Magic Fanatic]

Fahim
Graduate from the same school as Noemi.  Wants to eventually find a way to cure the Disquiet poisoning in people.  Cares for his parents deeply.

HP: D
MP: A+
Strength: G
Dexterity: C
Vitality: F+
Intelligence: S
Spirit: A+
Speed: C

Accuracy: G
Evasion: G
Magic Accuracy: S
Magic Evasion: A+
Move: 1

Weapon Groups: Rings/Magic Gloves
Armor Groups: Light
Accessory Groups: Magic accessories, some Jewelery.

Resource Description: MP (Regen at least 15% MMP at every battle finish, 5% at the start of his turns, can be boosted)
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: Elemental and AoE/MT damage, Resonance buff/Dissonance debuff, and Resonance-only healing...  Basically, just about anything that requires use of magic.
Method in Which They Learn Moves:  Seeing the moves in action, reading about them, certain Optional Scenes in specific areas that activate after his Level and/or INT hit a certain benchmark.
Just a general summary of the idea: One word for this character - Mage.  Obliterates things from a range, but dies if anything gets up in his face.




Claire Guillory (French name)
A rather naive-to-the-world-history fighter that wants to find her twin sister who disappeared two years ago.  She'll give it her all in battle, but tries her best to avoid any personal conflict, and rarely states her opinions if she thinks she'll get chided for them.  Has a rather obsessive taste for sweet fruits.

HP: B-
MP: D-
Strength: C
Dexterity: C
Vitality: C (+1/-2 ranks)
Intelligence: D-
Spirit: D-
Speed: A+

Accuracy: B+
Evasion: C (+1/-2 ranks)
Magic Accuracy: N/A
Magic Evasion: C (+1/-2 ranks)
Move: 3 (+1/-2)

Weapon Groups: Mid-range weapons (Spears, Halberds, Naginatas, etc.) (Physical ATK range +1 weapons, essentially)
Armor Groups: All Weight Armor.
Accessory Groups:  All armor types, Girl type

Passive: If equipped with only Light-class armor, gain +1 Move, raise Physical/Magical evasion to B, lower Vitality/(MDEF stat) to F.  If equipped only with Heavy-class armor, lose 2 Move, lower Physical/Magical evasion to F, lower Speed to D+, raise Vitality/(MDEF stat) to B, and gain OPB Special Endure (instead of only lasting for one attack, lasts until the next party member's turn).  Non-weight-type equipment do not count against this passive.


Resource Description: MP (Starts the battle with 0, but gains 10% MMP at the start of her turns)
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas:  Some enemy-type-specific moves, while having a lot of movement/panel placement altering skills (A base off Disgaea spear abilities here, with a few fusions from Fist abilities as well).  A few lightweight healing/buffing spells of Resonance-class as a back-up, but nothing really that noteworthy.
Method in Which They Learn Moves:  Attacking new enemies in battle X number of times - after which, she'll spark a new skill.  Starts with the Resonance abilities, and doesn't learn any more, unless a piece of equipment provides her with the spell.
Just a general summary of the idea:  A physical attacker that moves herself and enemies around the battlefield very easily.  Doesn't die to a sneeze, so she can get into the thick of many enemies, but her lack of MP holds her back from using her skills too much.  Her versatility between speed and tankiness let the player choose how to use her.

[OblivionKnight]

Will fully finish this later.  Fully have had ideas for the other topics, but will finally put something here.  I've read through the other topics a bit, so let's hope I haven't missed anything >_>


Myriam Natalya Kalidor (Biblical, Hebrew, Russian)
A Barbarian/Member of the God Kings (again, ensure I haven't missed anything significant).  I need to run through the topics again to get more of a description here, but basically,

HP: C-
MP: C-
Strength: C+
Dexterity: S
Vitality: G
Intelligence: C+
Spirit: G
Speed: S

Accuracy: S
Evasion: B
Magic Accuracy: S
Magic Evasion: B
Move: S

Weapon Groups: Bows of all forms and only bows you sons of bitches NOTHING BUT BOWS FOR GIRLS
Armor Groups: Light
Accessory Groups: All

Resource Description: Evading or being hit by an attack restores MP.  Being hit will restore ~50% of the damage received as MP (assuming she lives!  If she dies, it will restore 25% of the damage dealt - alternatively, even less, possibly 0).  Evading an attack will restore 5% max MP.  

Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: Supportive/healing magic (statistical breaks, statistical boosts, disabling magic, healing, regenerative magic) and physical skills (BIG FUCKING ARROWS YESZ).  Some general ideas:

Magic:
Merciful Grace, Divine Light, Purity Well, Life Forge - Various forms of healing (Grace is ST high level healing, Light is small AoE medium level healing, Well is large AoE low level healing, Forge is Around Caster high level healing)
Rising Spirit - 25% MHP revival
Realized Rite - 75% MHP revival
Nike's Blessing - Adds HP regeneration of 10% per casting up to a max of 100%; regeneration kicks in on the affected's action turn
Neutralize - Dispel negative effects, large AoE
Erase - Dispel positive effects, small AoE
Valour - Raises all stats by 10% of BASE stat per casting up to a max of 100%
Frailty Essence - Lowers all stats by 10% of BASE stat per casting up to a max of 100%
Reversed Fate - Replaces status and stat effects on one character with another character's
Divine Blade - Raises a WEAPON'S offensive power (MAG, ATK, etc.) by 10% for every action taken by the recipient up to a max of 100%
Absorbed Revenge - Absorbs 50% of the next attack targeted at the recipient of this spell and reflects it back at the attacker; reflection ignores defense, reflect, evade, etc.
Void "Element" - Creates a shield that absorbs a certain amount of elemental damage (= to recipient's max HP) and then breaks
Corporeal Link - Connects caster and another target together, so that damage taken by one of them is spread out over both of them (ITD damage would ignore this, and instead deal its same damage to BOTH targets); the damage spread out is based on the damage it would have dealt to the initial target
Absolving Call - Provides recipient with a one-time 50% MHP auto-revival on death
Eternal Entropy - Each time the target takes damage, a proportion of that damage is leaked as HP and MP healed to all other targets on the field
Celestial Elegy - Shields a small AoE from damage, status, breaks, etc. for as long as the skill is active; must be continually activated each turn user gets; requires MP each turn; does NOT preclude being moved via attacks that change position; this skill does NOT differentiate between ally and enemy, so as long as the character is under the shield, they are invincible

Skills:
Ripple Edge - Low level physical damage, wide long large LT
Binding Rage - Low level physical damage, grounds target to their current hex as long as Myriam doesn't move
Ethereal Storm - Medium level magical damage, medium AoE
Void Raid - Medium level physical damage per hit, many hits randomly spread out over a gigantic AoE
Chaos Vortex - Low level physical damage, low level magical damage, a proportion of damage is converted into a stat bonus for the user


Method in Which They Learn Moves: All known at the start

Just a general summary of the idea: The character, combat-wise, is designed to be a support character who works exceptionally well in teams, but not great by herself, since a lot of her skills take time to activate, and she's so frail.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Before commenting or posting a character build idea of my own, floating a question: What is the assumed average for stats? Straight C tends to be my kneejerk, and seems to fit what has been posted so far, but strictly speaking it's not the central value of the options Andy listed (that'd be between C- and D+). Do think this should be clarified so everyone is on the same page as what average is.

[074]

Actually, I think he deliberately skipped Es.  There was no ellipsis between F and D on that listing, so I'd presume that it'd go, from worst to best:

G, F-, F, F+, D-, D, D+, C-, C, C+, B-, B, B+, A-, A, A+, S

Unless Andrew futzed up, in which case, yeah. average would be between D+ and C-

[EDIT] Ideas!

Seeing Isolde as having a FFT-style Counter Magic ability, as discussed in chat.  Albeit with some possible drawbacks. (Can't be used while charging or in recovery, rate is nowhere near perfect (thinking something closer to 15-20% base or so)

That aside, character concepts:


Faulheit
One of Isolde's classmates and friends from the academy and military, holding a massive lack of respect for authority in general.  Was about to be discharged from the military for going AWOL on several occasions, but was convinced by Katarine to instead motion for placement in Isolde's team.  Went along with it on the basis that it sounded more interesting.  Slacker to the extreme and doesn't seem to bother too much with actually working to try and get things done.  Uses wind magic in addition to his normal means of attack--usually a crossbow.


HP:C-
MP:D
Strength:D
Dexterity:C-
Vitality:C+
Intelligence:B
Spirit:A+
Speed:D-

Accuracy:A
Evasion:C
Magic Accuracy:B
Magic Evasion:F
Move:2

Weapon Groups:Crossbows, throwing knives.
Armor Groups:Light armor
Accessory Groups:Light accessories, Caster accessories, Archer accessories

Resource Description:MP(Starts at 0, charges at some rate per tick in battle)
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: wind-based spells, mostly damage, but a few buffs (DEF, EVA.  Maybe speed) and possibly an augmented physical.  Most magical offense has great mults despite his Intelligence score, but is extremely expensive, MP-wise, and has long chargetimes and recovery.
Examples:
[Passive]Lackadaisical
+25% to effect strength if no movement is taken beforehand.  Cannot take a move action after attacking

Pressure Blast
Basic single-target air-element attack spell.  Low penetration.  May cancel target's action.

