Race Selection
The very first step to any RPG is to pick what you are going to be playing in the game. TechArcana offers eleven different races for you to choose from, with a wide range of abilities that will add to your story. Being from different planets you can expect that they are not the same, their culture, beliefs and even how big they are, all of this is different and it’s been taken into account. Let us show you an example below of the different details you need to work through when deciding on the race to pick.
"(L) Xeluios Goraganthor- +2 dice to put into Physical, 3 times a day he or she can boost her physical stats +1 point on all three in her Abilities section for a total of one scene. "
The Xeluios Goraganthor have an “L” in front of their name to represent them as Large creatures, in the new system the races have size modifiers that change a lot of how they will be played.
Small: Reach- 2 feet, +1 difficulty to be hit
Medium: Reach- 5 feet
Large: Reach- 8 feet, -1 difficulty to be hit.
Now that you understand size difference it’s time to look at the rest of just what goes into the creation of this character. “+2 dice to put into Physical” means just that. Each race has different modifiers to the starting point reserve. The race modifier adds to this number.
Point reserve
The amount of points you have to spend in your Abilities and Capabilities sections.
Abilities section you have a total of 10 points you are allowed to spend between Physical, Social and Mental.
Capabilities section you have 30 points to spend between Physical, Social and Mental.
The example race has +3 to put into their physical section this of course means that they have a total of 13 points rather than 10 but the extra three can only be used in the Physical category. Now that you understand the race difference in point modifiers we will move on to the next section of this races abilities.
“3 times a day he or she can boost her physical stats +1 point on all three in her Abilities section for a total of one scene.”
This means that 3 times you can put one more point into your Strength, Agility and Endurance. This increase is not permanent and lasts only for the rest of the scene that character is in, after the scene is over the character returns to normal.
Combat
Combat is a large part of any action game, below we will take you through the steps of combat in TechArcana.
Initiative
The Initiative is rolled whenever actions in the game must fall in order. The most common use for initiative is of course battles. To find your initiative roll one D10 and add your Awareness + Agility this will decide your total initiative.
Difficulty
The difficulty to perform most actions is 8 minus your governing Ability to give you your difficulty. (Michael wants to punch a target and he has strength of 3, his Difficulty is going to be 5. The more you have in the ability the more likely you are to be successful when trying to perform actions under the said ability.)
Success
When you roll your dice there is an amount of success you are able to get while it is true one success means you still do the task you set out to however how well you do it depends on the amount of success you get.
1 success: The action you are trying to perform is a half success while you succeed it is just by the hair on your head and if it is an attack roll the damage will be cut in half.
2 successes: You perform the action as you set out to no better or worse.
3 successes: You went above and beyond hitting a bulls eye when all you wanted was the target, landing on some trash bags when all you were trying to do was hit the dumpster. For combat each success you get after this adds another point of damage onto the damage you roll for the normal attack.
Actions
The more speed you have the better you will respond physically to a challenge when in battle to determine the number of actions you get add your Agility +1. This will be the number of actions you can take in one round.
Moving: When you spend an action to move you can move twice your reach depending on your size category every action.
Each action you spend to focus lowers the difficulty of the action by 1.
Examples of actions:
Fire a weapon
Swing a bat or throw an object
Tap a small code into a computer
Dodging
Reloading… The list goes on.
Health
Each person starts with five health; they then add their Endurance to get the total amount of health they have. The small chart below shows how health effects what you do.
5: Full health
4: The difficulty for an action is at a +1
3: The difficulty for an action is at a +2
2: You loose an action and one dice to your roll
1: You loose an action and two dice to the pool
The health levels stack on top of your basic health levels and so until you go past the health from your endurance you suffer no penalties it is only when you drop below 5 do you start to suffer penalties.
Damage
The damage types are Minor, Moderate and Sever. The list of these three are below.
Minor: No real tissue damage (bruising but no broken skin or bleeding.)
Moderate: Some tissue damage (damage that has caused the skin to break)
Sever: Major amount of tissue damage (damage from a fire or chemical.)
((5 Minor, damage equals 1 Moderate, damage and 5 Moderate equals 1 sever. Once you hit your total hp in sever damage you are incapacitated and must roll your endurance difficulty 8 to stabilize yourself once you reach –5 health you die.))
Resisting and healing damage
The ability to resist damage can be very helpful when the bottles start to fly in the saloon
Minor: Can be reduced by Stamina roll difficulty of 6.
(You heal this damage in your stamina per hour)
Moderate: Reduced by half with stamina (round up).
(You heal this damage stamina per day)
Sever: Cannot be reduced by Stamina
(You heal this damage one point per day)
Willpower
People can will themselves to do amazing things when the need is great enough each race starts out with 3 willpower points to spend per day. A person regains their willpower each day.
You can do things such as add a dice to a roll, get one extra action and negate a mental effect however in the case of canceling out the effects of another mind you will need to match or beat their roll when you roll your will power.
(Taylor rolls resolve + manipulation to persuade a cop to let him go with just a warning and got 2 success on the roll. The cop would then roll a willpower lets say 3, the cop would have to get 2 or more success on his willpower roll or Taylor gets out of having to pay for a ticket.)
Experience
Experience chart
To purchase something with experience you have gained this chart has been made to let you know how much something costs
Ability: 2x current level of ability
Capability: 1x current level
Willpower: 3x current level
To purchase something you have yet to get a point in, your cost will be 2 to open up that capability.
