Welcome one and all to the latest Tournament of the Golden Dragon. Unlike many other martial arts tournaments you may have seen, this one involves flying, energy blasts, and rapidly escalating power levels. Good luck!
Basics
System is largely standard RTD d6, with overshots tending towards overboard but still beneficial. Higher than 6 or lower than 1 are generally more severe but similar to their respective numbers.
Opposed Rolls
Opposed rolls function independently of each other, rather than going on a higher-wins system. This means that a [6+3] vs [5] might very well be a full dodge, for instance, since you dodged nearly perfectly. Of course, rolls are also relative; at some point, an attack might not be dodgeable on a [5] because circumstances make dodging something like that completely infeasible.
Combat, Wounds, and Energy
Combat is generally composed of opposed attack and defense rolls. The precise descriptions can have definite effects on the end results, and situational bonuses or penalties can apply to some actions.
Wounds, becoming tired, demoralized, and so on are generally abstract. Wounds will accumulate and slowly heal over time, so simply avoiding major shots can still wear you down, while even major injuries can sometimes be recovered at least partially from even while in battle.
The frequency of death tends to depend on your opponents. Most injuries will result in unconsciousness, but particularly powerful or vicious foes may make special effort to see you dead.
Situational Benefits
Certain circumstances can give you bonuses or penalties to rolls. Some of the most common are listed below. Note that this list is neither exhaustive nor guaranteed; there may be circumstances where a given bonus doesn't apply or a new penalty does.
Respective Strengths: The easiest way to get a bonus to your rolls is to be massively better than your opponent at what you're doing. As a general rule, every difference of 5 points between the Attributes (see relevant spoiler) currently being used gives a +1 bonus to the stronger combatant. This means 10 above grants +2, 15 grants +3, and 20 would be +4, though by that point there might not be any point rolling at all if they're fighting seriously.
Spam: Using the same move over and over again tends to reduce its effectiveness. The exact amount may vary depending on the circumstances, but using the same move several times in a row, or interchanging the same two moves over and over again, may impart a temporary bonus to enemies' attempts to bypass it.
Super Effective: Sometimes, using the right tool for the right job pays off. Attacks or defenses specifically designed to counter what the enemy is doing, be that "Spamming Shara-kai Seeker Discs" or "moving around really fast," can grant a bonus to your efforts provided they're extremely well-suited to the task and something the enemy has been doing a lot. As a general rule, this sort of thing overlaps with short-term spam bonuses early on; it's only when they make a persistent habit over the course of a long fight that coming up with a specific counter can be useful.
Attributes
Attributes are broad categories defining how powerful your character is in certain fields. Attributes tend to be fairly broad and flexible, but a given attribute can't do everything.
Strength: Strength represents raw power. It's used for anything involving brute force, including punching things really hard, firing death cannons really hard, lifting heavy objects, and hurling enemies through mountains.
Endurance: Endurance represents toughness. It's used for anything involving just tanking hits, including getting punched, getting lasered, getting hurled into mountains, or bodyslamming an enemy for more damage than you take.
Speed: Speed represents how fast you can travel. It's used for anything involving physically moving yourself someplace else quickly, including rushing an enemy, running away from an enemy, intercepting an enemy, or intercepting a friend before he's hurled through a mountain.
Agility: Agility represents the speed and precision of your limbs. It's used for anything involving rapid, precise movements, including dodging in place, punching through someone's guard, twisting out of someone's grip, or [INSERT-MOUNTAINS]
Attributes are used every time you perform an attack or defend, in addition to several other actions. In most cases, and particularly in the case of defending, it's fairly self-evident what attribute(s) you're using, but there's often no harm in being clear.
Experience
Experience has a chance of being gained every time you train or fight in combat. You may also rarely gain bonus experience for exceptional actions.
[Note that this system is highly experimental, and thus subject to change.]
Every time you roll a die, you have a chance to gain experience based on your enemy's power and your roll. The base amount for training or fighting even opponents is as follows:
1-2: +0
3-4: +1
5-6: +2
Your enemy's power can modify this. For each +1 you get while fighting them, your experience gain is reduced by 1. For each +1 they get for fighting you, it's increased by a similar amount. In the event that you cannot gain experience due to having a +2 or greater bonus, you might still gain half a point for each 5 or 6.
The amount of experience required to increase an attribute is always 2. Barring unusual circumstances, gaining more than 2 experience at a time simply carries over, leveling an attribute multiple times if necessary.
In addition to official experience, you may gain bonus exp based on exceptional accomplishments. This might be narrowly escaping certain death, hitting a shot perfectly, or simply pulling off something funny.
When attacking or defending, there's nothing wrong with simply punching someone. However, it tends to be less interesting than using the Thousand Crimson Lotus Dragon's Coils Kiss Attack. Thus, you may develop and use special abilities.
Special abilities may be developed in training or in the middle of battle, though obviously failure tends to be more catastrophic in the middle of battle. In either case, developing a special ability counts as training for the purposes of experience gain.
Special abilities usually require energy to use, which is an abstract measure of your general stamina and mystical reserves. Spamming special attacks will thus tend to tire you out and prevent further effective ability usage for a while.
Abilities tend to be limited in effective number; fighters who acquire too many abilities tend to find that they can't possibly use them all in battle or train them all out of it, and are thus either less effective with all abilities or have several that they theoretically know but have atrophied past the point of effectiveness. Heavily themed fighters also tend to find their powers being more focused and potent than more eclectic warriors.
-Signup Sheet-Name: What people call you and/or you call yourself.
Physical: What you look like.
Mental: What your personality is like.
Bio (Optional): More in-depth look at your personality, goals, and/or history.
I'll accept 8 players at start, since that's the number needed for the tournament, but we'll have to see if I need to drop some slots when people die. Not that you're going to die in the tournament or anything; that part comes after.