Air Cutter
LT air-elemental attack.  May inflict bleeding.

Turbulence
ST evasion boost.

Pressure Bomb
1-hex-radius burst air-elemental attack.  Cancel effect.

Tempest
Full-field air-elemental spell--does not damage allies.  Randomly repositions all characters into differing hexes.

Vacuum Shot
Single-target piercing-type physical attack, boosted by INT.  High defense penetration.

Vortex Shot
Line-target piercing-type physical attack, boosted by INT.

[more to come to mind later]

Method in Which They Learn Moves: Knows all to begin with.  However, many of them are out of his MP range, costwise, to start--as such, his MP capacity would need to be increased to use the higher-rank clusters.
Just a general summary of the idea: Archer/Mage in a sense.  I see crossbows to not care too much for STR, and he has speed and MP issues holding his magic in check.  Is a magic tank, though, and mocks the evasive.  Doesn't like stuff that's ITMD, though.


Katarine
Another of Isolde's friends in the military, she plays mainly a support role in battles due to her dissonance abilities.  When the uproar regarding Isolde's least popular action in battle began, and she seemed to drop off of the face of the earth, she felt obligated to search for her.  This eventually led to her finding her way under Isolde's command as part of the empire's "black ops" or whatever the hell it is.

HP:D
MP:C+
Strength:C
Dexterity:A-
Vitality:D-
Intelligence:D
Spirit:D
Speed:A

Accuracy:C
Evasion:A-
Magic Accuracy:D-
Magic Evasion:A-
Move:3

Weapon Groups:Knives/Daggers, Thrusting swords,
Armor Groups:Light
Accessory Groups:Female, Light

Resource Description:EP-style charges.  Each special has a number of charges usable before recovery is necessary.
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: A few melee techniques, and some buffing spells (Statboosts and regen come to mind here.  Should have a decent AoE (1-hex radius or so)).  If she has any magic attacks, it's minor to say the least, given her MACC and INT--and would likely have some rider effect that would actually make it desirable.
Method in Which They Learn Moves: Gained by level.  Not everyone's a unique snowflake.
Just a general summary of the idea:Fast and evasive meleer with some buffing capabilities. Frail and hates heavy armor for the most part--as well as the accurate.



Selena
Recruitable boss character late on Isolde's path--though actual joining would not occur until the final dungeon.  Former friend of Isolde, and a fellow commander in the Imperial Dissonance Corps, she turned angry and bitter toward her once her younger brother was killed during that infamous battle.  A powerful Dissonance mage in her own right, with power over light-based magic.  Did we mention that said brother was the rich dude's favored son mentioned earlier?  Oh, I guess we didn't until just now.

HP:F+
MP:B-
Strength:C
Dexterity:D
Vitality:D-
Intelligence:A+
Spirit:C-
Speed:A

Accuracy:C
Evasion:C
Magic Accuracy:B-
Magic Evasion:D-
Move:3

Weapon Groups:Straight Swords, Thrusting Swords, Staves
Armor Groups:Light
Accessory Groups:Caster, Female

Resource Description:MP.  Regenerates 5% at the end of each battle.
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas:Light-based magic--really good defense-piercing running off of good offensive stats.  Also see her having a reflect and a 'mirror image' spell, possibly also something that'll inflict an ACC/EVA drop.  Lots of LT effects.
[EDIT]  Suggested spell ideas below:
Ray Arrow: ST Holy-element spell.  Defense-piercing, ignores Reflect.
Ray Lancer: LT Holy-element spell.  Defense-piercing, ignores Reflect.
Pulse Bomb: Radius-1 burst Holy-element spell.  Defense-piercing, ignores Reflect, debuffs ACC, EVA, MACC, MEVA.  Low damage multiplier.
Spark Wisp: HT Holy-element spell.  Defense-piercing, ignores Reflect.  Multiple hits, high MP cost.
Phantasm Barrier: ST reflect spell.  Spells cast on such a protected target do not affect said target and rebound--trajectory as if the reflector was casting it on the caster, using caster's original stats.
Phantasm Mirage: Self-targeting spell.  Creates 4 mirror images of Selena that follow her as she moves.  ST attacks that are aimed at her have a (100*(#Images/(#Images+1))% chance of being negated after evasion.  An attack negated in this manner (NOT evaded as usual) destroys an image.  HT and larger area-effect attacks are not subject to this evasion, but do not destroy images.
[/EDIT]
Method in Which They Learn Moves: Starts with all of them.  This late in the game, she'd have to.
Just a general summary of the idea: Selena is fast, with strong defense-piercing magic!  She also has a couple of nasty defensive spells.  ...Selena doesn't like getting hit.  She also doesn't like getting hit with magic.  She also doesn't like how slow her MP pool regenerates, on that note

[AndrewRogue]

Amended my post to more accurately reflect that C = Average. Nama's got the list right. I used the good ol' American education scale and two outliers (G and S). Sorry!

