Stats and Parameters

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K
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Stats and Parameters

Post by K » Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:45 pm

Some of this may seem to be common knowledge, but it should all be established before any confusion arises. Yes, this is kinda' an extension on Terminology, but you can see how it fits into a category of its own.

Growing Parameters
These are parameters that increase in maximums with training and Levelling. Maximums? What do I mean? Well, think about it. At Lv1, you can be injured, then healed all the way. Once you're fully healed, more healing won't do you any good; you've reached your maximum health for your character at his/her/its/whatever's Level. Once you have a higher maximum health, being fully healed will mean more health recovery than it did at a lower Level. You'll have more health to lose before you're out, and more health to restore once you're hurt. Geez, I almost make it sound like that's a bad thing. Simply said, with training and/or Levelling, you have a greater 'energy pool' for each of these.

Physical Stamina (PS): This is one's endurance for physical activity. This is what Learpabru seems to have a never-ending supply of. Normal people lose consciousness upon running out of this, but many people (particularly RP chars, often enough) lose health energy once this is out. Different people take to the resulting fatigue differently, too. Think of how, in many video games, when a char is low on health, they still hit just as hard, take hits the same, evade just as easily, are just as accurate, et cetera; their low Health Energy doesn't affect their PS. It all depends on the char.

Mental Stamina (MS): This is one's ability to focus on a subject, focus on multiple subjects, maintain focus throughout distractions (including mental damage, such as from vorpal blades and the like), maintain focus over time, and generally keep thoughts running efficiently. It's mental endurance, simply said.

Health Energy (HE): Pain threshold, stamina to damage, vitality, et cetera. When one is stabbed, one takes tissue damage, as everyone is familiar with, and one takes health energy damage. Think of this as a char's "HP" in video games in which getting slashed does not result in one losing a limb and bleeding out. Many spells deal only HE damage; if Noah were to cast "Scathe" on Leilani, it would be bigger than Lei's body, so one may expect it to blow Lei apart molecule-by-molecule, but it doesn't. It hurts a ton, but it doesn't tear you up. Of course, it's not just pain. It's a sort of internal damage. Take enough of this damage, and your body could appear to be in perfect health, and you could have no diseases in you or whatever, but you'll be knocked out or die. A lot of (fictional) people will stay conscious right up until death, and a lot of (fictional) people will not let this affect their stamina or otherwise their aptitude until the same or until they would be unconscious, as was stated in the PS paragraph.

Mana/Magical Points/whatever (MA): This can run on a bunch of different systems, but they can be collectively known as a sort of magical stamina/pool. Costs of this can be substituted in individuals by other energies (such as by the "Blood Price" ability, which basically allows one to convert mana costs to HE costs, but doubled), and can be, but is not necessarily, connected to mental stamina, but this is the broad term for the existing energy pool within all human (including neko, lycanth, viera, bangaa, moogle, seeq, and any other races that some may believe to be inhuman) creatures unless one can write a reasonable explanation as to why that is not true of that person's char(s).

Chakra (CH/CK/CR): You probably know this. It usually works like Physical Stamina or otherwise resembles PS, and it is usually connected to PS and/or HE. Usually, it is figured that one's HE instantly drops to knockout or death when one runs out of chakra entirely. Like mana, this is an energy pool that is spent for particular actions, and it exists within all humans.

Other factors may exist individually, but most systems can be collectively classified as these.

Static Parameters
These don't grow as you grow. It's usually because it's something that can't be measured in the same way. For Tissue Health, if someone cuts half your body off, you have taken a lot of tissue damage. How much? Half of your body's worth. It's the same whether you're Lv1 or Lv7, without outlying factors such as items and abilities. At different Levels, tissue damage can correlate to HE damage differently, but a loss of an arm is still a loss of an arm, a spearhead plunged 4 inches into your torso is still that, an arrow to the eye is an arrow to the eye, et cetera. You can resist it, yes; that's not what I'm talking about. If something successfully deals so much tissue damage, it's on the same scale as a weaker attack that did the same tissue damage when you weren't as tough to it. Follow?

Tissue Health: When you're stabbed, your skin breaks, your innards split, you bleed-out, yada yada. Lots of enemies can be completely immune to this or can regenerate completely, but will be just as subject to knockouts and kills as anyone else as a result of Health Energy. This is basically everything that is apparent when something happens in real life.

