Characters:Characters are differentiated by their Stats and Skills.
Stats:Only two stats exist in this game. Health and Dice Pool. Health represents how close a character is to dying. For PCs this is equal to 40, while it varies for mooks and NPCs. If your Health reaches 0 then you are knocked out of the fight until it is over, or another character revives you with a Skill. The Dice Pool represents your character's ability to use skills, deal damage, avoid attacks and so on. It replenishes at the start of every turn and is depleted by Skills, attacks and defences. For PCs, the Dice Pool is equal to 6d6. For NPCs and mooks it varies greatly. If a character's Dice Pool is reduced to 0 or less then they are completely unable to act for the turn, even if they gain extra dice through Skills or buffs.
Skills:Skills are special attacks or moves that your character gets due to their abilities. Skills can be active, which means that you have to spend dice to use them, or passive, which means that they are always usable. Examples of passive Skills would be a bonus to Health, extra dice to attack/defend, etc. Active Skills are used by spending dice in some form. So they could need a certain number of dice to use, or a roll to be beaten before they are activated, and so on. PCs get six Skills which they can create, either passive or active depending on their effects. All Skills will be vetted before they are accepted, and duplicate Skills are not allowed.
Every character has the two following Skills at their disposal:
Basic Attack (Action): Inflicts an amount of damage against an opponent equal to (dice roll).
Basic Defense (Reaction): Reduces incoming damage by (dice roll). Cannot reduce incoming damage to less than zero.
Improvised Skill (Either): If you believe that your ability will let you accomplish something but do not have an appropriate Skill for the task, you may declare an Improvised Skill and put dice towards it. For example, you may use shadows to stop lasers from firing or super strength to chuck allies at enemies without having a Skill for the situation. However the results of Improvised Skills are subject to the whims of the Pantokrator and thus should not be relied upon too heavily, lest their outcome be detrimental to your efforts. In other words, you have no reason to complain if Improvised Skills don't turn out how you expected. They are improvised after all...
Combat:Combat is divided into two sections, Action and Reaction. At the beginning of every turn, every characters' Dice Pool refreshes, meaning that it fills up with a number of dice equal to the character's Dice Pool. Unused dice left over at the end of a turn are removed and not added to the Dice Pool. Thus a default PC would start the turn with 6 d6 dice in their Dice Pool.
Turn Order:During the Action phase of the turn, characters put dice towards their Skills to attack or debuff their opponents or heal or buff themselves or their allies. Any unspent dice are carried forward into the Reaction phase.
After the Action phase, the result of Skills are determined and their effects carried out.
During the Reaction phase of the turn, characters put dice towards defending against incoming damage and negating debuffs. Any unspent dice are discarded after the Reaction phase.
After the Reaction phase, the result of Skills are determined, their effects are carried out, and damage is applied. Everyone's Dice Pool is refreshed, and the turn begins again.
Example of Combat:Example CharactersTo come later.
Notes about Combat:- Combat is supposed to be primarily between PCs and NPCs, since it is assumed that PCs are mature enough to freeform combat without it turning into a massive argument. If freeform combat does turn out to be an insurmountable problem, then the combat system will be used to resolve disputes.
- If you wish to abstain from combat for whatever reason, make sure to list it clearly on your sheet. Otherwise misunderstandings may result.
- PC staff do not have to be stated up at the moment. Once combat has been tested, I'll submit their Stats and number of Skills if you wish to.
- NPCs may or may not have better stats and skills than PCs. Don't expect the older students to be pushovers in combat and the teachers will be functionally invincible in a fight.