Anyhow, huzzah posting! Also, keep in mind, this is the opportunity to tear ideas to shreds. I'll be posting tonight probably to do something similar for the characters I posted since we had a chat session with a variety of ideas flowing around. Huzzah!

[AndrewRogue]

Per a brief discussion with NEB, I knocked Mirek's strength down to C. Forgot about the stacking effects of Strength + Dex. I might consider just limiting him to Guardian Blades and giving them an absolutely awful Dex multiplier to render his Dex bonus useless on the offensive, though. Thoughts?

[074]

Either is viable, really.  Though I do have to ask; what are Guardian Blades intended to be in-universe?

[Hunter Sopko]

Haven't been following too much, but since I came up with something I might as well use it. Will probably need to be revised based on battle system mechanics or story, etc, but I felt the need to get my character creation on.

No name yet.

Ostensibly the prince of some backwater island nation, he is a recent graduate of the same academy that Noemi attended. He attended the academy as part of an outreach program to developing nations to enhance their military knowledge. Outwardly, he is awkward, self-indulgent and rather slow. The perfect stereotype of the nation he comes from. However, it's all just an act to make the officers he will soon be competing against underestimate him and his nation. Inwardly he is calm, cunning and can be rather honorable, though he’s not above dropping honor in favor of being pragmatic. A decent ways into their quest, he allows himself to be "conscripted" by Noemi and Isolde "against his will", due to whatever circumstance is appropriate, but he really wanted to go with them in reality, as he could see their efforts might lead to the cure for the disquiet and saving the world and he wanted to get in on the ground floor. He’s got a witty sense of humor when he’s being himself, especially about his act once he admits to it, though he suffers from a lack of charm (Granted, he really never tries to use it). He’s already engaged to be married back home, after all!

He excels physically, and his persona allowed him to develop this publically. However, he also developed his ability using Dissonance in private, allowing his grades in magic to languish at the back of the class while in reality breezing through the material. His head-on fighting style makes him favor the physical slightly over magic, and also makes him primarily an offense-minded PC. Otherwise, he's your sword and sorcery mix type character.

HP: B
MP: C-
Strength: B+
Dexterity: B-
Vitality: B
Intelligence: B
Spirit: C+
Speed: C+

Accuracy: B
Evasion: D
Magic Accuracy: B
Magic Evasion: D
Move: 3

Weapon Groups: Thrusting sword, spear
Armor Groups: Light and Medium
Accessory Groups: Male, Magic, Light

Resource Description:
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: He has a good amount of the basic physical and magic offensive abilities, though he doesn’t end up excelling in either. Instead, he manages to add magic to the physical techs for his big damage. His MP pool is average so he can’t really keep up sustained high-powered offense either.

Method in Which They Learn Moves: When his stats hit a certain threshold in relation to his INT, it causes new original abilities to unlock. Otherwise, he learns physical and magic techs as normal.

Just a general summary of the idea: His uniqueness starts off with simple stuff like being able to choose what elemental property to add to a physical attack, then you can add it to his physical techs, then he gains entirely new moves based on this. Pretty much wholly offense oriented.

[Talaysen]

NAME: Ilona
Brief descriptive thingy: Guardian!

HP: F
MP: D-
Strength: F
Dexterity: S
Vitality: F
Intelligence: A
Spirit: C
Speed: S

Accuracy: A
Evasion: S
Magic Accuracy: C
Magic Evasion: B
Move: 3

Weapon Groups: Knives/daggers, scythes, guardian blades.
Armor Groups: Light armor, stuff that increases evasion but provides poor protection.
Accessory Groups: Female and lighter stuff.

Resource Description: Focus.  Starts at 10%.  Basic physicals increase it by 5% + 1% for every extra hit.  Dodging increases it by 2%.  Ilona's Dexterity, Speed, and Evasion are increased by a small amount the higher her focus meter is.

Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: (Names subject to change, more may be added later.  All percentages, mults, and costs are subject to change.)
*Illusion Dance (10%): Normal physical that causes confusion.
*Backstab (20%): Adds Speed to Strength for damage and auto-crits, but only hits once regardless of Dexterity difference.  Has a chance to instantly kill the target.  If a knife/dagger is equipped, ignores defense and lowers target's Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, and Speed by 5%.
*Target (30%): Normal physical + locks on to an enemy.  If an ally attacks the enemy, Ilona will immediately attack it with a half-powered physical.  She cannot evade or counter any other enemies' attacks.  Wears off if the target moves out of melee range, Ilona is successfully attacked by an enemy, or Ilona acts on someone other than herself or the targetted enemy.
*Speed Siphon (40%): Normal physical + decreases target's Speed by 10% and adds it to Ilona's.  If a scythe is equipped, this ignores evasion and drains Dexterity too.
*Flurry Rush (50%): Normal physical at 2x Dexterity.  If a guardian blade is equipped, it is increased to 3x Dexterity and auto-crits.
*Enlightened State (100%): Increases counter/critical rate to 100%, doubles evasion and speed, adds 2% to the focus meter each turn.  Ilona immediately gets two more actions.

Passives: (Names subject to change, more may be added later)
*Shadow Stance: If Ilona doesn't move, grants an extra 50% chance to evade any attacks sent her way.  Goes away if she moves or is successfully attacked.
*Light Feet: If Ilona uses a basic physical or evades a physical attack, speed is increased by 10% until next turn.  Stacks with itself, but wears off completely after the next turn.

Method in Which They Learn Moves: Dunno.  Was pondering some kind of weapon-based thing but unsure how to do it.  Level is probably the best option otherwise.

Just a general summary of the idea: Token speedster focused on hitting a lot for small individual damages.  Terrible physical durability stats, but backed by great evasion.  Magic durability is averagish outside of bad HP and a bit above average magic evasion.  Exact stat values themselves are definitely open to tweaking, though.

[AndrewRogue]

Since we're not getting much steam going here, let's expand this topic to include: defining equipment, creating status, special attacks and getting our elements in order.

[Hunter Sopko]

I'm suprised you brought out the character topic before getting that, setting and story all in a row first.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Better late than never.

Kasia
Noemi's loyal friend, who has trod a similar path in life, and looks up to her a good deal. Skilled with resonance.

HP: C+
MP:
Strength: D
Dexterity: D
Vitality: C+
Intelligence: B
Spirit: A
Speed: B-

Accuracy: High with crossbow, low otherwise. Probably has a marksman skill or something that accomplishes this.
Evasion: F
Magic Accuracy: Yeah I still consider this one stat clutter
Magic Evasion: F
Move: 1-2

Weapon Groups: Crossbows and whips
Armor Groups: All but the heaviest category
Accessory Groups: um

Resource Description: Endless. She lacks much in the way of big damage so this isn't broken. Moves that would be unbalanced to be spammed have charge-up periods, or more rarely, cooldown.
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas:
1. Healing magic. Lots of it. I tend to see MT healing as something that should be rare and valuable, and she has it, though the better stuff has charge-up. Weaker, instantaneous options are available.
2. Positive effect magic, mainly of the SH3 Entrance variety; short buffs that have potent effects. "Next attack hits much harder", "next turn, character double-acts", "immune to damage of type ___" for one round". I view her being unable to self-target many of these early on until she builds up some self-confidence.
3. Whip-based physical skills focus on tying enemies up in some way: delaying or cancelling their turns, lowering stats, etc.
4. Crossbow skills generally involve charging for added effects, whether it be more damage (the only time I will use Kasia and "damage" together) or more commonly, status attacks. Instant death is probably the lategame capstone here.

Method in Which They Learn Moves: Many of her skills are unlocked in battles in which they would be especially useful. e.g. Big Bad Boss uses a horrifying attack that 2HKOs the entire party! Cue quick cutscene in which she learns MT healing. If she's not used for said battle she'll learn it afterwards in less dramatic fashion.

Just a general summary of the idea: Healer, support mage and support attacker. Her decent speed and bevy of options make her handy for randoms, and everyone loves the healing in a drawn out battle. Low damage is a strike against her, however.


I have some more ideas but I'll wait to see where we're going first.

[AndrewRogue]

Sopko: Mainly because the setting and story stuff had kinda dragged to a halt, so I felt the need to give the more mechanically minded people a chance to do something again. A fair number of people have mechanical character ideas, so I figure I could at least give the mechanically oriented folks a chance to put in some numbers based concepts for the tertiary and then work on expanding some story stuff off of that.

Anyhow, to finally bother to comment.

