Gaming concepts that I have repeatedly hit on have been stats, classes, affinities, abilities, and, more recently, caster level. I'll try to be brief on stats so I can get to the stuff you like-classes
Stats:
I genuinely wanted a powered-down stat system, and I had a lot of precedents to look at. Most of my inspirations are tabletop in nature. So far, the only person with a stat over 5 is Nora with her intelligence of 9. Yes, it is a 9, which is what fuels her very high mana totals. Humans should range from 1-10. Stats matter for abilities. I have suggested that there are minimum stats for higher tiers of abilities. They actually fall along lines of prime numbers. If an ability or skill has a stat affinity, then that is the stat involved. Arcane uses Intelligence, Divine and Nature use Wisdom, while performance uses charisma.
Tier 0- 1
Tier 1- 2
Tier 2- 3
Tier 3- 5
Tier 4- 7
Tier 5- 11
It goes higher from there, but I won't really spoil that particular fun for anyone. This does mean that to learn and use a tier 5 ability, a human needs a stat that is1 beyond the normal racial maximum. As people level, they will exceed the maximums for normal humans. That is to be expected.
Classes:
I obviously went for a bit of whimsy and humor with the class choices. It serves a dual purpose: my bad sense of humor and the imbalance between the demons and humanity. The Abyssal Orcs have classes like grunt, Vanguard, Shield Crusher, and so on. The lupin have scouts, hunters, assassins, and rangers. Their spellcasters have classes like Warlock and apprentice wizard. Our main party started with Legislative Aide (Neal), Advanced Student Athlete (Chris), Money Guy (Billy), Outdoorsman (Joe), Soldier (Frank), and Child Prodigy (Nora). Those are below:
Class: Legislative Aide (Basic Tier, Uncommon Rarity) Levels: 5
Affinities: Intelligence, Charisma, Knowledge, Law, Politics
Health per level = 4 Mana per level = 0
Bonus mana: 1/3 of Charisma
Gains ability/caster levels at 1st, 3rd, and 5th level
Gains one point in Charisma at 2nd, gains one point in Intelligence at 4th
Gains Ability Slots at 1st level (already reflected on status page) and another ability slot at 4th level
Class Ability-Assess (Tier 1)-Arcane, Knowledge, Divine, Performance
As a class ability Assess may be used a number of times per day for no cost equal to the user’s Intelligence.
This ability gives information on beings. It provides information on species, class, level, resistances, and any weaknesses. The higher the effect level the more information. At the first level of effect, only species, class, and level can be obtained. Individuals subjected to this ability can become aware of its use on them if their level is higher than the effect level of the user. If the subject is significantly higher level than the caster, then they may resist such attempts at assess.
Class: Money Guy (Basic Tier, Common Rarity)
Levels: 5
Affinities: Intelligence, Academic, Money, Mercantile
Health/level: 2 Mana/Level: 0
Bonus Mana: None
Gains 1 ability/caster level at 5th level
Gains 1 intelligence at 2nd and 4th level
Gains 1 Ability slot at 3rd level
Class Ability: Money bags.
Money Bags (Tier 2)-Arcane, Money
User gains an extradimensional space of 2meters cubed and growing by 10cm cubed every effect level. It costs nothing to place items into or bring out of this extradimensional space. It only holds items that the system deems to be viable currency. This includes most precious metals, gems, bars of purified mana, and mana cores.
Class: Advanced Student Athlete (Basic Tier, Common Rarity)
Levels: 7
Affinities: Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, 2 bonus of choice*
Health/level: 5 Mana/level: 0
Bonus Mana: None
Gain 1 Str at 1st level; Gain 1 Agility at 3rd level; Gain 1 Constitution at 5th level; gain 1 stat of choice at 7th level
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Gain 1 abiity slot at 3rd, 5th, and 7th level
Class Ability: Strong Foundation
Strong Foundation: from first ability gained select 2 affinities, those two affinities are permanently added to your affinity list.
Class: Soldier (Basic Tier, Common Rarity)
Levels: 10
Affinitites: Strength, Agility, Constitution, Martial, Military
Health/Level: 7 Mana/Level: 0
Bonus Mana: None
Gains 1 Caster level at 5th level
Gain 1 Str at 2nd level; Gain 1 Con at 4th lvl; Gain 1 Agi at 6th lvl; Gain 1 Con at 8th lvl
Gain ability slots at 3rd level, 7th level, and 10th levelAbility: Shield Taunt- (Tier 1) Strength, Law, Martial, Military
As a class ability, Shield Taunt- can be used a number of times a day equal to the user’s Strength. Afterwards, it gets treated like any other Tier 1 ability.
