CHARACTER SHEET:
Name, Surname, Title, or Whatever (username in here please): Hatkat the Vigilante Seer of Nobelia (Haspen)
Class: Supermagus Supreme
Likes
*: Plushies, Paint Fumes, Beast Juice Gorgon Flavor
Dislikes
*: Lava, Beast Juice ORIGINAL
Backstory: Here comes the tragic backstory of your character. It's supposed to have paragraphs of violence, drama, vengeance and so on. Whatever it was that drove your young (or old) character to pursue the life of heroics and world-saving business, and join HoNK (Heroes of Nobelian Kingdom) organization!
MOOKS:
"Whatever evil power, god, alien overlord or dimensional demon will invade Nobelia, they shall be accompanied by Mooks." (so sayeth the World-Conquering Villain Manual, page 31).
Mooks are 1 HP (Health Point), 1 Damage servants and henchmen, who shall be obliterated in droves by Heroes during their quest(s) to protect Nobelia - and fuel up the AP (Action Point) score of the Heroes. Yes, you basically charge up your skills, spells and tricks by killing the guys working for the Big Bad!
There might be some classes of Mooks that are improved with certain bonuses; these bonuses will be listed by the name of the Mook.
The bonuses a Mook can have are: HP, Armor/Magic/Cold/Fire, Damage, Hit, Evasion. All these raise the values by 1 point only, so there will be never a Mook with 3 HP, or 3 Damage, or 2 Armor, etc etc.
NAMED ENEMIES AND BOSSES:
Named Enemies are certain captains, envoys, bodyguards (etc etc) of the main Big Bad of the season. They have decent amount of HP, some Intrinsics, mayhaps a rather powerful Weapon or an array of Skills.
Named Enemies, unlike Mooks, are one-kind only (or are they!?), and there's rarely any info in HoNK Database about them. Sages, R.O.B.O's and Sorcerors will have to use their skills to find out about strengths and weaknesses of these Named Enemies. Some of them might drop useful items or a valuable piece of equipment when killed.
Bosses are usually reserved for the End-of-Chapter-Battle; powerful combatants, with dozens, if not hundreds, of HP, with murderous skills that can OHKO even toughest of heroes, and of course like lovely end-game piñatas they are, they shall drop wondrous loot upon their death.
INTRINSICS, OR THE LIST OF ENEMY WEAKNESSES, SKILLS, GAMBITS AND WHATEVER ELSE THEY HAVE:
Intrinsics are all bits of information that relate to enemies' Skills, Ailment immunities, Armor values, passive Abilities and all other things.
For example, Giant Enemy Crab might have 'Armor: 4', 'Pincer Crush: Deals 4 Piercing Damage to Target', 'Immunity to Poison'. All these 3 are separate Intrinsics. Named Enemies and Bosses might have any amount of Intrinsics, from just few, to a thirty-something-long list of immunities, resistances, skills, and armor values.
Some of these will be revealed to you automatically when you 'hit' them; Armor: 4 Intrinsic will be found out when your Champion buddy hits them with their Claymore; info on Pincer Crush will appear when said buddy gets damaged by it, and Immunity to Poison when your Ninja-Samurai finds out about it the hard way.
Sages, R.O.B.Os and Sorcerors have a Skill that can quickly and easily reveal 1 Intrinsic to your Team right away. You can also use Hand Scanners, though you gotta procure them first.
STATS AND LABELS EXPLAINED:
HP: Health Points. These go to 0, you're dead. If your buddies get through Combat, you will start next one with 1 HP. If they get through Chapter alive, you will be healed up at HoNK HQ afterwards to full health. Of course, there are Skills and Items that can rez yo butt up in middle of Combat.
AP: Action Points. You want to do Skills and other fancy attacks, you need these. Normally, you gain 1 AP per 1 Mook you kill. Few classes have Skills that raise the AP in other ways. Some Consumables can get you some AP quite fast, but usually at a penalty.
Armor: There are 4 Armor types in the game:
*Armor: Basic armor
* affecting physical attacks. Unless a specific Damage is applied, the attack/skill you use will account for this Armor. A whole bunch of Starting armors have this value at 1.
*Mag.Armor: Short for Magical Armor. Usually has to do with magic and pure energies of the cosmos. 2nd most used Armor after the default one.
