The Synergy Workshop

[Polycarp]

After a bit of a creative break I'm trying to get myself back into both my writing and my mechanics work.  I've decided to take a break from tweaking the combat numbers, which was giving me a headache, and tackle a few issues peripheral to combat - fatigue, poison, and disease.  The first post has been update with a new chapter.

I have mixed feelings about the fatigue system.  On the one hand, it's easy to lose track of where you are - "have we been in combat for 6 rounds or 7?"  TRoS uses a similar sort of system and it's not always in the forefront of your mind when you're trying to beat up a guy.  Some sort of fatigue system with discrete points, however, is needed, because the Channeling system as it exists requires it.  That, by the way, will be what the next chapter is on, and I'm excited to finally tackle it.

The poison and disease systems are purposefully verbose.  Poison plays a big role in CJ combat (and, particularly for the Umbril, CJ life in general), and I need some nice crunchy disease rules for such vile afflictions as the Saffron Moss.  I've tried to make a system that's realistic; whether it's too realistic remains to be seen.

I figured as long as we've had sample fights, why not have a sample poisoning?

Sample Poisoning

Here we have an Umbril who its enemies have decided to off with some good ol' fashioned arsenic...
[spoiler=Round-by-Round: Ul-Than is poisoned]Ul-Than is an Umbril with a Health of 10 (as is our current default).  Because of their unique physiologies, Umbril are resistant to plant and animal toxins, but arsenic is a mineral poison.  It will have no special resistance to rely on today.

Our poisoner (who wishes to remain anonymous) has some powdered realgar in mind for this occasion.  As a mineral poison, arsenic is prepared with an Alchemy (Apt|Per) check.  The poisoner needs to roll the Base Potency of the poison.  With '" let's say '" a +6 total bonus from skill ranks and attributes, this shouldn't be hard.  He rolls his random dice and gets a result of +1, giving him a final result of 7.

The way the alchemy skill works for this particular task is that the base potency is altered by 1 for every two points one's result is from the base potency (which can become higher or lower depending on your result).  Our poisoner's result was 2 more than the base, so the potency of the poison is increased to 6.  It, of course, doesn't know this '" this roll is made in secret.  Satisfied that it's made a quality product, the poisoner slips two doses into Ul-Than's delectable rotting vegetable matter.  An extra dose increases the effective potency of the poison to 7.

Ul-Than, suspecting nothing, eats its hearty meal.  This is a poison, not a disease, so it doesn't roll to see whether it is affected '" the poisoning is automatic once the dose has been administered.  One minute later, after the dormancy period has passed, Ul-Than begins to feel a bit nauseous.  It thinks this is probably something it ate (maybe something in its last meal wasn't spoiled enough?) and decides to retire to its chambers.

The GM makes a check for Ul-Than after 5 minutes.  The TN is 7, and Ul-Than's health has been reduced to 9 by the first stage symptoms.  The random dice turn up +3, giving a result of 12, which is more than enough to resist the poison.  Ul-Than remains at Stage 1.

The GM continues rolling every five minutes.  10 minutes after the onset of nausea, the check turns up 8 '" another success.  15 minutes after, 10 and pass.  I'll spare you the intermediate details, but 30 minutes after initial symptoms, Ul-Than turns up a -4 on the random dice and fails the check with a result of 5.  It progresses to Stage 2.

Ul-Than is now very certain that something is wrong.  It has sullied the fine sculpture in its room with copious vomit and is experiencing a great deal of pain.  Though Ul-Than is no poison expert, it is an Umbril, and suspects the worst.  It leaves its room and begins to make its way as quickly as possible to the colony's herbalist.

Five minutes later, the GM makes another check.  Ul-Than's Health is now 8 due to Stage 2 symptoms.  The result of the random dice is a particularly bad (and rare) -5, continuing this thread's streak of phenomenally unlikely rolls.  Only halfway to the herbalist's den, Ul-Than passes into Stage 3.

Our victim now begins to stumble as convulsions overtake it.  Ul-Than collapses, delirious and trembling, unable to get any further under its own power.  Five minutes later, the GM makes yet another check and gets a total result of 8 (Ul-Than's health is still 8 in Stage 3), enough to stave off unconsciousness.

