Serenes Forest (Advanced)
Hello and welcome to Serenes (Decided to name the planet after the forum for simplicity sake), a magical world of mystery, bizarre creatures, and species that are well, quite frankly... Out of this world. This world is inhabited by many different races and species, and some of which aren't so keen on travelers, however with the world at war against the evil Empire of Aier, or Wraiths as they have been nicknamed, the world is far from fine. A never ending struggle for power has left some towns in rubble, and entire races and factions wiped from existence. They say the overlord of the Empire of Aier is a mighty warrior who has slayed many of would-be-heroes day in and day out...
Advanced?
Okay, first of all, the reason this is labeled "advanced" is because this is set up sort of like a game. It's a little more complex than what a lot of people are used to, however it's simple to understand if you pay attention, and it adds a little bit of a more interesting concept to the story. Keep in mind though, most of the advanced stuff only applies to battles.
Battle System
The battles in this Role-Play are set up similar to an RPG, with stats, and such. How does it work? Well allow me to explain:
First and foremost you have your base stats, here is an example:
HP: 20
INT: 17
STR: 8
DEX: 15
Your stats define your character, and sort of help the other players to understand your character's strengths and weaknesses, and set up the guidelines for your character. For example if a character with five STR attacks an enemy with twenty HP, he isn't going to take it down in one hit. It'll take him a while, or the assistance of the team. Sort of an anti-godmodding deal, plus it's interesting isn't it? Shows how you want your character to be. Keep in mind though there are no calculations of how much damage you do/receive, so use your judgment. It wouldn't make sense if a priest can deal more physical damage than a swordsman now would it?
Stats
Now to explain how the stats work.
A. First we have HP, which is pretty self explanatory. Determines how much damage you can take before you die. If you have a high HP, you can take more hits right? Of course. HP can be recovered in a few ways.
1. Over time. Your character heals and recovers naturally, so over time he or she will eventually be healthy again.
2. Healing items. Bandages, potions, etc. They all heal you.
3. Priests. Priests main role is to heal, so of course they can heal you.
Be careful, once you are out of HP, you are DEAD. I will explain death soon.
B. The second skill you have is INT, this stands for Intellect, and is used to determine your magic skills. A swordmaster naturally doesn't have much magic prowess now does he? Character with high INT mostly have low head on combat skills, however there are exceptions. INT determines how powerful your magic is, and how high your defense against magical attacks are.
C. STR is our third skill, and it stands for Strength. It's used to determine how powerful one's physical combat is, and how high their defense is. The higher your STR, the less damage dealt to you, and the more you can deal to the enemy.
D. The last skill is DEX. This is Dexterity, it is used to determine a few things.
1. Your speed. Higher DEX = Faster Character.
2. Your evasion. How often you avoid attacks.
3. Archer Power. This skill is mostly for the archers, however it applies to all. Higher DEX means an archer hits higher and faster.
4. Critical hits. This means if you have say, 1 DEX, you're not going to get critical hits on bosses very often as say someone with 10 would.
Each character gets 50 stat points which they must distribute to the 4 stats, however enemies may have less, and bosses may have more. This is why TEAMWORK is important, don't just try and be an amazing hero. This helps set limitations on who is getting too much attention. Everyone deserves to be able to fight, don't be a battle hog, as your teammates CAN kill you.
Classes and Races
Alright you have a few classes to choose from, and here are there descriptions.
Priests
Priests are masters in the art of healing, and magic. They posses some combat skill via magic, but are mostly assists when it comes to the heat of battle. A priest can be most useful, as they have the power to heal and even revive the dead or fallen. However they aren't miracle workers. A priest is mostly swift, and focuses on keeping their team alive to keep themselves alive. A priest can be a troublesome thing to keep alive, but it pays off. They are the only class that can revive the dead.
Warrior
The masters of close combat. A warrior can slay several foes in an swing of his mighty weapon, however when it comes to magic, they haven't got a clue. Some warriors are agile, some are heavy tanks. A warrior is valiant and the greatest honor for one is to die in battle.
Mage
Mages are powerful, and have the ability to kill foes quickly, which is good for them, as they are going to need it. With their low defense, enemies teaming on them will cut through them like paper. Mages rely heavily on their teams, as a mage can not kill multiple enemies at a time unless he's very lucky. Some mages even know small, (Key word: small) healing spells, these are hard to find however.
Archer
Bow in hand and ready for battle. Archers can drop foes before they even see them. They are agile, quick, and stealthy. However they are weak when attacked head on. An archer's catchphrase: "Kill it before it gets to you."
Now that we have the classes down, you can choose several different races, there's no limit to what race you can be. You can be an elf, a human, a wing elf, a beast, anything that fits your fancy, hell you can be an alien if you want, however the only rule is you can't be a God, that would fall under Godmodding.
Powers and Skills
Aside from your normal attacks, and strategies, you have several different skills that are at your disposal. Your skills determine what kind of fighter you are, and what you can use as a special attack. Special skills and powers should fit your class/weapons/etc. For example it wouldn't make much sense for a mage with a staff to be able to swing a sword that he doesn't even have, now would it?
Skills are special, and help you in battle, and should have names that fit what they do, for example. "Inferno" would be a good name for a fire spell. However "Death Spell" is not a very good name for a fire spell, sounds more like a necromancer spell. Skills are important, and you are limited to having only eight. You can not have anymore than eight, because if you did, it'd be as if your character has endless amounts of powers, wouldn't it? However you CAN upgrade skills, and learn new ones, but you will have to opt out old ones. For example, if I have five skills, then I learn a new one, I now have six, but if I already have eight, I'll have to get rid of one. You are not required to have eight skills upon start.