On my PCs: Generally thinking that Mirek should migrate from high Dex middling Str to high Str middling Dex. Too many high Dex individuals floating around. Plus, it works better with his style.

MF: Prolly need to tone down the in-battle MP regen or keep it low. Otherwise there's no particularly give and take to his resourcing. Fits well with the God Kings who are prolly highly physically oriented though. I would orient him more towards one magical type as well, otherwise he looks like he's ending up notably better than Noemi it looks like, since variety is her gig. Focusing him more as the magical blaster type (potentially with AoE) feels like it'd shore up the God King's conceptually better.

OK: Needs a Chinese name. *nod* Functionally probably works well as the main one's (Yiu, I want to say? Blanking right this sec). Need to debate how well it fits into the magic system skillset wise.

Nama: Faul and Kat work as filler PCs for Isolde's squad. I would encourage you to consider moving Faul off buffs and onto some AoE attacks to keep a balanced spread between the three PCs. A workable dynamic looks like it could be done between them. Selena... works on fronts, but not sure I like the idea of a final dungeon PC in a cast based game like this. But that's another story. Military trio works well though, and gives them a lot of flexibility to pick up stragglers and vagabonds. And hey, didn't you have a rough Aurel build at some point?

Sopko: Mechanics wise, falls a little close to Isolde, but sounds like he could easily be differentiated. Characterwise is solid and gives us a good point that we doin't really have explored (Mirek is ex-nobility and way out of the loop, God Kings are nobility from outside the empire, and not really noteworthy until middle to late game. Also has a unique personality going for him. Might want to work him into the Mirek group if possible to avoid overlap? Lot of caster/fighterish builds with Isolde. Need to consider how it can be done characterwise though.

Tal: Looks good. Fits in well as the other Guardian PC, I feel. Also would fit decently in Isolde's group as a pure meleeer and a generalized speedster. Debating the gender issue. Might encourage male just because we're leaning really heavy on the estrogen thus far.

Kasia: Mechanically, very much needed and useful. Works doubly awesome since she's in the transitional group, and basically provides a solid healer for a number of sequences. I approve.

[074]

Andy: Right.  I guess I'll try to reconstruct Aurel's statspread and what I did remember of his setup, anyway.

Aurel, whom we already have stated stuff about.

HP:A+
MP:D-
Strength:B+
Dexterity:C-
Vitality:A+
Intelligence:D
Spirit:D-
Speed:D

Accuracy:C
Evasion:C-
Magic Accuracy:N/A
Magic Evasion:F+
Move:2

Weapon Groups:Straight swords, 1H blunt
Armor Groups:All
Accessory Groups:Heavy, Shields.

Resource Description: TBD.  Is a dissonance user, though.
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: Self-healing of varied types, seeing him with Cover and maybe a Counter passive
Method in Which They Learn Moves: TBD.  Fine with him leveling.
Just a general summary of the idea: TANK.  Oh god, tank. Physically speaking, he's damned hard to kill, and the self-healing helps him on this end.  High HP helps him through magical assaults.  Despises magical status, though.


Anyway, as for equipment groups, I'm looking at things at this way right now.

WEAPONS:
* Blades
**Knives
**Piercing Swords
**Curved Swords
**Straight Swords
**Heavy Blades
*Axes
**Light axes
**Heavy axes
*Blunt
**Light blunt
**Heavy blunt
**Staves
*Thrown
**Melee/Thrown (Knives, axes, hammers)
**Pure Thrown (Darts, boomerangs)
*Projectile
**Bows
**Crossbows
*Polearms
*Exotic
**Whips
**'Unarmed'

As for elements, the Big Eight sounds like it'd work so far.  Not sure if resists should be innate or not.  If so, we'd have a whole eight other stats to mess with per character.  Same for status resists--only replace 8 with either number of statii or status categories.

I'll wait for others' opinions on status so far before giving my own input on that...

[Hunter Sopko]

I figured that Noemi and Isolde's group might need a noble contact, which is why I put him there.

Time to pull something out of my cliche book.

No name yet.

Born into a military family, he was raised from an early age to follow orders unquestioningly. Keeping true to this has led him to whichever group he is put into. As a special forces soldier, he has been assigned to keep an eye on them for the powers that be. Built like a running back and just as fast, he's the fast tank that most commanders dream of. He will never disobey his orders, even if his life or even the plot depends on it. This will probably end with him either being a temp that is later fought alongside a boss, or whomever is his superior is changing sides and assigning him to the group on a more permenant basis.