Fortunately for Ul-Than, another Umbril comes down the corridor at this time.  This Umbril, who we'll call Thels-Var, bears Ul-Than no particular ill-will and decides that the usefulness of saving it slightly outweighs the possible negative repercussions of foiling the poisoner's scheme.  It hauls Ul-Than, half carrying and half dragging, towards the herbalist's den while Ul-Than mutters some incoherent babble about poison.

Five minutes later, the pair has reached their destination, but Ul-Than must make another check.  The result of the random dice is +3, yielding a result of 11, and Ul-Than gets no worse.  They enter the herbalist's workshop but find that nobody is there '" the herbalist must be running some errand or visiting someone else.  Thels-Var, with no personal experience in poisoning, decides to leave Ul-Than here while it finds the herbalist.

In the next ten minutes, Ul-Than makes two more checks.  The first, with a result of 9, is successful, but the second is a measly 6.  Ul-Than reaches Stage 4 and lapses into unconsciousness.

Fortunately, Thels-Var returns with the herbalist at just this moment.  The herbalist can't exactly diagnose a patient from their unconsciousness alone, but Thels-Var informs it that it found Ul-Than convulsing in a hallway with vomit on the floor and on its mouth.  This could describe several common poisons, so the herbalist begins preparing antidotes for the most likely suspects.  One of these likely suspects is arsenic.

The herbalist knows that if the answer is arsenic, the patient's prognosis is dim.  Arsenic has no strong antidote; garlic is known to have a modest impact on its toxicity, but if Ul-Than ingested a large amount of the poison (or a particularly concentrated batch) it won't be enough to make a difference.  The herbalist's only option is to crush some garlic (along with other antidotes for a few other likely poisons), force it down Ul-Than's maw, and hope that the poisoner wasn't an expert.

This process takes another five minutes, so Ul-Than makes another check at Stage 4 '" if the check fails, it will progress to Stage 5, which is lethal.  Ul-Than's current Health is 7.  Fortunately, the dice show +1 for a result of 8, and Ul-Than stays at Stage 4.

At this point, the garlic has been administered.  As an antidote, it decreases potency by 1 for each dose, to a maximum of 2 doses (as there were two doses of arsenic).  We're going to assume the herbalist gave at least two doses worth, reducing the poison's potency from 7 to 5.  A potency of 5 is high enough for Stage 4, the stage Ul-Than is currently in, but not enough for Stage 5 '" death '" which has a minimum potency of 6.  Ul-Than will continue being unconscious until it rolls a successful check, after which it will regain consciousness and be free of the symptoms of the poison, though still at 7 Health.  Its Health damage will have to be regained naturally.  And once that's done, the hunt for the poisoner begins'¦[/spoiler]

[Kindling]

Bear in mind that this response is based on reading ONLY THE LAST POST. I am unapologetically not bothering to read anything before that :P

But, if you want combat fatigue to be a factor without it just being a thing to keep track of and not much more, you could have something like "vigour points" that represent the freshness and energy of characters, that they can expend on bonuses on attacks, damage, et cetera, and will thus become depleted as combat goes on. If you stat is something that gives the players a bonus rather than a penalty, maybe they will be more keen to keep track of it?

[O Senhor Leetz]

Bear in mind that this response is based on reading ONLY THE LAST POST. I am unapologetically not bothering to read anything before that :P

This made my morning.

But Kindlings got a good idea. Having a pool of points similar to 3es subdual damage, that, as it depletes through using it's bonuses or getting hit, and therefore jarring the characters mental focus and making them physically tired, they increase the chance of taking real damage.

I really wouldn't penalize players that fight for a long time though, as penalizing players is really never a good call. There are other ways to represent battle fatigue and create suspense.

