Q&A - Question and Advice

[00Penguin]

((Geezus... Okay*pop fingers* Let's get crackin'! Ah hm... Chapter 1.))

So your starting to make you character, his/her appearance is down, you know his/her background, everything is typed down to the dot, except one area. The stats; you don't know where to put your skill points or more importantly what each stat even means or deals with. Not a problem, in this guide to the first timer, all the information on every stat will be shown and explained for your understanding.

First let's start with the first thing that you need to know. In front of you there are four stats:
Strength (Str)
Endurance (End)
Intelligence (Int)
Charm (Cha)

Where do the skill points go? I'll tell where they go, into the first three stats. Why you may ask, well I'll explain the Charm stats later on.

So now it's time to explain these stats and what their purpose holds.

First let's start with Strength...
Strength (Str), represents a character's ability to "lift, carry, and move things". There are many things that are effect by this stat, each with there own particular reasons. Many weapon license require that a character is able to at least carry the weapon around with little trouble, so Str plays into a character's weapon capabilities. The other thing that Strength plays into is a character's Unarmed Attack Damage, to put it simply the amount of damage the character can do with their bare fist.

Endurance (End), represents a character's ability to "swim, run, and climb without problems". The plays into the heart of a character's health, and also depending on the race, their stamina. Health can be explained as this, it's the life force of the character, without it they would die. Stamina, is the energy behind a character, to put is simply like this, for a character to do an ability, they need to use some energy to do it. If there is no stamina, then the character can't do any kind of actions or ability. However stamina can be recovered over time and End, also determines that as well.

Intelligence (Int), represents a character's ability to "solve and understand the world around them". This also plays into a character's weapon capabilities, because some weapons are more complex than others and they need a better understanding to be used effectively. Then there are some races or people that are more intouched with spirits which opens up another gauge called the Spirit gauge. The Spirit gauge is much like Stamina, some abilities are exclusive to Spirit gauge and can only be used by Spirit. Without any Spirit, the character unable to do the actions or abilities that require Spirit. But like Stamina, it can be recovered as well over time, so Int also plays into it as well.

So now that you have a better understanding of the Main Stats and what they play in a character's build, I'll explain in a bit more details how the Skill point system works.

((End of Chapter 1... *exhale*))

[mrcrazycakes]

(The opinions of the Shin-Ra Electric company do not necessarily reflect on those of its contractors.)

I'm honestly a bit iffy on the stats being so closely linked to the character. If someone with low endurance were to enter a thread, end up in a fight and run out of endurance, it looks to me like they wouldn't be able to so much as move. Not to mention the stats seem to relate very closely with the character's actual being; it looks like if you gave a character one intelligence, he'd be about as smart as a bag of rocks, and that's an insult to the rocks. If you ask me, I'd not link the stats to being a part of the character's personality so closely.

And on to the thing about a weapons license, please elaborate. I want to see how you would have that worked.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a neat idea, but I'm more trying to poke around and root out any problems you may have XD

[00Penguin]

Okay a quick explaination on the stats, I can understand that what I have typed down is worded unusually. Okay Crazy allow me to explain...

To explain the Endurance, and to be more detailed. While I did say that this stat 'affects a character's ability to run, swim, and climbing' it doesn't mean that if effect everything. The stamina acts much like the MP system of Kingdom Hearts. Abilities for them to be used, need to consume stamina to be used. Now if someone ran out of stamina, that doesn't mean they can't move, they just cant use their abilities for awhile.

Intelligence... same concept... sort of. As stated, the spirit acts much like stamina so there's no need to go in detail there. But the 'understanding' concept just means that if they an intelligence of 1 they can understand simple math, simple words, and simple things. But it can also be worded if in reference to required intellgence for a quest, it just means the requester thinks the character doesn't look smart enough.

I hope I explained it a little bit better. And so now I shall work on 'Chapter 2'

[00Penguin]

((Chapter 2...))

So now that you understand what the stats mean and what they relate to let talk about those skill points you have.
The first thing you should understand is that with every new character created, you’re given 30 skill points to use as you would like. Something to keep in mind, while it is tempting to put 30 skill points into a single stat, that isn’t allowed; at least one skill point should be put into the three stats and from there you can go put in the rest of your skill points where you feel your character is best represented.

Now here is the tricky part of the system, once you have all the skill points where they need to go, everything that is related to those stats need to be worked out. Understand that there is going to be a little math, but of course that’s why calculators were made. Now as previously mentioned before all the stats affect certain things and this… is where the extremes can be either a benefit or a curse.