HP: C-
MP: C-
Strength: B-
Dexterity: C
Vitality: A+
Intelligence: F+
Spirit: A+
Speed: A-

Accuracy: B-
Evasion: B-
Magic Accuracy: D-
Magic Evasion: C-
Move: 3

Weapon Groups: Knives, Light Axes, Melee/Thrown, Unarmed
Armor Groups: Medium Armor
Accessory Groups: Male, Heavy

Resource Description: Most of his trick moves are OPB. Otherwise, normal.
Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas: Mostly support moves involving movement and defense tricks. Also a good candidate for flurry attacks.
Method in Which They Learn Moves: Via levels as normal.
Just a general summary of the idea: Fast tanks are rare and fun. His HP doesn't let him just sit there and take abuse as much as regular tank, but he does well in his niche.

[Magic Fanatic]

MF: Prolly need to tone down the in-battle MP regen or keep it low. Otherwise there's no particularly give and take to his resourcing. Fits well with the God Kings who are prolly highly physically oriented though. I would orient him more towards one magical type as well, otherwise he looks like he's ending up notably better than Noemi it looks like, since variety is her gig. Focusing him more as the magical blaster type (potentially with AoE) feels like it'd shore up the God King's conceptually better.

I'll agree that I probably need to tone down the MP regen, but I'm very hesitant to specify his spell selection as well.  While Noemi has the figurative slider right between fighter and mage, Fahim pushes it all the way to the Mage side.  I did attempt to rebalance his stats, at least.



Also, new character added to original post.  Might work as a tertiary to Mirek's quest.

[AndrewRogue]

Out of boredom, another try at Mirek, this time with about 1000% more statistical weirdness.

Mirek
Resident emo and down on his life swordsman who will be redeemed by love and stuff.

HP: D
MP: n/a
Strength: A
Dexterity: S
Vitality: D
Intelligence: D
Spirit: D
Speed: F

Accuracy: A
Evasion: A
Magic Accuracy: n/a
Magic Evasion: A
Move: 3

Weapon Groups: Guardian Blades
Armor Groups: Light Armor
Accessory Groups: Light Accessories, Guardian Accessories

Resource Description: Focus Meter. Gauge starts the battle at 25% and increases by 10% every 100 CTs. Also increases 5% every time he takes damage.

Types of Moves/Specific Move Ideas-

Focused Attack (Passive)
He puts his all into every attack. His damage is increased by 1.25x, but he is hard capped at one swing.

Sudden Strike (Passive)
He automatically goes first at the start of combat.

Emotional Combatant (Passive)
His Focused Attack bonus increases by .05 for each 20% focus he has. At 100% Focus, Mirek's attacks ignore Evade and crit automatically.

Furious Assault (10% Focus)
Doubles the focus consumption of Mirek’s attacks, but adds 50 CTs to his count after the attack. Ends if he drops below 25% focus. OPB.

<Attacks to be invented later>

Method in Which They Learn Moves: Emotional involvement. Unlocked via optional plot scenes.

Just a general summary of the idea: Fire Emblem crit whore, essentially. Hits very hard and emphasizes evasion over durability. Is surprisingly slow for his type but, ideally, has some sort of initiative.

[Yoshiken]

Alright, since I suck with characters, I'm gonna start poking around for some status ideas. I'll rank these by how crippling they are (and thus how costly/lategame they should be, presumably?), but any of these can be switched easily by just making immunity more common in enemies and/or easier to get hold of for PCs.
And each section is titled because I like fancy tags and organisation. Ho-hum.
Oh, lastly, any names can be changed to suit the system a little more. I'm just putting what I know them as for now.

Weak Status:
Blind - Inaccuracy. Lowers accuracy to ~25%?
<Numb Sense> - Magic Inaccuracy. Lowers accuracy to ~0.25%? (It always strikes me as odd that Blind lowers accuracy while Silence prevents Magic completely, so would be looking to have both lowered and/or blocked.)
 - The other approach here is to take it like FFT Equip breaks - have different senses lowered, affecting different mages differently. Might be difficult to implement, though.
POIZN - Take damage at the (start/end) of each turn. Damage taken is ~1/8 mHP?
Slow - Lowers target to ~0.5x speed?
Dull Blade - Lowers target to ~0.5x strength?
 - etc, etc. Have one of these for most stats, presumably.

Strong(er) Status:
Weak - Lowers target's stats to ~0.5x?
Disarm - Prevents physical attacks/skills.
Silence - Prevents magical attacks/skills.
Confuse - Causes target to attack allies/enemies at random.
Berserk - Increases strength to ~1.25x? but forces the target to use only physical attacks.
Hold - Prevents movement/switching.