[Polycarp]

I need some way to outweigh the obvious bonuses of heavier armor.  Any fatigue/vigor system I use must be able to help balance the armor system.*I need some way to add and subtract from a character's vigor in discrete increments, because there are several Channeling forms (spells, basically) that function by adding to, removing, or re-directing fatigue.[/list]

Having X number of vitality/vigor points that you can actively use in combat or other physical situations fulfills Purpose #2, because vigor points would be in discrete increments.  I'm not certain how it would fulfill Purpose #1, though.  I mean, you could have armor put a "cap" on your maximum vigor points I suppose, but what if you took off the armor?  Would your points just bounce back up or what?  You could make point costs higher I suppose (for example, something that costs 1 vigor point would cost 2 wearing medium armor, or 3 with heavy), though how effective that is depends greatly on the utility of the VPs themselves.  If they're not that useful, it won't be much of a negative; if they're very useful, the cost will be crippling to characters with heavy armor.

The other consideration is that "vigor points" sort of already exist in the form of Breath.  Since we've established that not everyone is reading the OP (again, no apology necessary!) I'll repost just that part here:

[spoiler=Breath]Breath represents one's mastery of one's own life force. Most Earth cultures have some concept of "spirit" or "life force," and often the word they use translates literally into "air," "breath," "wind," and so on. For humans, it is breathing that distinguishes the living from the dead. In the Clockwork Jungle, the Breath is universally recognized as that which makes mere dead matter alive. All animals have it, the Forest has it '" even Cogs have it, in a limited sense, because nothing can be alive without it.

Breath is a special composite attribute. A character's Breath score is equal to 1 + the sum of all their synergy bonuses to attributes (but not the attributes themselves, which may be modified by a character's race or other factors).

Breath can be used in a variety of ways. In CJ, it is the force behind the magic system. It can also be used as a means of focusing one's spirit on a task; one point of Breath can be used to add 1 to any skill or attribute roll. This must be done before the roll is made and can only be used once per roll. This is a comparatively inefficient use of Breath compared to using it as a source for magic effects, but has the advantage of being very versatile.

There is a difference between Breath being used and being lost. A point of Breath that is used for magic or focus is simply used '" the point is temporarily depleted, but it still exists. Breath can also be lost, usually involuntarily. "Used" points of Breath are lost before unused points are. When a character loses all their points of Breath, they die. Breath loss is uncommon but can be effected by spirit-draining magic and a few deadly creatures.

Depleted points of Breath are replenished each day. Lost points of Breath are recovered at a rate of one per day.[/spoiler]

Now, this isn't quite the same thing as pure "vigor" in the sense of physical endurance.  It's more of a holistic life-force thing that includes both physical and mental power.  Still, there's obvious overlap, and I already have a (very rudimentary) mechanic by which you can use Breath to give yourself bonuses to rolls, much like you guys proposed with Vigor.

The upside of using Breath for this is that it cuts down on confusion (fewer point totals to keep track of), and it expands the use of Breath so it matters to non-Channelers too - a purely combat character could have expanded uses for Breath in the manner of vigor points to counterbalance the "magic powers" that a Channeler gets from Breath.

The primary downside is that this still doesn't address how this will fulfill Purpose #1, balancing armor.  It makes sense that heavier armor should require more vigor/stamina/whatever to perform extraordinary physical feats, but does it make equal sense that heavy armor should be more taxing on one's physical-mental life-force?  Perhaps not.

Expanded Uses and Rules for Breath/Vigor

Regardless of whether I use Breath or some new Vigor/Vitality system I do have some ideas on how they could be used.

All these uses of Breath/Vigor must be announced at the beginning of a round, after actions are declared but before the actual rolls are made.

Exertion: A character may spend a point of Breath/Vigor to add a +1 bonus to any skill roll in which Strength or Stamina is the primary attribute.
Swiftness: A character may spend a point of Breath/Vigor to reduce the prep time of a missile weapon by 1 round without penalty.
Reflexes: A character may spend a point of Breath/Vigor to add a +2 bonus to the margin of success of any riposte the character may make in that round.
Fortitude: A character may spend a point of Breath/Vigor to decrease their Shock penalty by 2.

A character can't spend more than one point on a single one of these uses in a single round, but may spend points on multiple different uses in the same round (for instance, spending one point on Exertion and another on Reflexes).  A character may not spend more points in a round than their total Stamina attribute, with a minimum of one point per round.