*Fire Armor: Protects against fire skills, which are quite rare. With Fire Armor 4 or higher, you're immune to On Fire! Ailment.
*Cold Armor: Protects against cold skills, which are even rarer than Fire skills. With Cold Armor 4 or higher, you're immune to Frozen Ailment.
Damage: There are 5 Damage types in the game:
*Damage: Default one that is affected by default Armor, as written above. Almost all Starting weapons deal Damage, and thus are affected by Armor.
*Piercing Damage: This one's tricky! Piercing Damage first lowers enemy Armor, and then calcs up the resultant loss of HP. Example: Your attack deals 3 Piercing Damage, and the enemy has 4 Armor. Their Armor is reduced by 3, and THEN Damage is reduced by Armor. 3 Piercing - 4 Armor = 1 Armor. 3 Damage - 1 Armor = 2 HP lost.
*Magical Damage: Most of magical-sounding skills use this type of Damage, which is reduced by Mag.Armor.
*Fire Damage: Second-rarest damage type in the game.
*Cold Damage: The rarest of all damage types in the game.
'WAT' EQUIPMENT SYSTEM:
Every hero's equipment is divided into three slots: Weapon, Armor, and Trinket.
You can wield one Weapon, wear one Armor, and adorn yourself with one Trinket. Every playable class starts with Weapon and Armor, but Trinkets can only be pilfered from enemies, found in treasure chests, or bought on TV.
WAT system is also a breakthrough in quantum stacking technology; all items that you do not wear/wield or otherwise use are placed on a huge list, accessible by every party member at any moment. The list also includes every healing item, consumable or gadget that your party might possess!
A-HA COMBAT SYSTEM:
Auto-Hit Assault system runs the combat of this game. In this system, by default, your hits always connect - whoever you target, will receive damage based on the values of your Weapon, or whatever value the Skill you've just used has.
This is modified, however, by Evasion values of your Target and the Hit value of your character. If Evasion value exceeds Hit value, a 1d6 die is employed to determine if the target successfully evades your attack.
For example: You have +1 to Hit, and the Enemy Lieutenant With Fancy Name has +3 Evasion bonus. 3-1 = 2, so if the 1d6 roll ends up being 2 or lower, the enemy Evades your attack.
Try to keep your Hit in positive values, and enemy Evasion as low as possible; conversely, you want your Evasion to be as high as possible and enemy Hit hopefully at 0, or even better, below it (and remember to bring some extra Eye Drops just in case!).
COMBAT ACTIONS AND BATTLE FORMATION:
During Combat, each Character has certain amount of available actions to take:
Fight: Obviously you stab (or shoot, or whack, or boot, or...) an evil guy.
Skill: You use one of your several Skills. Be mindful of your AP!
Switch: You switch Positions with one Ally. This does not consume Ally's turn, only yours; however, your Ally must be alive (HP above 0) to Switch places with them.
Defend: You Defend yourself (or an Ally), raising all of your Armor values by 2 until next Turn. If you're Defending an Ally, all enemy actions targetting the Ally automatically target you instead.
Item: You use an Item currently in Party's Inventory.
Retreat: Something's wrong? Time to run away! If all Characters decide to Retreat, the Battle ends instantly, allowing the Characters to backtrack, rest and regroup if needed - or, if possible at all. You never know, that giant enemy crab might chase right after you!
After all Characters use up their Action for the Turn, the Enemy team use theirs.
Characters afflicted with Quickness perform 2 actions each Turn; both need to be stated in the
same post.
Battle formation refers to the line-up of Characters (and Enemies). This is adjusted before battle, but can be changed with Switch action.
The line-up in turn affects certain Skills that target units that are 'adjacent', 'in line' etc.
Consider the following: Enemy A has a Skill that hits 2 Characters 'in a line'. If the Characters are lined-up like this:
Character A
Character B
Character C
And Enemy A targets Character A, then the second targeted Character will be Character B. BUT, if Characters B and C Switch positions, then Enemy A's skill would target Character A and Character C instead.
Now, lets look at Ültramarine's Sifor's Boom-Pack. It hits the Target for 6 Damage and adjacent units for 2 Fire Damage. If the Enemies are lined-up like this:
Enemy A
Enemy B
Enemy C
And Ültramarine targets Enemy A, it will deal 6 Damage to Enemy A and 2 Fire Damage to Enemy B. HOWEVER, if Ültramarine would target Enemy B instead, it would deal 6 Damage to Enemy B, and 2 Fire Damage to Enemy A and Enemy C each, raising the total damage dealt compared to previous situation!