With shield taunt, the user produces a sound with their shield, be it knocking an item against the shield or striking a part against a solid surface. This causes a half circle emanating outward from the shield's facing, up to a distance of 10m+1m/effect level to force a wisdom save against all applicable enemies. Failed saves cause targets to move toward the caster and attempt an attack. Every 10 seconds, they may attempt to resist the taunt. Success means they are free to act however they choose, while failure means they must continue to act aggressively towards the caster. Maximum duration is 10 seconds/effect level.
Class: Outdoorsman (Basic Tier, common Rarity)
Levels: 10
Affinities: Agility, Constitution, Wisdom, Hunter
Health/Level: 5 Mana/Level: 0
Bonus Mana: None
Caster levels at 3rd level and 8th level
Gain 1 Agi at 2nd lvl, Gain 1 Con at 4th lvl; Gain 1 Wis at 6th lvl, Gain 1 Con at 8th lvl.
Gain ability Slots at 2nd, 5th, and 8th levels
Class Ability: Hunter’s Mark- (Tier 1) Agility, Hunter
With Hunter’s Mark, mark one enemy within 50m+3m/effect level. This mark improves the caster's ability to track, spot, and hit the marked. It will also lower natural damage reduction of the target by 1 point at 1st effect level, and one additional point every 5 levels after that. The enemy is marked for 10 minutes/effect level. The spell can only be cast on one target, and additional castings by the same caster will end the previous casting of the spell. The spell also ends with the death of the target. The caster is notified that the target is dead. Does not work on non-living targets.
Class: Child Prodigy (Basic tier, Rare-Mid Rarity)
RESTRICTION: must be first class. No one is ever able to obtain this class beyond it being their initial class.
Levels: 5
Affinities: Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Academic
Health/Level: 4 Mana/Level: 0
Bonus Mana: ? Intelligence
Caster Level at 2nd level
Gain 1 stat point to spend freely at every level
Gain 1 Ability Slot at every level
Class Ability: True Prodigy(Passive, inherent, Class Specific)
When class is taken, select up to 4 affinities of your choice and add them to your permanent Affinities. If they aren’t chosen before attaining the 2nd level, then any unfilled slots will be chosen randomly by the system.
You have probably noticed a few similarities with the various rarities. The biggest is the bonus mana stat. Commons have 0, uncommons typically have 1/3 of a stat, while most rares have 1/2 of a stat.
Affinities:
These are how I wanted classes, abilities, and skills to work. When you have a certain affinity, that opened up specific abilities and skills to you. You can take skills without corresponding affinities, but they cost twice as much to advance. Most skill point gains are under the hood, which is why I haven't focused on that part. Abilities require corresponding affinities. With Nora being the only one to have Arcane at the moment, she is getting all the cool magic items. Brett technically has Arcane Lightning, but for him to use an ability requires it to have both affinities in the description. Unfortunately, no Lightning Bolt just yet.
Abilities:
I imagine most readers have more than caught on that a lot of abilities are just old school Dungeons & Dragons spells. However, the extra mana capacity that Neal got would have been the equivalent of a third edition feat. So the more apt understanding is that Abilities are Feats and spells all rolled together in one category. Since a lot of feats are passive in nature, they have a slightly higher tier because they are always active. You will see more passive Feat-like abilities in the coming chapters. In the future, I will put together a whole long thing on abilities. For now, I think it is enough to let people know that basic reasoning.
Caster Level:
This was the big reveal in chapter 21: the realization that as caster level goes up, ability cost goes down. It is a massive insight into the system, as from what little they knew, most abilities would be so far beyond them, that they probably had no hope of using them. Yes, I do have a massive chart that works from caster level 1 all the way to caster level 100. It covers Tier 0 to tier 9. I won't show all of that today, as it feels way too much like a spoiler.
I wanted you to see a slightly larger context, and have hope that as costs go down and mana stat slowly rises, that using those tier 0 and tier 1 abilities will be way more common. I hope this type of chart gives you some hope that humanity has a chance.
I'll return with a regular chapter tomorrow, but I felt like a little journey under the hood would be fun.
Do You want more of this type of chapter?