[Kindling]

The upside of using Breath for this is that it cuts down on confusion (fewer point totals to keep track of), and it expands the use of Breath so it matters to non-Channelers too - a purely combat character could have expanded uses for Breath in the manner of vigor points to counterbalance the "magic powers" that a Channeler gets from Breath.

The primary downside is that this still doesn't address how this will fulfill Purpose #1, balancing armor.  It makes sense that heavier armor should require more vigor/stamina/whatever to perform extraordinary physical feats, but does it make equal sense that heavy armor should be more taxing on one's physical-mental life-force?  Perhaps not.

Okay, so if I'm not mistaken, breath is more-or-less like chi, right? If that's the case I see no real problem with using it as vigour, and having armour put a cap on it - the weight and restriction of the armour restricts the flow of breath to a certain degree, and this, coupled with the fact that the sheer exertion of doing stuff while covered in metal makes it hard to focus mentally, means you're able to use less breath both for magical and martial purposes.

EDIT: Noticed you said there's a minimum spend of one point per round. I like that idea, I'm guessing it's there to represent that using a certain amount of breath is just what any fresh combatant will be doing anyway, and you only don't use any once you've run out/become "fatigued"
It puts an idea in my head, though - the idea of the mighty hero making a desperate effort to keep fighting through their exhaustion. Maybe you could put in a subrule that you can keep using breath for combat bonuses (and maybe even magic too) even once you've run out, in exchange for some kind of horrible physical penalty as the forced continued activity takes its toll on your body. Perhaps once you're out of breath you can start spending HP to do these things instead, or something.
Maybe this idea doesn't fit with the way you envisage combat in your game, it just popped into my head and I thought I'd put it out there :)
EDIT 2: Maybe instead of HP you could spend permanently-lost stamina. That way it would be something done only in the most desperate situations where a heroic sacrifice is called for to win the day.

[Polycarp]

you could make the use of these physical feats more difficult with more bodily protection.

I am starting to come around to using Breath for this.  I like that it offers competition with channeling; I've been slightly worried that there's too little reason not to be a channeler since all it requires is skill points.

EDIT: Noticed you said there's a minimum spend of one point per round.

Making the Breath spending mandatory is actually pretty interesting, though I'd worry that it could get frustrating very quickly.  You fight some mooks who clearly aren't much of a threat but get completely depleted for the next, more serious challenge.  It might be realistic but I'm hesitant to require a player to use resources when I'd prefer that they be used purposefully and wisely.

It puts an idea in my head, though - the idea of the mighty hero making a desperate effort to keep fighting through their exhaustion.

Well, there is a Health attribute, and potentially you could make it so that running through Breath requires you to start dipping into Health if you want to use physical feats.  I don't want to do that for Channeling but it does make a certain amount of sense for heroic exertions past the point of fatigue.

I'll put together some new rules for this later today perhaps.

[Polycarp]

Alright.  Fatigue has been cut (Chapter 6 is now just Disease and Poison) and I've added a new chapter on the uses of the Breath.

Conceptually, the idea is that all beings can use the Breath unconsciously; a specific use of this is called a Feat, and this is our replacement for fatigue as discussed above.  A player chooses when to use a feat, but to the character it would just be a moment of great determination and phenomenal exertion, not really an "activated" ability.  All characters have access to this, and not just characters - beasts and monsters of greater age and experience, even ones far less intelligent than the people of the civilized races, may also use feats.

Only a select few, however, have a conscious ability to perceive and manipulate the currents of the Breath, and this is Channeling.  Channeling is much less limiting than feats; there are many different effects a channeler can accomplish, many of them outside his own body.  Channeling, however, requires a personal investment of skill points.  In addition, forms (the term for a channeling "spell") require concentration, sometimes even to the exclusion of other activities, and thus entail a certain amount of risk.  And, of course, let's not discount the fact that channeling could wake up any number of hostile Cogs in your vicinity.

So far I've only put up the part of the chapter that discusses Feats, but Channeling is mostly written and soon to follow - though an extensive list of Forms may take longer.