Here are some examples of skills: Heal, Blade Rush, Sky Slash, Fire Spell, etc etc. And of course you can upgrade them, for example: Fire Spell becomes Inferno Spell.
Death and being Dead
If you have the misfortune of dying in the world of Serenes, you will be brought to one of two realms. The Realm of Heavens, or the Valley of the Damned.
Realm of Heavens
A place for the good and virtuous. If you died with honor, and doing what was right, and were all and all a good person, you end up here. The realm consists of several different places to explore, and you can no longer die while here. There is still adventures and side quests you may go on while you are here. So just because you're dead doesn't mean you're out of the story.
There are a few ways to come back to life from this realm.
1. A priest casts revive on your body. In which case you are brought back, however they MUST be able to get to your body, if it was destroyed they can not revive you.
2. A God may restore your life if you do him a favor, or convince him.
3. There are relics here that as soon as they are touched, bring one back to the mortal world. You may use one of these, however they are nearly impossible to find.
The Valley of the Damned
Those with sins over their shoulders and bad deeds in their past will find themselves in a not so restful resting place. The valley of the damned is evil and wicked. There is nothing pleasant about being here, and there is only two ways out.
1. A priest revives you.
2. You escape.
Keep in mind escaping isn't easy, and is nearly impossible without the help of a team. As said by a famous pirate, (I think you know which.) "Gettin' to the land of the dead ain't the problem... It's gettin' back."
Use your own judgment on death. If you think your character was good or evil, you decide where they go, but keep it reasonable. If your character committed mass genocide, I doubt he's going anywhere good...
Rules
Now for the rules, if you've read this far, great. If not, well oh well.
1. No Godmodding. You can be "imortal" but face it, there's some way to kill you. There is ALWAYS a way. This also includes controling other people's characters, and using exceedingly powerful attacks on EVERYTHING. One here and there is good, but don't over do it...
2. No immaturity. If you died, or something happened you didn't like, you have to deal with it. It's no fun if we all have to bend the rules for you. Don't be a bad sport about it.
3. Play CORRECTLY. Don't go off and start playing in some weird way, it's okay if you make a mistake, as I don't expect anyone to get it right away, but try to learn from the other players, if we feel you're doing it wrong, we'll nudge you i the right direction, however if you are intentionally being a fool we'll kill off your character, and you'll be out of the story.
4. Creators word is law. This goes without saying, but if I don't like what you're doing, I'm going to tell you, and eventually you'll get kicked out if you keep it up. However I'm pretty fair about it, and mostly only rule out things that just radiate utter stupidity, for example: "*Kills final boss*"
5. Respect other characters. Someone else spent a lot of time making their character, don't make it your character's mission to piss them off all the time. A rivalry or being enemies is one thing, but if you're just being an ass, you'll be kicked.
6. Keep it PG-13 to PG-15ish. No excessive depictions of decapitations, like going down to describing the organs and guts, and such, I mean you can look like a bad ass if you want, but seriously, there's a line between "Friggen' Sweet" and just plain gross. This also applies for sexual content. Just skip over the sex scenes in some creative way. However you may have ecchi or perverted moments. Such as two characters seeing each other naked by accident or something. As long as they aren't either having sex, defecating/urinating, or feeling each other up, it's well within standards.
7. Don't go overboard. I know you all have control over the plot, but seriously, don't do something so wild that all the characters end up doing something that was completely the opposite of the previous post. You can do surprises, but you have to make them sounds somewhat possible or realistic.
Posting
Now a lot of you might be wondering, "How do we post such things?" Well it's easy, all you have to worry about really is when you're in combat.
These are the times you'll have to make special posts:
1. An enemy appears. The enemies stats are displayed when the enemy is encountered. You may come up with the stats, but unless they are a boss, they can not be higher than 50 total stats. And each person must display their stats while the battle goes on. Example:
"Enemy forces send in a Paladin to take the team down.
Paladin Stats:
HP: 10
INT: 10
STR: 20
DEX: 10"
The enemies HP slowly drops after each attack, and while the battle goes on, any damage given to the enemy must be posted. For example:
"Rebecca casts Fire, the spell swirls around her and directs itself to the foe.
*Deals 7 damage*
*Paladin's Stats:
HP: 3/10
INT: 10
STR: 20
DEX: 10*"
2. When your character does ANYTHING that alters his stats or skills, for example say he decides to change his class and become a swordsman from a mage. You must display his old stats, and his new ones.
3. When damage is given to your character you must display his HP, you don't have to display other stats unless they were affected somehow during the fight. Also if someone heals you.
4. If you leave the party, or split up, you have to point it out. Example: "Okay guys, I'll go look ahead, and take John with me.
*Rebecca and John left the party.*
Thus creating a sub party. Parties have no specific leaders, however anyone can lead the party on it's tasks.
5. When you use a skill, you have to call that skill by it's name, for example: "John charged the foe with his mighty sword and hurled the enemy into the sky.
*Uses Sky Slash*
6. If you use an item, just mention you use it.
Entering the RP
Wow you read this far? Damn. Well anyway, now for the part where you figure out how to join. It's simple, first you have to have read the rules and such. (I know what a burden, but bear with me. The rules are set up to help everyone understand how the game is played.) You must submit a PM to me telling me your character's name, stats, class, and anything else you find important. I will post it on the current players list. DO NOT JUST START POSTING RANDOMLY. Make sure you've been okayed before you start playing, don't ruin it for other people.
If you have any questions about how to play, please contact me or the other role-players.
I know it's a little complex, and a little hard to understand, but you get the hang of it fairly quickly, and it's a great deal of fun. I've done about two or three other role plays like this, that were very successful.
One last thing:
Combat Triangle
Combat works in a triangle.
Mage > Melee
Melee > Range
Range > Mage
So it's natural to inflict extra damage in these cases.
