[System Rules] The Roleplaying System

[RPS_Admin]

First off, let me thank you for your interest in RPS (or Roleplaying System). RPS was designed so everybody could enjoy the fun of a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl over the internet without any heavy stats systems, so hopefully you will find the system quite easy and fun to work with!

For anybody who has already read the rules and just wants a quick reference on the way damage is done, here is how it looks as an equation:

If Attack >= Defense:
Damage = Attack - Defense + Combat Dice roll (if used for damage).

If Defense > Attack:
Damage = Combat Dice roll (if used for damage) - (2 * (Defense - Attack)).

Remember, damage can never go below zero (no matter how weak your enemy is, they can't heal you!).

When making a combat post saying what you do during a combat, you do these things:

1. Roll your Combat Dice. You can then decide whether to use them to protect yourself from regular (not magic or special attack) damage or deal damage to your enemy (edit your post if you change your mind, don't make a second post). Whatever decision you end up making, make sure it's stated clearly in your post with the dice roll.

2. Gain one MP and one AP.

3. Attack a target, and use any other special abilities (healing, summon, special attack, etc...) you have.

4. Cast one spell or use one action. You are allowed to use a MP or AP you just gained this turn to cast a spell or use an action.  

[RPS_Admin]

Every character in RPS is primary defined by six statistics (Attack, Defense, Combat Dice, Magic, Life, and Equip), along with whatever special abilities they choose to buy.

Attack represents your character's ability to bypass an enemy's defenses and cause them harm. Likewise, your Defense represents your ability to prevent an enemy from hurting you, or at least lessen the harm. Your character's Combat Dice score represents how good your character is at combat in general, and can be applied either as damage in an attack, or used to reduce the total damage you take that round from physical attacks by whatever you roll.

When one character attacks another, their Attack and Defense scores are compared. If the attacker's Attack is higher than the defender's Defense, they do one point of damage for every point higher their Attack is than the defender's Defense (this is added to the attacker's Combat Dice roll if they choose to apply their roll to their damage this round).

If the defender's Defense score is higher than the attacker's Attack, then the attacker can only do any damage if they use their Combat Dice roll to deal damage, and even then the roll is reduced by two for every point the defender's Defense is greater than the attacker's Attack.

While you can roll your Combat Dice before deciding whether you want to use them to cause damage or protect yourself from some damage, you can still only use it for one purpose or the other. You will know the enemy's Attack and Defense score in advance though, so you will be able to make a good decision.  

[RPS_Admin]

There are some advanced rules for combat that are together called "team up" and "hold off" rules. The essence of them is that every character in a group needs to be "held off" by having somebody in the other group attacking them before the rest of the attacking group can "team up" on a character. In order to be considered "held off" an enemy must be targeted with a physical attack from a member of the opposing team. Unless otherwise stated (Plink, for instance), it has to be an actual attack attack (deals Physical damage) that could deal damage. This means your Attack score needs to be above zero, or your Combat score needs to be above zero and you use your die for damage. A character is considered "held off" if they have been attacked by enough enemies individually (usually it only takes one enemy, but there is an effect that can make it take more), and a character can be teamed up on if everybody in their group has been held off, or if they are the only character not held off.

When a character gets teamed up on, all of the attackers add their Attack scores together and calculate their damage as if that total was their Attack score (i.e. three characters who each have an Attack of 3 teaming up on one enemy will each attack as if they had 9 attack). This means the Attack damage can get pretty icky, as it's multiplied by the amount of attackers, and can take down even big enemies quickly.

Even if a character can attack more than once, he can never "team up" with himself against an enemy (this is because the second attack happens AFTER the first attack, and not at the same time). Two characters who attack twice can team up TOGETHER on the same enemy twice, for instance, but they cannot use all four of their attacks in one team up.  

[RPS_Admin]

The next ability is Magic. For every round of combat, each character gains one Magic Point (MP). Every spell has a MP cost, and you need a Magic score greater than or equal to the MP cost in order to be able to cast the spell at all (if you get an ability to reduce the spell's MP cost, you still need a Magic that is at least equal to the spell's unaltered cost). There are some things that you can use MP on other than casting spells, but casting spells is their main purpose. Most spells also get their power increased by having a higher Magic score, so a character with a high Magic can unleash some pretty brutal damage onto their enemies. If you don't use all the MP you gain in a battle, you get to keep those MP and use them in the next battle (i.e. you keep them until you use them), but when you finish a dungeon, you do NOT get to keep your MP, so if you know you're fighting the dungeon's boss, you may as well use all your MP on him!

You can buy spells in the shop and can also find new spells in dungeons. If you don't like a spell or can't use it, you can trade it to another player who wants it any time you want, even if you have used it already. You can only do this outside of a dungeon, so you can't swap spells between party members in the middle of a dungeon.

You are only allowed to cast one spell or use one action in a round (actions will be introduced later). You can always attack every round, so casting a spell or using an action doesn't mean you can't attack.