There are currently no other static parameters that apply to all chars.

Stats
These are the simple, statistical advantages of being better at one aspect than someone else, as opposed to a sort of energy pool difference.

Speed (SPD): This is a pretty simple concept. Well, just remember that some things may affect movement speed (often abbreviated as MOVSPD), others may affect attack speed (often ATKSPD), and others still will affect both. For instance, depending on which version of "Berserk" one is inflicted with, one's speed may be unaffected, one's attack speed may increase, or one's attack speed and movement speed may increase. (Of course, there are yet others out there, but those are the more common versions.) Depending on what version of "Haste" one is inflicted with, one's attack speed, movement speed, or both may increase. Oh, and don't forget that there's a difference between mental speed (determined by MS) and physical speed, but you already knew that, right?

Strength (STR): Physical strength determines how much physical damage you can do, how much you can lift, and all that fun stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary, here.

Defense (DEF): How tough are you? How tough is your armor? How much tougher does your weapon magically make you, your accessories enchant you to be, some curse make you, so on so forth? This sum determines how much less physical damage you would take from something than a normal person. Since your foe will be super-strong, it'd be an awfully short battle if you weren't super-tough, since you can't get out of everything.

Magic (MAG): This doesn't just determine how successful your spells are. It also determines how successful other abilities are. A lot of jutsu can factor this into their damage. "Shadow Sacrifice," an ability of some dark knights, relies on physical strength, magical power, and the dark knight's maximum health energy. Iaido spirit attacks often rely on magical power. There are plenty of others. It's up to you to determine how many, if any, abilities that use MAG your character will have, how high your character's MAG is going to be, yada yada.

Resistance (RES): It's defense to magical damage. If you've read the Terminology, or if you noticed the pattern from the previous explanation, you'd see that, unless a character specifically states a strength/weakness to a specific kind, which is rare, this doesn't just help you against damaging spells and curses; it works against a lot of things.

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Post by Noah Ivaldi » Wed Sep 28, 2011 8:22 am

Well, it looks like most people get this pretty well. It is fairly simple, after all. Still, some things could stand a bit of further description, especially with how little consideration goes into them in most games, huh?

PS: This basically answers how long your body handles doing stuff. Your body normally spends a tiny bit of energy constantly to keep your organs working, your homeostasis active, and all that other stuff that makes you alive. That's why you breath: You need a constant source of energy. It's also why you eat: You need more energy than what little breathing can handle. Going to sleep conserves energy and helps your body to reallocate it because your body relaxes. Your homeostasis takes it easier, so you get colder, but you can handle the change, your heart doesn't beat as quickly, this takes it easy, that takes it easy . . . It's all less energy consumption. In everyday life, most of us don't think about it much; we just know that, if we take it too easy, too much energy gets stored away in our fat cells, so we get fat, but, if we exercise, we spend energy and get tuckered out. It's a little different when you're fighting and training all the time. The adrenaline rush, the constant motion, the high-force (= high-energy) punches, kicks, dodges, jumps, and all else make battle very taxing on the body. A normal person isn't readily able to handle it as much as we do! Of course, the greater strength of our characters helps us to spend energy more efficiently, but we still have our limits. How high are yours? By default, if you run out so badly (close to 0) as to collapse from exhaustion, your HE takes a hit in addition to a slight hit to your tissue health (You're being too rough on your body!), so being well-rested is always a good thing. Another default assumption is this: Once your PS is low (less than half its original), your performance (basically all your stats plus MS) are very slightly hindered as your PS drops. The difference is entirely negligible in almost all cases, mainly since chars are assumed to take fatigue somewhat well. Still, it is something to take into consideration over just wearing yourself out completely, then resting completely and starting over.
Note: Upon taking tissue damage, your body immediately starts reacting to compensate for the loss. This means that all tissue damage results in a proportional loss in PS; if you get a scratch, your body says, "Okay, I gotta' fix that up," so it starts using your energy to do so, while losing an arm makes your body say, "Whoa! Crap, crap! Losing a lot of blood, so much tissue to repair! Come on!" so it starts using your energy rapidly to try to make you stay alive.
parameter regained by: food, rest (under normal conditions, wake up upon reaching ~90% PS; can rest further for up to 100%, in which case it is very difficult to force more sleep), some abilities