Fatal Status:
Stop - Lowers effective speed to 0.
Petrify - Turns character to stone. (Easier to heal than Stop, but breaks upon physical?)


This is only negative status, of course. I'll possibly take care of positive status later on if nobody else does. ;o
Any ideas/suggestions/changes would be good. ;)

[074]

Yoshi:  First thing I'd suggest is this: Divorce statdowns from formal status.  You don't need all these individual statii when you can just have statdowns that work to a certain degree, really (And if anything, they'd be superfluous in regards to that--numerical statdowns are more flexible)

As for actual status types, I admittedly have my own ideas here, with intent to categorize into physical/mental/spiritual later:

Obscured: Move decreased to 1, can only target enemies in adjacent hexes (AoEs can go beyond that, but the origin hex must be adjacent)
Poison: Standard RPG poison.  1/5 mHP seems to work here, IMO.
Immobilize: Can't move via normal means.
Seal: Can't use specials.
Panic: Can't take any actions aside from movement (and possibly switching)
Binding: Can't take actions
Confuse: Uses actions randomly, on random targets.
Berserk: Uses physical on nearest target, ally or enemy.  If multiple, choose randomly from those in range.  If none in range, move to nearest target.
Domination: Acts in the enemy's favor.
Bleeding: Akin to poison, though activates at the end of each action; move and other, for less damage each time.
Weakness: mHP reduced to 75% normal value
Backfire: Take 1/5 mHP damage when using a special.
Backlash: Take identical damage to what you deliver on an attack. Does not trigger for healing effects
Necrotized: Healing has no effect
Inversion: Healing and damage reversed
Misfortune: Most passive skills negated.  Enemy passive activation rate against afflicted raised to 100%
Reflect: Magical skills that do not specifically ignore reflection are reflected back on the caster, using caster's stats.  Reflected spells are cast placing the origin hex on the caster--if the caster is out of range, this effect does not take place.  Spells bounced back to a target who has this status simply miss them instead, though the AoE might hit others.  Self-targeted spells that do not ignore reflect automiss.  One rebound per hex.

[Yoshiken]

Mm, fair enough on the stat downs. Didn't even think about those, tbh.

For Necro, would that be healing does damage, or just healing prevented? It's making me think of Zombie, which implies all the usual FF conditions like "Draining hurts the user" and "Revival = Death."

Panic should definitely allow switching. If anything, it should -force- switching, since they'd be in a rush to leave the battle.

Backlash? Think you didn't finish that one.

Still like Blind/Numb for inaccuracy, since that can be harmful without completely rendering a character useless.

[074]

Blind/Numb is another case of "statdown masquerading as status" to me, honestly.  And Necrotized is simply "Healing prevented."

[Dark Holy Elf]

I really don't think we should have status hard thought out this early. It should be developed as we think of PCs and enemies who use the status. Having the ideas floating around is fine, but if I want to design a boss with Charm and nobody has a Charm effect yet I'm going to expect free reign on how the move should work. Similarly, if I think of a design that requires a status we've yet to think out, I expect free reign to create it. And finally, if we list a status now, but nobody ends up using it for anything, then we've pretty much just wasted our time thinking it out.

tldr make up statuses as we need them. Having an editable wiki for them would be very good!

Although I will say that Poison should be at least 20% mHP unless we have weaker healing than I expect. Those 1-10% poisons are just lulz and rarely if ever actually matter in-game.

[Magic Fanatic]

And Necrotized is simply "Healing prevented."

A good reference point to this could be Wild Arms status Disease?

[Talaysen]

I really don't think we should have status hard thought out this early. It should be developed as we think of PCs and enemies who use the status. Having the ideas floating around is fine, but if I want to design a boss with Charm and nobody has a Charm effect yet I'm going to expect free reign on how the move should work. Similarly, if I think of a design that requires a status we've yet to think out, I expect free reign to create it. And finally, if we list a status now, but nobody ends up using it for anything, then we've pretty much just wasted our time thinking it out.

That's fine and all, just if you have "free reign" I expect you (and everyone else) to consider that other characters may use the status as well.  That's the benefit of putting the ideas out here now, so we don't get people making up "common" statuses (e.g. charm, which Nama mentioned under the name "Dominate" [hate] it looks like) that only work with one character when it needs to work with many.

Agreed on poison, unless it triggers more than once per turn.  10% poison is already kind of bad, let alone lower.

Also agreed on statdown/status split.  The way Yoshi worded Blind/Numb isn't a statdown because A) it doesn't care about what the original stat value was in the first place.  Not sure if that was intentional.  Also, lowering accuracy that low before evade is pretty ridiculously effective.