Notoriety
As you gather experience you gain notoriety from those around you this chart will show you the amount of respect you should get for your level of notoriety as well as the amount of experience you must get to move up another level in notoriety.
Level 1. Experience required – 40 (people in your area know of your name but just rumors and so forth)
Level 2. Experience required – 80 (people catch you on the street and know of your deeds)
Level 3. Experience required – 120 (you are well known in your city and in the circles you travel)
Level 4. Experience required – 160 (very popular in your city and you have slight pull within your circle)
Level 5. Experience required – 200 (anyone who is anyone knows of you and you are well liked in your region)
Level 6. Experience required – 240 (your name is whispered among others across the stars)
Level 7. Experience required – 280 (you will be noticed at a space station even thousands of miles from home. You are famous or infamous for your deeds.
Level 8. Experience required – 320 (you are the “go to” guy when something needs to be fixed or broke.)
Level 9. Experience required – 360 (stories are being told of your deeds through out the stars its hard to get a moments peace)
Level 10. Experience required – 400 (You are a legend just a glance can cause terror in an enemy and the sound of your voice can inspire awe in everyone around you or)
Elemental Magic system and information
Spells are to be based upon a system that relates spell casting potential to arcane training.
There are 10 Arcane Lore ranks to be gained so, in relation to that relevant number, each rank shall grant 10 elemental allotment points to be utilized by a character. Each of these points are to be in addition of those gained by a requisite of character and characters beginning elemental disposition.
In simple terms, if an apex (say, fire) gains a rank in Arcane Lore then his elemental allotments could look something like as follows:
Fire: 6
Earth: 3
Wind: 1
Water: 0
The Ten allotments were distributed as 4/3/1/2 and +2 to fire due to the Apex condition, -2 to Water on the same basis.
The Elements are the same as in previous incarnations of the game, and the Apex, Pre and Post Conditions still remain the same.
Apex: +2 to given alignment/-2 to opposed, Pre: +1/-1, Post: +0/-0.
Spells
Spells shall now have several categories that are relevant to the casting of said ritual.
Spell Title: (The given name of the spell.)
Spell Range: (The range of the spell.)
Spell Cost/ Circle: (The relevant cost of Temporary Arcane Points to cast the spell and the Circle.)
Spell Casting Actions Required: (All spells now shall require a number of action spent in concentration in order to focus one's 'potential' into the appropriate spell matrix to cast said spell.)
Spell Description and Effects. (This section includes a slightly more advanced description of effects than those we have used before, as well as duration, beginning radius ((if any)), and the amount of damage, etc. that is to be performed by the spell in question.)
Spell Casting Systems and Difficulties
The Casting Systems now involve the use of the Arcane Lore ability and the Intelligence Attribute. The Standard difficulty for any spell to be cast shall be 8, due to the actual problems required to warp the reality of the active world to suit one's will.
To prepare the casting of a spell, a number of dice equal to the sum of the Arcane Lore ability and the Intelligence attribute should be rolled against a difficulty of 8 to see as to whether or not the player succeeds in casting.
So something like that as follows:
Intelligence + Arcane Lore = Casting Dice Pool, Standard Difficulty for success is 8.
The difficulty is modified in relation to one's training, one's position and one's enhancements available to do so. In example, Should a Fire Apex be standing on the edge of a lava pit, or next to an exposed reactor of some sort, then invariably he/she gains the upper hand on manipulating said force, over the Water Apex standing so many feet away.
For a significant presence of a given element, 3 for the purpose of casting the spell reduce the difficulty.
For a moderate presence, the difficulty is reduced by 2.
For a lesser (yet noticeable) presence in excess of normal amounts, the difficulty is reduced by 1.
Also, after a player has attained five ranks in Arcane Lore, an additional one for every Arcane Lore rank attained reduces the difficulty for all spells. So the difficulty is reduced by one for a rank of six, two for the seventh rank, etc.
Spell Repertoire and Gains
At each rank of Arcane Lore a player attains, he/she gains three spells to show as a result of the training endured to gain said rank. At least one of these spells must be a spell of the appropriate elemental alignment.
Other spells may be gained by experience expenditure, given the appropriate amount of time is spent and the character is in the proper place to attain such training.
For example, Sally is a Fire Apex who has traveled to the Visulan Enclave known only as the Mali'Tova...The Burnt Mound. While there she spends three weeks in research to attain the appropriate training to earn another rank in Arcane Lore, studying amongst them in the volcano, which the Academy resides.
Also, in example of gains without attaining ranks in Arcane Lore, Sally is visited one night in the desolate wilderness of the Brigsumal home world, by the Goddess Cala, who instructs her to remain amongst the dunes in pious study and that she shall, after three days of meditation be rewarded. After the third day, the young Apex has discovered the secret of the Shifting Sands spell, which is now hers by gift of the Goddess and by right.
A spell should generally take at least three days per Circle Level of the spell. Thus a Circle Three spell should take about a week and a couple of days besides to master well enough to learn.
All spells may be kept in a book of elemental recipes, as is appropriate... or perhaps simply in the memory of particularly clever student, or engraved upon the flesh in brandings by a powerful Fire Apex. The details are simply a means of character development and those to an end... a better and more free role-play experience.