Battle Rules clarifications
Posted by Apostate on 01/22/24
Just gotten asked a number of questions, and let me clarify a bit on points of confusion, on small tweaks I've done that made sense, and good options players have asked about.
1. NPC aid: Most major NPC factions that act as aid, such as familiars, major fighting characters (dragons, spirits, etc), add a flat victory point amount to a character they are associated with, increasing the value of their rolls. They take damage instead of that character during the battle, and on the third time of taking damage, they will either be knocked out of the battle, or the PC attached to them will decide to start taking damage instead to keep them in the fight.
2. PCs that are capable of magic can do so three times during a fight without any negative effects. This is total between offensive (the turns to gain victory points), or defensive (if they fail a luck roll and are trying to avoid damage, it is at one easier difficulty tier than a normal dodge roll). Starting on the 4th cast (so for most people, this would be turn 4 of the battles if they've used magic each time), after their @check to perform magic, they need to do a separate mana check at normal to avoid taking damage from magic use. The difficulty of the mana check will increase each subsequent magic use- so hard, then daunting, and stay daunting without.
To avoid the damage from magical exhaustion, items can be sacrificed that have magical properties. This includes any item with strong emotional ties to the character or their soul, and anything made of dragonweep, steelsilk, fireweave, alaricite, or the raw materials. Star iron items are sometimes okay case by case.
3. Utility or defensive magics during the enemy attack rounds, ie the rounds everyone rolls luck to see if they are targeted. Aside from a player using magic to lower the difficulty by one tier of their own defensive checks, characters can also use magic to lower the difficulty of a single target by one. Also, characters with magical healing can heal another player character during the defensive round if the healer succeeded their luck check and isn't being attacked, that PC has not yet been healed during the fight, and the PC is not dead. I'll also allow an aoe defensive check during the luck round, where it applies to all characters, but it counts as magic use -per character- in the battle (ie it probably maxes them out and forces a roll at daunting to avoid damage themselves).
1. NPC aid: Most major NPC factions that act as aid, such as familiars, major fighting characters (dragons, spirits, etc), add a flat victory point amount to a character they are associated with, increasing the value of their rolls. They take damage instead of that character during the battle, and on the third time of taking damage, they will either be knocked out of the battle, or the PC attached to them will decide to start taking damage instead to keep them in the fight.
2. PCs that are capable of magic can do so three times during a fight without any negative effects. This is total between offensive (the turns to gain victory points), or defensive (if they fail a luck roll and are trying to avoid damage, it is at one easier difficulty tier than a normal dodge roll). Starting on the 4th cast (so for most people, this would be turn 4 of the battles if they've used magic each time), after their @check to perform magic, they need to do a separate mana check at normal to avoid taking damage from magic use. The difficulty of the mana check will increase each subsequent magic use- so hard, then daunting, and stay daunting without.
To avoid the damage from magical exhaustion, items can be sacrificed that have magical properties. This includes any item with strong emotional ties to the character or their soul, and anything made of dragonweep, steelsilk, fireweave, alaricite, or the raw materials. Star iron items are sometimes okay case by case.
3. Utility or defensive magics during the enemy attack rounds, ie the rounds everyone rolls luck to see if they are targeted. Aside from a player using magic to lower the difficulty by one tier of their own defensive checks, characters can also use magic to lower the difficulty of a single target by one. Also, characters with magical healing can heal another player character during the defensive round if the healer succeeded their luck check and isn't being attacked, that PC has not yet been healed during the fight, and the PC is not dead. I'll also allow an aoe defensive check during the luck round, where it applies to all characters, but it counts as magic use -per character- in the battle (ie it probably maxes them out and forces a roll at daunting to avoid damage themselves).