EXPERIENCE SYSTEM OR 'LEVEL UPS ARE BORING AND TEDIOUS, LETS HANDWAVE THEM':
The only sort of Experience System in this game is one that grants you 1 Improvement Point (IP) at end of a Chapter. Those who fought the Big Bad of the Chapter receive additional 1 IP.
Said IP can be then spent on raising your Max.HP by 2, Max.AP by 1, or to buy one of combat bonuses: +1 Damage, +1 Hit, +1 Evasion, +1 Armor, +1 Mag.Armor. These five bonuses cannot be re-bought to further increase your combat modifiers.
So yeah, experience and levels are just a way to beef up your character a bit, so they don't get killed too fast.
INTERMISSIONS, OR CHILLING OUT BETWEEN CHAPTERS:
Between each Chapter, you will have an option to Chill Out. You can take your Character out to Shop, or you can roleplay with your fellow Heroes in an attempt to raise Shipping Ranks with them.
There HoNK HQ Space Station is full of vending machines, quirky little shops, and bulk-selling warehouses. It's the only way to get Consumables; most Healing items are stocked at HoNK HQ, ready for taking when you need them.
Sometimes, you might find a traveling merchant (with plethora of various items) who has arrived on the station, or a new, specific shop being opened. Both Merchants and Shops offer certain, otherwise hard-to-get items, and most often, they're quite pricey too. Keep your eyes open!
SHIPPING RANKS:
Obviously, in a big team of Heroes, there will be relationships developing between certain characters - no animesque heroic story can be complete without them!
In-between Chapters, you can roleplay with other Heroes. Said roleplay
should absolutely NOT breach the forum rules in any way. The great Toad is always watching, remember that.
Once your roleplay a bit, and a new Chapter has not started yet, the GM will review your roleplay, and, GM's majesty willing, you shall receive 1 level of Shipping Rank! Each Shipping Rank gives you a bonus as long as the character you're Shipping with is adjacent to you during Combat.
Bonuses to Hit, Evasion and Damage do NOT stack, and only the highest values will be applied. So if you're adjacent to one person with whom you have Shipping Rank E, and other person with whom you have Shipping Rank C, you will receive +1 Hit, +1 Damage, and +1 Evasion bonus only.
Skills received via Shipping Rank, however, are not subject to adjacency requirement, and can be freely used to boost the person you're Shipped with.
Shipping Ranks F to A: These ranks are 'free-for-all', meaning you can get any character to A rank, if you're diligent enough and have that much spare time to roleplay them all.
(F): Default, non-listed Shipping Rank, just here to fill out the grades. No bonus.
E: You know this guy, they're with you on the team, and they're good combat partners, too. +1 Hit.
D: Someone you can trust and depend on in stressful situations. +2 Armor when Defending Allies with Rank D or above.
C: This person inspires you to reach your full potential. +1 Hit, +1 Damage, +1 Evasion.
B: One of close friends, whose words will cheer you up. Grants Skill: 'Kind Words (0): Target receives +1 Hit, +1 Evasion, and +1 Damage until next Turn. Targets can be Allies with Shipping Rank B or higher only.'
A: Best Friends Forever! With them at your side, you can defeat any evil foe, no matter how powerful! +2 Hit, +2 Evasion, +2 Damage.
Shipping Ranks S to SSS: These ranks are reserved to best of best friends, and those beyond that. You can have only 3 Characters at these ranks. One can reach Rank SSS; second can only reach rank SS, and the third is limited to Rank S.
S: Definitely past simple friendship now, you just don't realize it. Grants Skill: 'Personal Care (0): Restores 2 HP and clears up to 4 Ailments. Targets can be Allies with Shipping Rank S or higher only.'
SS: Are you guys dating or something? I can bet you've seen each other nude too, you lewd animals, you. Grants Skill: 'Something Special (0): Maxes out Target's AP. Targets can be Allies with Shipping Rank SS or higher only.'
SSS: Let's be honest, the only reason you two aren't in wedding apparel right now is because you're too busy defending Nobelia and vanquishing evil. +3 Hit, +3 Evasion, +3 Damage.