Tainted can theoretically be heroes, at least for a while. :p
True but I'm a more dyed-in-the-wool, chivalry and paladins, lawful good FTW type player. >.> Not that such a person slowly degenerating into a mutant horrorterror couldn't be interesting, of course.
I do intend to go into more detail, that was just the quick version.
Wasn't giving much thought to races, to be honest, partially because there are no stats except HP at the moment. Tainted are sort of a template in that regard, but still don't have any constant, all-the-time bonuses or penalties until they mutate. I assumed anything unusual, like a vampire, would just have a special power or two to it and couldn't also be a Tainted.
Also, note that Concepts are completely arbitrary and personal, so defining them as positive or negative could get tricky. If your definition of Love is savagely murdering something so no one else can have it, well, that's your definition of Love. It's not likely to be a good healing spell component, but it'll work for something.
Races could just be flavor then. If you want to be dwarf, just set up your starting abilities to be dwarf-like; if you want to be a kobold, you could take a stealth-based skill or two at the start, etc. Or you could go against the grain and say your race is an elf but just start with a pure power build. ^^
Mutations are a result of overshooting too much, and result in getting better at whatever you overshot as. They're always beneficial except for two issues. First of all, they tend to be rather noticeably inhuman, so you'll have some RP trouble. Secondly, they help you become a slavering horror quicker.
Makes sense, but you'd probably have to enforce some sort of penalty to get across how inhuman the character is beginning to be, such as a malus to charisma rolls and things like that.
Something like this occurred to me, but I wanted permanent advancement too.
How about once you have a set amount of points stored up, you can spend them on a permanent bonus? For example, earning five points and then turning them all into a flat +1 bonus to Throwing Javelins? Sorry if I seem obsessed with this concept but I was just answering this statement in relation to it. For a non-related answer, you could use Sean Mirrsen's new RTD system - as a quick recap, it's like if you have a strength score of 8 you roll 1d8, if it's ten 1d10, etc.
Under the current system, that sort of thing would probably just be a regular attack, granting a "Mobile Throat Cutting" skill point or similar if you succeeded quite well. Then you could combine that with other things to get an actual move that dealt extra damage to mooks or something.
The power/effectiveness of special moves, whether actual purchased ones or "I cut off his hands," would likely depend on what you were fighting. Trying to trip a dragon probably wouldn't really do anything, whereas trying to trip a worthless mook might very well send him careening into a few of his friends. In general I'd like to avoid crippling already worthless enemies with penalties every time you attack them, but I might allow forgoing/reducing damage for other effects without a special skill for it.
Hmm, OK. If I'm equipped with a mace and I describe this as my action for the turn: "SC ducked the incoming blow, bringing the mace around in a blow to the knee to shatter it. As the bandit fell, he would then hit him with a hammer blow to the spine and finish him with a mace-uppercut to the face," and I roll a 5, then I could get let's say a Three Hit Combo skill. If I had the concepts of Speed and Fire, then could I combine those with the skill to make three hard-to-block hits with a flaming mace? :3 Because !!bandits!! are fun. What about Strength, would adding that make the attack able to break guards/shatter armor?
I've certainly been thinking about something like that, but there's a couple issues involved. First off, I'd like to avoid massive bonuses to the roll, so Attack or Defense would probably have to be affecting damage or something instead of to-hit or dodge. Secondly, I'm not entirely sure what to do with said values; I don't like straight subtraction either. Third, I'm wondering if dealing with larger values should grant experience faster, especially since that'd avoid too much grinding of combat stats on random villagers. But on the other hand, rewarding the same amount each time or some fraction thereof would at least mean a player's stats would reflect what they spend all their turns doing.
I can completely understand not wanting to keep up with like +13 to the attack roll. So it's basically attack divided by defense equals bonus damage? That's what it seemed to me from the 2A / 4D = 0.5 BD example. If so then that should be easy to keep up with. Perhaps attacking enemies with higher defense values would yield more experience? I imagine the average villager would have a defense of 1 or 2 at most, whereas say a slime might have a defense of 3?
I definitely thought about something like that; specifically, the notion that characters that are good at avoiding getting hit aren't good at taking the hits that get through. As with you, though, I'm not entirely certain how that'd work out.
Yeah, that's always a problem. If you implemented levels, there's always that, but I'm not sure what a good amount to raise per level would be. Maybe base HP on the character's defense value?
Already done with Hadouken, kind of. There's a lot of different possible answers, but Fireball could be something like Projectile-Heat-Shaping or Blast-Flame-Burst. Healing might be Repair-Body-Life, Love-Virtue-Patience, Regrowth-Stamina-Perseverance, or even Heal-Other-Touch.
So... could I try Mutation/Growth/Flight to get giant wings? :3
...I'm sort of a fan of triangle numbers, factorials' addition equivalent. So, that's actually sort of likely.
I've got nothing here because I dislike math.