Alternate Core Documents

[Undostrescuatro]

luminous. though i think your ideas are interesting. i find them a bit represive of what players can do. and i think those things should be left for players to build their friendships trough atual roleplay than just having it as a stat.

in my opinion if you want to encourage aiding, you could have a series of perks.

A friend (perk): (your pony is apt at aiding others). when you use your skills aiding other friendly ponies you give a bonus to their skill if you roll your skill and you succeed you give double bonus (charisma related if posible) to the other pony skill. this encourages mechanicaly helping others while giving freedom to a player to choose it or not.

and you can give it several levels that stack

1)A friend, 2)A true Friend, 3)A true true friend.

[Seraph-Colak]

1)A friend, 2)A true Friend, 3)A true true friend.

Just broke out into song in my head...
There is the lone wanderer perk which gives you +10% to skills when you're alone so i don't see why you can't get one that's aimed towards friendship. You'd likely need to have your true true friend grab the perk as well, wouldn't exactly be true true friends if you both didn't feel the same way.

[Viewing_Glass]

Perhaps a mark drawn in the dirt? Would serve as a physical medium for the ward to take hold. I imagine it would have limiters as any shield spell does on how much force it can take before it collapses, tests of potency perhaps?

And maybe for my idea of quick-cast wards, the mark can be inscribed with Arcane Mark on a disposable object, which is destroyed after a certain duration? The initial cast would be inactive, then you can activate it with another cast of Arcane Mark or w/e?

Maybe a Warded item drops Condition much more rapidly, meaning permanent wards had to be cast into material that never degraded. Seems like a reasonable sanity check.

"If the Ward is ever breached, the Warded item drops one Condition level immediately. After 24 hours the Ward reasserts itself, and continues to rebuild itself from nothing until the item it is affixed to has totally melted away..."

Hrm... I like it. Also explains Stables quite nicely, since Earth Pony engineering is effectively creating a material that almost never degrades.

That might be my bias showing though, for elements of the system that create an effect where players work together to create a thing better than the sum of its parts.

Also, I need to say that a Ward should NOT be able to do anything that a Bypass spell can do. So, it might be able to protect against EFS, but it won't allow a melee weapon to pass through a shield like it wasn't there (or a missile).

[TyrannisUmbra]

Better Lucky Then Good:
Requires Pony or Zebra
Cannot take with Blank Flank

You're special talent doesn't rely on skill, either natural born or taught. You just do what you do and no one can explain how. Not even you.

Your tag skill tied to your special talent is based on Luck rather then it's normal S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (effectively making it 2.5*Luck) Your skill also has a +2 chance for a critical success outside of combat.

I prefer this version of the trait:

Better Lucky Than Good:
You're a high roller who spends a lot of time praying to lady luck for help. As a result though, you don't train quite so hard in your field(s) of expertise. Gives +2 Base Luck, but tag Skills only grant +10 to their respective skill.

On the note of wards:

Perhaps a mark drawn in the dirt? Would serve as a physical medium for the ward to take hold. I imagine it would have limiters as any shield spell does on how much force it can take before it collapses, tests of potency perhaps?

And maybe for my idea of quick-cast wards, the mark can be inscribed with Arcane Mark on a disposable object, which is destroyed after a certain duration? The initial cast would be inactive, then you can activate it with another cast of Arcane Mark or w/e?

Maybe a Warded item drops Condition much more rapidly, meaning permanent wards had to be cast into material that never degraded. Seems like a reasonable sanity check.

"If the Ward is ever breached, the Warded item drops one Condition level immediately. After 24 hours the Ward reasserts itself, and continues to rebuild itself from nothing until the item it is affixed to has totally melted away..."

Hrm... I like it. Also explains Stables quite nicely, since Earth Pony engineering is effectively creating a material that almost never degrades.

That might be my bias showing though, for elements of the system that create an effect where players work together to create a thing better than the sum of its parts.

Also, I need to say that a Ward should NOT be able to do anything that a Bypass spell can do. So, it might be able to protect against EFS, but it won't allow a melee weapon to pass through a shield like it wasn't there (or a missile).

This is how mechanics come to be! I'm liking these ideas.

On another note, the 3 quotes embedded limit is annoying.

[LuminousNight]

luminous. though i think your ideas are interesting. i find them a bit represive of what players can do. and i think those things should be left for players to build their friendships trough atual roleplay than just having it as a stat.

in my opinion if you want to encourage aiding, you could have a series of perks.

A friend (perk): (your pony is apt at aiding others). when you use your skills aiding other friendly ponies you give a bonus to their skill if you roll your skill and you succeed you give double bonus (charisma related if posible) to the other pony skill. this encourages mechanicaly helping others while giving freedom to a player to choose it or not.

and you can give it several levels that stack

1)A friend, 2)A true Friend, 3)A true true friend.

I was going for something rather more then that, though I do like that concept as well.

What I was after had two main parts to it: the first was to see more use for virtues, a concept I love that doesn't see use wrapped in concept based around the sort of bond seen in Sonic Rainboom.

I should note being bound like this doesn't mean they get along right away. Remember Applejack and Rarity? It doesn't prempt roleplaying, though you'd probably want a group that you'd trust to do it right.

[Undostrescuatro]

nevermind found it.

[Ghostpony]

It seems ponies here are talking about two different types of Wards. Traditional they are defined as:

Type One: A Talisman: This is something that you wear that protects you from a given harmful magical effect or spell. These wards break down over time as the item that has the wards placed on it is stressed. When the object reaches it limit the object is often destroyed. The talisman protects an objector the person wearing it.

Type Two: Wards: Wards are often defined with circles pentagrams or symbols scribed into a surface such as a floor or walls. This is a form of ritual magic and is often times a long and involved proses with material preparations. These wards provide an area of denial to a specified magical effect or attack. These wards will only come down with the appropriate counter ritual or by being beaten on with truly overwhelming force far beyond the ward casters abilities.

Everypony might want to take this into consideration as they are discussed.

Kkat if I might ask, what kind of ward were you thinking of?

[Kkat]

This one:

Type Two: Wards: Wards are often defined with circles pentagrams or symbols scribed into a surface such as a floor or walls. This is a form of ritual magic and is often times a long and involved proses with material preparations. These wards provide an area of denial to a specified magical effect or attack. These wards will only come down with the appropriate counter ritual or by being beaten on with truly overwhelming force far beyond the ward casters abilities.

I hope to sit down and go through this thread's last 8 pages sometime this weekend. Sorry for getting so behind.

Another question: should buffalo be removed from the core document, and relegated to supplemental rules systems?

[Ghostpony]

I would say yes. The buffalo in the base system are left rather ill defined. I also think the Griffins need to be re examined and made into something less two denominational than combat machines. However that said they are still better filled out that Buffalo. At least that's my two cents worth.

[Kkat]

Star-Crossed Friendship

I really like this idea. There are too few traits that are not geared towards racial special abilities or combat, and having one that plays off of a character's virtue is an extra bonus. However, I think that the benefit is too high. For obvious reasons, the go-to example is a group of six friends. A +60 bonus seems way too high, especially when +30 is the maximum net bonus in most circumstances. I would either reduce the bonus to +5% per friend or restrict the bonus to +10% for each such friend you are acting on behalf of.

For what it's worth, I recently gave out this quest perk in my Beyond Equestria game:

Strength in Friendship: Whenever a nearby friend is making an Endurance or Charisma roll to withstand a mental or spiritual attack, you can give them a +1 bonus to the roll (maximum +3).