Your Life stat is pretty easy to figure out: when you run out of Life, you're done and can't keep fighting any more. Don't worry, you'll still be alive and we'll let you keep all your equips, but it's really hard for your friends to beat a dungeon if they lose more than one person, and nobody gets any experience points if the group doesn't finish the dungeon. Unlike every other stat, you get 5 Life for every character point you spend in Life.  

[RPS_Admin]

Equip is another funny stat. It determines how many items you can use, and how good those items can be. The normal items you can buy in the store cost you chips (the money for RPS) to buy and give the same kind of bonus you would get if you had just spent a character point on the stat in the first place (for instance, a sword that gives +2 attack takes up 2 of your Equip value), but there are two good reasons to spend points in Equip if you want to:

First, you can fit into different groups a lot better if you can switch what you can do before you go into a dungeon (remember, you can OWN as many equips as you want, but Equip decides what you can bring into the dungeon with you).

Second, items you find in dungeons will give cool effects you can't get anywhere else, so points in the Equip stat allow you to gain unique effects you can't get any other way. Also, some of the equips are potions, and give you a really strong effect for one battle (like a boss fight). Unfortunately, you can't trade equips with your friends while you're in the middle of a dungeon, so make sure you brought in what you really wanted.

Potions are special one-use equips you can buy or find. Any potion bought from the store takes up one Equip value on your character, but can be placed in your character's Potion Belt, which can hold up to two of these potions without taking up any Equip value. Remember that only potions sold by the store can be put into the Potion Belt, and it can only hold two; any potions only found in dungeons or beyond those two take up Equip value like normal.

A recent addition is that of the sheath system. With special items like the backpack or shadow sheath, your character gains a "sheath slot" that can store one item of any equip value. Between battles in dungeons, or with the action "draw" in combat, you may switch your equipment to fit any situation. Of course, DM discretion and the rules governing the action "draw" will apply.

Also, there are things called Actions. They require Action Points (AP) instead of MP to be used (you gain one AP per round in combat like with MP, and like with MP you can keep them for later battles if you don't use them), but are otherwise a lot like spells, except that they don't all use a single stat to make them more powerful (instead, different Actions will use your other stats, like Attack or Defense). You still cannot trade them in the middle of a dungeon. Like with MP, your AP can have some uses other than being spent to use Actions.

Unless otherwise specified, all damage resulting from an Action is considered Special damage. Some Actions, such as Retaliate, have specific requirements that must be met before damage is calculated.

Some Spells and Actions have the ability to stun their target, preventing them from attacking, using an action or spell, or from acting entirely. A stunned character still gets to use their combat dice for defense unless they are prevented from acting entirely.

Stun effects work all the time against normal monsters. Characters, and any monster the DM running the dungeon declares to be a Lieutenant, are only stunned half of the time. Monsters declared to be bosses by the DM aren't stunned at all.

There are items and abilities that can improve your ability to stun, or make you less likely to be stunned. These items and abilities add either +25% to your stunning chance (giving you a 75% chance to stun a Lieutenant, and a 25% chance to stun a Boss), or make stun attempts against you only work 25% of the time. If once person has improved stun and their target has stun resistance, the two effects cancel each other out.  

[RPS_Admin]

When a group of characters decides to play through a dungeon, they need to select one player who will be the party leader. The party leader is like any other character, except he gets to make final decisions on where in the dungeon the party goes next, who gets to use a Spell, Action, or Equip that the party has found, and controls the party's MP or AP pool (as described in the next paragraph).

The party also gets one AP and one MP per turn, as if it were a character. This party pool of MP and AP can be doled out to individual party members by the party leader to use their own spells, actions, and anything else that requires MP or AP.

If you find a Spell, Action, or Equip in a dungeon (Spells and Actions cannot be looted from enemies, and can only be found when an enemy had not been using it), and there is a party member who is able to use it (i.e. if it's an equip they still have enough Equip left unused to use it), then they can take it and use it for the rest of the dungeon. But after the party leader decides who gets it, it cannot be traded until the group finishes the dungeon.  

[RPS_Admin]

To start playing RPS, first you need to make your character (you can only have one character). You get 24 character points to put into the six stats however you wish, and can also use them to buy effects. Post your character in the Character Submissions thread, and we'll look your character over. If you did your stats right, we'll add your character to the Active Adventurers Roster thread and you'll be all ready to join up with a party headed for a dungeon run by one of the admins. Until then though, you can still post as your character in the Adventurer's Tavern thread and get to know everybody while you're waiting for him to be placed onto the roster.

Every time a party completes a dungeon, every character that was in that party gets two -- or three if the DM feels the dungeon was exceptionally challenging -- character points (even if their Life was reduced to zero during the dungeon). They should post what they are spending the point on (or if they're saving the point for an ability that costs more than one point) in a post at the very end of the dungeon thread, and we'll update your character's stats on the roster for you.

At the same time, you will also get to re-allocate one of your points (turn a point of Magic into a point of Defense, for instance). If you choose to do this, make a note of this in the same post you indicate what you spend your character point on.