MS: In a way, how smart are you? No, not just how much knowledge, but how quickly does your mind work? Do you catch on to things easily? Do you resist outside influences, like someone else trying to damage or control your mind? Do you remember things well? How easily do you think about what you're doing? How easily do you plan ahead? How easily do you run calculations? Like I asked before, how good is your focus? This is the lump summary of all of these things. You can get into the particulars in your bio. Just think about how well you keep your mind working under different conditions (upon taking damage, when under mental attack, when pressured by others, when much is happening at once, when about to be hit, when trying to figure something out, et cetera). Mash it all together, then tell me about how well your mind keeps working.
Think of your MS as a gauge that is constantly filling. What you set it to determines the size of the gauge, hence exactly how much you can endure. With every hit and every thought, the gauge dips a little, but it's constantly filling pretty quickly, so everyday life stuff goes through your mind effortlessly, but attempts to predict damage while someone's trying to control your mind and you have a ton of attacks to concentrate on avoiding press down so much that the gauge starts to approach the bottom. If you run out, you just kinda' snap, so whatever is trying to take you over does so, you go temporarily insane (Obviously, the gauge isn't much refilling, at this point. Picture that it turns red and very slowly refills, but you don't regain control until the gauge is almost full.), or you just basically turn into a human vegetable. Obviously, this sounds important because of the high risk, and, hey, you gotta' spend a little just to perform any action, but remember that it refills quickly all the time, so this balances with the other stats and parameters. It's a pressure system! Your mind is all right as long as it can overcome the pressure of oncoming factors. Of course, continued pressure from things that you can normally handle does eventually wear you down to where you can't take it. If you're the type to just ignore problems until they get so hot that you totally explode, you may have some real issues, here.
regained by: relaxation of mind

HE: I think that we all get this. It's a sort of internal health. It can't really be called a "spirit health," but, if that concept helps you get it more easily, there you go. Does anyone need more clarification on just what this is? When you're fighting and you take damage to this, you get a little distraction, so you have a proportional bit of pressure on your MS, though not much. It doesn't affect your PS, though; tissue damage does that.
Some people don't quite get what happens when it runs out, though. Technically speaking, your HE can run out twice without healing. It exists on two levels. So, let's say that you have average HE, and you also have average DEF and RES. Now, you're fighting Mr. X, my example character with averages on everything. He hits you a total of, say, eight times. Now, under these conditions, it's up to damage variance to determine whether you're unconscious or barely conscious. Let's say that you weren't so lucky in these imaginary calculations; you're unconscious. Okay, so does that mean that your HE = 0? Yes, in a sense. If you are at all conscious, you can be healed by most healing abilities, but you're not, so only reviving abilities will help you. Simple enough, right? Assume that you have no friends around, and you really ticked Mr. X off. He could use his revival move, but he's going to either kill you or leave you to die at the hands of some passerby monster. He chooses the former. So he hits you again. Wait, though; you're at 0 HE, so how can he hurt you? Well, there's a second level to your HE. It's almost half (more like 3/8ths) of your original HE, so Mr. X just gives you four more good hits, and you're dead. It doesn't pay to tick off Mr. X unless you're sure that you can beat him, huh? When you're unconscious, this second level of HE regenerates a bit slowly (enough that it will take Mr. X 4 good hits in rapid succession, not just three hits and one half-powered hit at his leisure), but your first level of HE doesn't regenerate at all. After a good, long time (as expressed in Clarification), your first level of HE will eventually make it up to regain consciousness . . . barely. Of course, that is delayed by the refilling of your second level of HE, if that's not full. You'll then want to immediately find some real healing, unless you intend to sleep for another few weeks or so.
Note: When you are KOd, you lose a good deal of PS. Your MA regeneration rate is also halted. These both assume that you don't have an ability to say otherwise. You will regain the PS by resting after being KOd.
Also note: The "overkill" from your first level of HE will carry over into your second level, but the overkill damage is halved. Still, it is possible to take so much damage as to go straight to death without passing KO, collecting 200 teabags, or doing anything but buying the farm.
regained by: various healing abilities, food (much smaller portion than PS), rest (incredibly tiny, almost totally negligible portion to first level of HE if second level is full and first level is not totally empty (If you're KOd, but only just at the KO point, see the last part.); slow, but steady increase to second level if it is not full; both gain a very slight increase when rest has brought you to full PS, yet you are not awake; PS-based, incredibly long time to gain "1" HE to first level if KOd, but second level is full)