Strength – As you recalled Strength affects a character’s Weapon capabilities, and most importantly for this case their Unarmed Attack Damage (UAD). The math for this is very simple. You take the stat and divide it by 2, once you have this number you times that by 3, and there you have your UAD. Now here is something you should if your stat is odd numbers you may get something like this, in this example.
17/2=8.5 * 3= [25.5]
The final number came out with a .5 on the end of it, all you need to do is just round up so that 25.5 become 26.

Endurance – From the last chapter, you should remember that Endurance affects a character’s Health, and Stamina (if the race uses stamina). The first thing to determine is the health, and the formula is really simple. With your base stat you times it by one half (.5) then with the total from there you add it with you base stat and that gives you your Max Health. Just remember, if your final number comes out with a decimal on the end of it, just remember to round up. Here is an example of what it should look like.
19*.5= 9.5+19= [28.5] -> Round Up -> Max Health of 29
Stamina is determined by dividing the base stat by three then multiplying by 10, and that is your Max Stamina, now if you have a decimal on the end, you’ll either need to round up or round down, as should in this example.
13/3= 4.33*10= [43.3] -> Round Down -> Max Stamina of 43

Intelligence – Intelligence works into a character’s weapon capabilities as well but the only that should be taken into consideration is Spirit. Many of the other races use Spirit as a form of Stamina so the formula used to determine the Max Stamina also applies to determining the Max Spirit as well. However if your character is not of a race that uses Spirit then it should not matter.

Okay so now that that is taken care there is one more thing that needs to be taken care of. What hasn’t been mentioned is called the Potential System.
The Potential System is a system allows more detailing of a character so that it fits to their style of life. To better understand it, think about any time when someone has come up to you and said that you had potential to be good at something. Well the same goes for the character, in that they have the potential to improve themselves better.
Potential Points (PP), are earned based on a character’s current stats. To better understand this let’s take this example of a character’s stats.

Str: 6
End: 13
Int: 11

Potential Points are earned for every number that can be divided into 5 evenly. So by these stats the character has 5 PP that (s)he can spend at one time. Understand that even though if you were to divide 6 by 5 you would get an unusual number, it’s more of the fact that by pasting the 5 that counts towards a PP. The same goes for 11 and 13 as well, because in both a 5 and 10 were pasted so they both count for 2 PP each.
So moving on, with 5 PP what can you do with them? Unlike skill points where you just add them into the stats, Potential Points take it step further allowing you to directly change your character’s ‘conditions’. Here is what I mean; going back to our Example Character, all his/her information comes out to this:

Str: 6
UAD 9
End: 13
Health 20
Stamina 43
Int: 11

So already I can see that this character Unarmed is very weak, but they will most likely make it up with the use of abilities, because of the high Stamina. So knowing this, I want to concentrate more on the Stamina and Health because he should at least be able to withstand a heavy hitter. So with a plan in mind, what I need to do is spend the points into the need areas. Of course here is something you should know, depending on what you’re trying to increase the cost of PP will be different.
If you want increase the character’s UAD, the cost is 2 PP for the UAD to increase by 3.
To increase a character’s Health, the cost is 1 PP for the Health to be increased by 10.
To increase a character’s Stamina/Spirit, the cost is 3 PP to be increased by 20
But another to keep in mind is that once the stats hit a certain point, they increase in cost to be increased much better.
However this isn’t the only way you can spend your PP, what you can do as well is safe them up to spend on other things as well. The other two things you can do are increase a Stat itself, or unlock a Hidden Potential. If a person was to increase their stat by 1, the cost is 6PP; of course this isn’t something that most would do but in some cases it may be needed depending of the situation.

Now as mentioned just a few seconds ago, a character could also unlock a Hidden Potential. A Hidden Potential is an ability that a character has ‘locked away inside’. These Hidden Potentials are abilities that are not available in shops, and are in most cases ‘unique’ to that character. To unlock a Hidden Potential, you will need spend 10PP and also tell a staff member that you want to unlock a Hidden Potential. The first thing they will ask is which one of the stats will it come from within, by picking either Str, End, or Int a staff member can determine the appropriate ability to give. Normally a staff member will pick randomly an ability from a premade list, but if you feel you earned the right to a custom Hidden Potential explain yourself in great detail. Think of it like your trying to persuade someone to buy something from you, you’ll use flowery words to pull them in, but you will most likely in this case try to convince them with logical evidence. Should you succeed, that staff member will create the custom ability based on the character and the evidence you provided in your argument. Understand that whatever you receive is your Hidden Potential for that Stat, you cannot change it nor have another Potential in the same stats, you can however later on improve the Potential in many cases making it stronger.

