Character Generation

All right. A lot of this should be familiar for people who were part of IoG2. If you weren't, you can talk to me with any questions. If you were, and you forget what the heck is going on, you can still talk to me with questions. I just might be a bit more sarcastic.

Things are a little more variable this time. More options to choose from. The equations are largely the same, though the numbers are going to be a bit smaller- gear is going to be a much smaller contribution this time around.

Base Stats

First up is generating level 0 stats.

Each character will have 90 points to distribute between six base attributes. An even spread will put 15 points in each stat. Each stat must have a minimum of 4 (roughly 25% of average). If you want to go beyond 23 points in a stat (or 150% of base) you can, but each point beyond 23 costs 2 of the initial 90 points. Going beyond 30 will cost 3 points per increase. Yes, this means you could in theory have a character with 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, and 39 for your starting stats. Yes, this is a terrible idea. If you want to go beyond 30 in something, you should really discuss why with the GM. If you want to go beyond 23.. well, that's ok. Just be aware that making yourself too weak in other areas could impact you in awkward ways.

Like falling over a lot if you have minimum hp and defenses. Just saying.

The six attributes are as follows:

• Muscle: A character's physical strength. Your character's melee attack power will be derived from this stat. Hit Points will be partially dependent on it, and some ranged attacks may use muscle to calculate part of hit, when wielding oversized weapons (or attempting to use two large weapons at the same time.)

• Stamina: This is a measure of physical toughness and resilience. Physical damage reduction will depend on this stat. It will also contribute to HP. Some status effects will be resisted using Stamina.

• Talent: Your character's ability to bring their mind to bear on the world. Magical attack will depend on this stat, and it will determine part of your MP.

• Willpower: A measurement of the ability to remain focused and in control of oneself. Magical defenses and the resisting of mental status effects will fall under this attribute. It will also contribute to MP totals.

• Dexterity: Deftness of hand. Dexterity will determine your chances of hitting, critically hitting, or failure with attacks and some spells, both ranged and melee. It will also partially determine action order.

• Agility: Nimbleness, lightness on one's feet. Agility contributes to speed in action order, as well as the ability to avoid damage.

Leveling

Now that that is done, you need to choose whether you want your statistics to level up Manually or Automatically. Manual leveling will give you much more freedom determining where you want your points to go, and will allow you to change the proportions of your stats as the game goes on. Automatic leveling locks you into your current proportions, but will wind up getting you a few more stat points as you go through rounding errors. Total number of points in statistics will double every ten levels.

Mechs & Piloting

Designing your mech will be done on a per-character basis one-on-one, but it is important to note that the character's base stats will be included in the mech, as the mechs are a mixing of machine and magic, powered and controlled both by state-of-the-art technology and the personal will of the pilot. With their own base frame stats, mechs will be able to either cover for their pilots' weaknesses or enhance their strengths, though it's worth noting that the Messembrian government isn't going to field certain highly unbalanced mechs- a very fragile character is not going to be assigned an especially fragile mech.

The next choice to make is something of a slider, between Personal stats and Piloting stats. This slider can go to 10 in either direction. At 10 points in favor of Personal, the character's personal stats will increase by 10%, and mech stats will decrease by 10%. If you chose to take 5 points towards Piloting, your mech stats will increase by 5%, and personal stats will decrease by 5%. An even or middle rating will result in no change to either set of stats.

Skill Groups

Instead of a potential pool of MXP, each character will have a number of skill groups. At base, everyone will have two skill groups, one attack per turn, and two accessory slots. Additionally, each character will have the ability to choose two other things. These other options will be:

• A skill group, accompanied by an increase in MP

• Another attack per round, accompanied by an increase in HP

• Additional accessory slot, accompanied by an increase in HP

• Five extra starting stat points, accompanied by an increase in HP or MP

• A 5% boost to your lower stat of piloting/personal, accompanied by an increase in HP

• An additional unique ability, accompanied by an increase in MP

Unique abilities are abilities that are unique to a character. (This may come as a surprise to no one.) These are abilities like Trune's ability to use all elements, Saki's ability to punch through barriers, and similar. These will, again, need to be generated on a one-on-one basis.

Every character will start with one unique ability, in addition to any other selected ones. Further unique abilities may (will) be gained as the game goes on.

Skill groups! These are types of abilities. They can be themed a couple ways, and we can build specific groups to suit people's concepts.

• Weapon skills: Martial arts, rifles, swords, grenades, whatever weapon type you want to use.

• Elemental attack magic: Mostly attacking, some buffs or debuffs possible. The elements return from IoG2, but in two cycles this time:

  • Water, Fire, Air, Earth, Lightning

  • Nature, Light, Dark

• Non-attack magic: Things like a dedicated healing, buffing, or debuffing group. These can be grouped by a theme: “healing” or “defense” or “status effects” or by an element. If not assigned a specific element, these spells will usually be flavored with an element your character knows or the element of the geode being used to cast it. Most of the time helpful spells' elements won't really matter, but for debuffs or status spells leveled against enemies it may become an issue.

• Physical skills: These can be things like stances or self buffs/self cures. These will generally use stats other than your magic power, but will usually only be able to affect yourself or a single target you physically contact.

• Other: If you have any unusual ideas you want to run with that don't really fit into the above categories, that's ok! Float an idea, we'll figure something out.