MA: It has nothing to do with how many spells you know, under normal conditions. It doesn't matter how strong your magic is. This is just how much magical energy you have available to be spent. A lot of spells have the same cost all the time. Some things (such as standard elemental manipulations) become more cost-efficient as your MAG increases. Those things don't usually start out very efficient, of course, so that it's not completely free by Lv3. Anyway, that's it. It's just a measure of how much energy you can spend (generally as though you burnt it up into a different dimension) in order to allow yourself to use magical stuff and mana-spending, physical stuff.
regained by: time (may vary to individuals with different Miasma/Mist resistances than the norm) while not KOd, some abilities, items

CH: It's the ninja bastardization for mana. Its regeneration rate is a nudge above that of MA, but it also gets a tiny boost whenever your PS rises. By the same token, it gets a tiny drop when your PS drops. In other words, it's a little bit better than MA, a tiny bit moreso when you're winning, but there's that whole problem about when it runs out: You take a hit to your HE. The damage is determined as your maximum CH * 7/8, and it can be easy to run out, so that's a good way to beat the tar outta' yourself. Personally, I don't like to risk it, but, if not for that fatal flaw, it is technically better than MA, so you may like it more than me. They do balance out, in the end. Note that there are varying theories on chakra/chi/ki/whatever else you want to call all sorts of theoretical, metaphysical life energy, and you and/or your char(s) may take these theories to varying degrees of seriousness, but, for the sake of consistency in character evaluations, we're just lumping them all together. Mechanically speaking, the functions are the same here, anyway.
regained by: see MA

A key difference between MA and CH is that MA is very generic and applied in a simplistic manner to the magic that utilizes it, whereas CH is more specific to the individual, sometimes with a particular affiliation for an element or methodology. Due to its nature as a theoretical and/or mythological energy source, it can be used in combined costs, but its primary usage is for magical techniques that we specify as jutsu. To further express the differences in application, note at least the first couple paragraphs of these articles:
http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Ninjutsu
http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Taijutsu
http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Genjutsu
Yeah, it's the Naruto wiki, but that allows it to be explained in lay terms.

Tissue Health: Again, we know what it is. We have a quick analysis of its mechanics, though. To begin, tissue damage has the added bonus of decreasing PS, as described above. That's pretty nice. You also can't disable or immobilize people just by hurting them enough HE-wise, but chopping someone's limbs off generally does the trick. Technically speaking, you can't be knocked unconscious by tissue damage alone. It's the loss of PS that causes you to collapse from exhaustion, which is a bit more taxing on your tissue health and may soon mean that your body doesn't have enough energy to repair itself, so you may die by bleeding out. Fantastic. Hearing all this, it sounds like it'd be more efficient to focus on just tissue damage, acquiring effects that sacrifice HE damage for more tissue damage all the time, right? Eh, not so much. If you're the all-or-nothing type, that may be good for a while, but there are a couple of things to remember: 1) Healing abilities for tissue damage are generally just a tad more efficient than healing of HE. That's just how it is. That alone wouldn't make the difference, but . . . 2) A lot of enemies are already immune to or resistant to tissue damage; a lot regenerate at a ridiculous rate or don't take tissue damage in the first place. Characters can readily acquire such benefits as these, too. Your increased tissue damage may soon become of little value to many and of no value to plenty more. Just don't put all your eggs into one basket.

The rest are called "stats," not parameters. They're basically the same, but the terms represent the difference between a simple, statistical advantage of being better at an aspect and a sort of energy pool difference.