((Good... freakin'.... Penguin. This took forever to work out... I think I'm about rage quit several times doing this... but I finished it. End of Chapter 2.))

[prythian]

Just so you're aware, dividing by 2 and multiplying by 3, or multiplying by .5 and then adding it to the original number, are both the exact same operation... multiplying by 1.5.

Also, how many chapters is there going to be?

[00Penguin]

In my defense... which most likely at this point doesnt matter, it was late and I wanted to get it done so i could hit the hay... my brain was running on fumes at this point...

Anyways, 'Chapter 3' will be up shortly, in the meantime ask anything about the info so far.

[00Penguin]

((*clear throat* Okay...*inhale-exhale* here we go... Chapter 3))

For the people that have a better understanding of the stat system, you're more than ready to move onto the next part of the character creation process. Much earlier in these chapter, I mentioned that Strength and Intelligence affects a character's weapon capabilities. First thing first... what exactly is a character's weapon capabilities?

A character's Weapon Capabilities, are the abilities/skills that let a character use a weapon effectively with causing injury to themselves or to people around them. Here's what I mean...

Here you have Grug the Caveman, he is capable of using a tree limb as a club rather 'effectively', now by someone's sick twist of humor, a gun appears in front of Grug. Guns weren't invented at this time and Grug doesn't know what it is so what does he do? Pick it up, look down the barrel fingering the entire body and... Blam! Grug is dead.

In a nutshell, that is a character's Weapon Capabilities. So while Grug knew how to use sticks and stones effectively, he did not know how to use a gun effectively and he ended up hurting someone, basically himself.

Now another thing to understand from this example is that also explains why Intellgence plays into a character's Weapon Capabilities, it's all in a matter of understanding the weapon in question. Now how does Strength play in this as well?

Think of like this... Anybody that knows or has played Final Fantasy 7, knows that Cloud carries a Huge sword with him and he's still able to swing it around like it was nothing. Now think about this, if someone else were to try pulling this stunt they wouldn't be able to lift it off the ground. Strength plays into a character's ability to carry the weapon without problems at all.

Now with this understanding, many weapons come in two forms, simple and complex. The only thing that you need to understand about this that with a simple weapon, only one stat is required to use it. Whereas a complex weapon, requires both stats to be used.

(('End' of Chapter 3... could go back and add more... don't know why I feel like I'm missing something here.))

[00Penguin]

((It'd be hard to put the reason for weapons in the previous post so a special Chapter 3.2 for everyone... Enjoy.))

In Chapter 3.1, you learned about the weapon capabilities of characters and what is expected for a character to use weapons. However there was one question that wasn't answered... Why?

Why should I care if I have a character that doesn't have a weapon, I can still fight with my fist.

That may be true but think about this, Unarmed you can do so much that is only limited by you Str. Once you tap out to the Maximum allowed that's it... no more increasing the Awesome Godlike damage you can do. Not to mention fighting Unarmed limits you to just your reach so... Do you really want to fight someone who has a Gun or a Spear or what not that has a better reach than you do?

So in a logical sense, you will need to have weapons for a situation like this, but for a plot based reason here's what to think about...

The Year is XX11, by approval of the Senate, the right to bear weapons on one's person in public is legal. ((Hey it could happen, think about all the ridiculous laws out there...)) Why bring a proposal of this caliber to the Senate. Much like the famous words of Theodore Roosevelt, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far". With the ideals that if a person carries superior weaponry, people will leave him alone or ask for his help. An appearance can speak louder than action, of course to ensure the safety of others. Many weapons are reduced to accessory status.

At least that is the public reason.

In truth, all the myths and story of demons, while fiction are also truth as well. Living among the human race, demons have walked among humans all but detected, but an organization revealed this truth to Congressmen encouraging a scare within politics, but to better themselves out in public using laws to legal execute their actions.

A plan that is consider solid but with holes in it. As demons too under the same law are offered the same protection. Now a war has started without anyone realizing it, as an organization execute their secret actions, demons defend or slay those around them, and others use this for their own benefits.

((I may have forgotten something... again so a 3.2.1 may be added in as well later))

[00Penguin]

Attention Critics!

I came to the realization that it may be a bad idea to do a forum based on something that broken, complex and more importantly lacks the needed connections to make any kind of sense, so with a heavy but accepting heart I shall not use this idea for a forum. However I did figure out something, I should be doing a forum on something that I have knowledge and experience in, so as of this day forward, I will stride myself to make a forum that is based on one of Capcom's greatest idea that is much better than Butter toast... Ladies and Gentlemen I give you....

Monster Hunter

I'll be working on rebuilding the forum to fit the caliber but I will be coming back to this for ideas and suggestions. So... Stay tune and enjoy the Fruit punch, My eyepatch made it.

[00Penguin]

Okay so I was thinking that along with making a character, a 'player' has the choice between two beginner packages.

The packages contain items that a hunter would need when they are starting, which contains:

The weapon of their choice (From the selected list)
Potions
Rations
Map
Old Pickaxe
Old Bugnet
And several other items depending on what weapon they picked.

So what do you guys think, good idea or bad idea?
(I can understand if most people don't know what Monster Hunter is but I'm alright with that.)

[NiNeLiVeS]

Having been on a Megaman BN site before I remember picking between chip packages and that was always fun.

I'm all for it.

Even if I have no idea what Monster Hunter is

[00Penguin]

So once again not hoping someone would know but...

I goin to give a explanation of the new weapon system that I'm thinking off and I would like someone's opinion on it. Again if anybody doesn't know what Monster Hunter is, that's fine, but if someone does that would be great. Onto the weapon system...

First off I like to start off by going into detail for the Melee Weapons because they all have the same information.

All Melee weapons have a Sharpness.

Sharpness is the weapon's capability to slice/break a creature's body parts. It also acts as the weapon's durability as well. Basically the weapon's sharpness is divide up into sections that determine the weapon's attacking capabilities. For example, let's say a Weapon has three sections; Yellow, Orange, and Red. For this weapon, Yellow is it's 'sharpest' point, Orange is the weapon's dull point where more of the attacks are more likely to bounce off than do damage, and finally Red. Red is the weapon's breaking point, normally if a weapon is in the Red the weapon is more 'unstable' and at this point all the attacks will just bounce off. Should the sharpness reach 0, the weapon breaks and the Hunter is weaponless. To prevent a weapon's Sharpness to drop to 0, a Whetstone is used to sharpen the blade. A key thing to keep in mind is that some weapons may actually be sharper than Yellow, and other weapons have unusual Sharpness to them.

While it is nice to have a sharp weapon, knowing how much Attack power you can do is even better.
Attack is the damage counter that a Hunter can do to a creature. To understand how the Attack works let's use this as an example: A weapon has an Attack +3; this means taking the Hunter's Strength (Str) and adding 3 points onto it. So if the Hunter had a Strength of 18, you add 3 giving you a total of 21 damage. There are also some weapons that may multiply a character's Strength or divide it.

Of course a good offense should always be backed up by the a good Defense.
Defense act just like the Attack, except it's more for damage reduction. To determine a Hunter's damage reduction, you take the Hunter's Constitution and just add, subtract, multiply, or divide to/from it.

Another thing to understand that every Melee weapon has a capability that is only unique to there group so in some cases there maybe a Fourth stats attached.

And that is all that can be explained for Melee weapons, in the next Lesson, we'll go into details on the Range weapons and their stats.

[NiNeLiVeS]

This sounds a bit like that swordsmith game whose name I can't quite recall at the moment. Since you could use a whetstone on your gauntlets there I'm going to suspend my disbelief about sharpening hammers and so on.

However... This makes the weapon system rather complicated. You're basically adding hp statistics to every person's weapon on top of their usual attacking statistics. True, it adds a bit of realism but is this really what you want to do? People are going to have to keep track of a lot of numbers and you'll have to figure out a way to make 'sharpness' calculations more than ad hoc 'and now your weapons break' type thing.

[00Penguin]

*Sigh*
I knew there was going to be another... complex moment. But that's okay, as long as it's coming out in public.

Anyways, I want to have a little realism and closeness to game, because when I do play and my weapon's condition gets worse there will be a lot of times when it does bounce off. Of course I could do something else around the Sharpness. Like maybe a counter table. Not really sure if thats the right wording but heres the idea.

Let's say that a (excuse me if you don't know what it is) Khezu has a natural armor of 5. A hunter with a Hammer, has a Sharpness of 4, so just saying the ratio of attacks will be 5/4 meaning that for every 5 attacks on the armor, only 4 will make an impact. Now I want to keep the whetstones in, but now I think they can be used for boosting the Sharpness temporarily. So going back to the first example, the ratio was 5/4 now if the Hunter sharpen his weapon before or during the Hammer gains a +2, so now the ratio will be 5/6. This means that five attacks will hit with no problem and there is a chance to break something on the Khezu.

So I guess I may go with this unless someone says otherwise... Give a shout out if anyone has a suggestion about this.

Range Weapon Lesson will be coming soon for those who want to fight from afar. So Stay Tuned ^-^

[NiNeLiVeS]

How exactly do you plan to, ah, do it by chance? ^^; Some automated dice roll mechanism?