Speed: It's the summary of your running, jumping, and overall athletic agility. Like with MS, just lump it all together, average it out loosely, and give me a term or something to relativize it. It's all assumed to be relatively equal to each other unless you say otherwise; you can say that you have a high running speed, but poor jumping ability (though I'd like an explanation . . .), or you could have different attack speed(s) and movement speed(s). You can specify two different MOVSPDs for two major transportation modes for you (not your vehicle; that's separate). Natural flight is assumed to be "slightly above average" if normal SPD is average, and apply the same increase to anyone with natural flight, though flight comes at a proportionally heightened PS cost. Do remember that evasion is based on both your physical capability of dodging something (your SPD) and your mental capacity to react to it quickly enough for your body to move. Generally, if you have "above average" SPD, you may want to have at least "average" MS for your mind to keep up, though "slightly below average" will let you react in time pretty reliably, too. Just use common sense, here.

STR: I'm stronger than you. We both punch this guy in the exact same way. One of us deals more damage, and he can tell. It's not complex. This goes for all of your physical attacking strengths, whether the attack involves your biceps, triceps, shoulders, full body weight, or whatever. It even applies to kicks and such, as is mentioned elsewhere in the rulestuffs. If you'd like to totally separate your upper body strength from your lower body strength, you can do so; just specify it here and be warned that it may make the management of your training a bit more of a challenge. When blocking, a small portion of this can help your defense (depending, of course, on how well you block the attack), but, if an attack damages you evenly no matter where it hits, making your arms take the hit won't help. Sure, the force of a punch may slightly hinder an attack, but don't count on it. More than anything, STR is just about hitting hard.

DEF: This is generally the average across your body. If an attack hits your forehead, it won't hurt as badly as it hurts if it hits your kidney (if you don't have that whole equal-damage-no-matter-where thing going on), so the kidney hit counts a bit less of your DEF than you initially say. Your thick forehead has a bit more DEF than you say, though, and so on across your body. It averages out to what you say here. If you take the same damage no matter where something hits (to HE damage, of course; tissue damage isn't usually covered by such an ability as that), all points show the DEF that you say here, unless you specify that it's all like your weakest point, your strongest point, or something else in between. No matter what, the differences are never big, unless, for some reason, you want them to be and make it so. Note: This is shown in the damage calculations thread, though still not in any real specification, as any more specification would just be an anatomy lesson. You don't need any more explanation for what your DEF is, do you? Oh, right. Remember that this is applied to the tissue damage and the HE damage of physical attacks to you. Unless you make an effect to state otherwise, it applies equally to both.

MAG: It's . . . magical power. It's the magical version of strength. That's it. It's not how much magic you know. It has nothing to do with how much mana you have. It's not a matter of how highly you think of your magical skills. If you and I cast the same exact spell and I have more MAG, it just means that mine hits harder. If we both have standard fire manipulation, I can match your fireball for a slightly smaller cost if I have more MAG, or I can spend the same cost for a slightly better fireball. If you and I perform the exact same summon, my ally will be negligibly better in all stats and parameters because my MAG is better. If I'm a batter magic guy, that's all that it is; it's higher magnitudes for my magic. You and I can both cast this water spell for [cost], which has a power factor of [PWR], and those aspects of the spell don't change, but because my MAG is higher, I deal more damage. Like I said, it goes for all magical attacks, not just those that can be called "spells." That's really it . . .

Resistance: I don't care how physically tough you are; magic will hurt you big-time if you don't have resistance to it. It's just magical toughness. It's granted by all the same stuff: enchantments from this and that, your natural resistance, your armor, and all that fun stuff. There's a general trend that body armor gives more DEF than RES, while helms invert that, but that's just a common theme among them; it's no rule to go by. Again, this applies to tissue damage and HE damage from magical attacks. That's all that there is to it. The stats are much easier to keep track of, aren't they?

As for how elemental resistance levels can counteract stats, it depends on the magnitude of the resistance level. Look at Tori's stats; she takes 150% damage from electric attacks and has 35/30 asterisks (where *** = AVG). Those 5 asterisks are basically the magnitude of an "above average" stat/parameter. Therefore, go based on that. If you're running an asterisks system in which *** = AVG, a 10% damage bonus from an element corresponds to one more asterisk, or a 10% reduction means a loss of one. If you're using terms like me, it'll end up with calculations on the scale that I already mentioned. I can't really get more specific because I don't know what elemental resistances you intend on having, nor how you intend to express your stat relativizations. If you're having trouble figuring it out, no worries; I'm always around to help.

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