Before we begin discussing how characters are created and how they are leveled up, check the above tab for "New Character Layout" to keep in mind when beginning your bio. Now, with that out of the way, we shall begin.
The Alien Wars 5 is mostly free form, but there are restrictions of what a person can and can't do and they are divided up into various categories. I have made a list of the various areas of creating and leveling up your character below, so you can jump to the area that interests you or you can simply read through.
- Leveling Up
- Levels
- Level Up Bonuses: Points
- Level Up Bonuses: Skills
- Level Up Bonuses: Abilities
- Level Up Bonuses: Talents
- Level Up Bonuses: Races
- Level Up Bonuses: Sub-Classes
- Level Up Bonuses: Classes
- Level Up Bonuses: Advanced Classes
- Level Up Bonuses: Mixed Classes
- Disadvantages
- Level Up Bonuses: Special Attack Slots
- Special Stuff and Items/Armor
- Animas
First off, leveling up is based on a grading curve; the highest level character sets the precendent for the lowest. You begin at Level 25, however depending on what level the highest person is at (and at this point in the RPG that's fairly high) you will rapidly level up compare to others. That means if you are Level 25 and another player is Level 110 and you both meet the requirements below, you will gain much more levels than the Level 110 person until the gap begins to close and it slowas down. This is due to the grading curve they have set being so high.
How do you level up? You level up by RPing, essentially, but there are a few other factors. Leveling up is based on these things:
1) How much you RPed during the main session. If you barely did any lines or any actions, you are not receiving a lot of experience.
2) If for some reason you have outside distractions going on, you need to alert the GM. If you fail to do so and it just looks like you're being slow, you will not gain as much experience.
3) Your actions taken during the RP also can give you extra experience - if you play smart and pay attention to what is going on (aka, if the group is going left and you don't walk right and thus into a wall) you don't lose experience. However, if you play intelligently and can solve problems before you and the other RPers, you gain bonus experience. If you fight smart, you gain bonus experience.
4) Battles give experience toward power, skills, and classes. Or using said skills/powers during sessions. Just randomly attacking a tree will not net you experience, but if you are a fire based attacker and use fire to aid the team in a scenario, then you get battle experience. Otherwise, all your RPing is giving you normal experience. I discuss this more below.
5) Minis give you experience. I will go over lines done in minis and see how much you've participated. Handing me private RP logs also nets you experience - do not feel shy about giving it to me. I don't always read it thoroughly, so if it's a sex mini of some sort, I'm mostly just seeing how much was done, not reading every detail. There's a bit more when it comes to mini experience, but I will discuss that below as well.
You begin with 25 levels. In the tabs above, you can look at the New Character Sheet to see how your first 25 levels break down. Afterwards, though, you will gain levels through RPing and other means. You are basically leveling up two different things: your stats/abilities/personal skills are leveled up through social RPing and your special skills/classes are leveled up through battles. Obviously social RPing is far greater than battles, so the former will always be higher than the latter. Because of that, even NPCs have character levels, but not necessarily class levels. I'll try to break it down more for you.
All characters have the following stats: Health, Stamina, Strength, Energy, Speed, Reflexes, Perception, Charisma, Luck, Mind, Hand to Hand, Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons, Magik Defense.
Through certain means, characters can also gain: Spirit, Magik Offense, and Mana. See the stats tab above for more details on stats and what they do.
Character Level:
Your character level is the one that will be raised the most, since it is both affected by social and battle/missions. Every few sessions, you will be alerted to how many character levels you have gotten and there you begin to decide what to do with them. And your actions will greatly affect your character's grow and uniquieness.
Instead of getting points per level up, you are informed of how many levels you have and it takes a certain amount of levels to unlock certain things, or do certain things. You are literally spending levels.
Class Level:
Your class level is the one that is raised the least, but steadily. You gain class levels through using class skills/abilities/talents or by battling or doing certain actions. Classes are more specialized to certain fields. Like character levels, you spend levels on attaining skills/talents/abilities. At Lv. 25, you have the option of advancing to the Advanced Class, which works under the same principal.
One of the most basic things you can do with any level up is put it into stats. Stats are what make your character stronger and have access to higher tier skills and help set back disadvantages. For one level you can apply 5 points to any stats as long as you have not hit the cap limit for that stat. Races have various stat caps in place. The good news is you can raise the caps.
For five levels, you can increase a cap of any stat by 10. This works up to 100, the ultimate cap. This does not fill in those 10 points, it just increases the overall cap by 10. You may also find certain talents or abilities increase caps too, so you might want to keep an eye out on it.
Once you reach 100, the final cap in place, it takes 15 levels to break the barrier of 100 to 150 of any stat of your choice. It takes 20 levels to increase from 150 to 200. Filling them in still done by one level for 5 points after this is done. It also still takes five levels to raise to 110, 120, etc. The 15 level and 20 level cap breaks just let you go above the ultimate final cap.
Currently 200 is the final cap. This may change later.
Races and Classes have certain stat penalities. This basically means they excel in certain areas and not in others. For the excel stats, you may have something where one level instead of giving you 5 spending points in magik offense gives you 10 spending points in magik offense if you are a Mage. Or lets you raise your mana easier. But in turn, it takes 2 levels to raise 5 points in Strength if you are a mage and do not have anything to balance it. A mixture is found and agreed with on the GM between Class excel/penalities and Race excel/penalities.
1) What Are Skills?
Skills are typically moves that benefit the character in combat in someway, an attack move of some sort. There are lists of generic skills to be had on the Skills Tab above, but players can also make their own skills, as long as it's okayed by the GM. You basically state the name and the move it does and how much energy it takes to accomplish it. This will be agreed on by the GM (how much energy it takes).
A skill starts off very basic to begin with and has no disadvantages, but neither is it very strong. It takes five levels to either create a new skill or take one from the Skills page. This is for the basic form. A skill costs a bit of energy to use. Now, you can then build upon that skill. To basic attacks and whatnot you do not have to have a skill to do that, though it eats up stamina and energy to perform basic attacks. So even though the example below is 'Slash' that doesn't mean you cannot slash people. Lets begin with a simple example.
2) The Example
Slash: Lv. 1 - Wind focuses for a devastating slash attack that deals out more damage than a normal slash attack. Energy Used: 5.
Now, energy restores quickly over time. So if you have 30 energy and it dips to 25 after that, within a minute or two it'll be back to 30 unless something happens. Energy restores faster with Stamina, as a note.
Now, it cost you 5 levels to make that skill. You also have a limit of 10 skills over all. However, you can build upon a single skill 3 times. It costs more levels each time, but you can end up with 4 levels to a single skill.
It costs five levels to make a second level to a single skill, ten levels to make a third level to a single skill or five levels and a disadvantage, fifteen levels and a disadvantage to make a fourth level or 10 levels and two disadvantages or five levels and three disadvantages.
What are disadvantages on skills? If it's a pre-made skill you will see a list of disadvantages you can choose from. If you are making your own skills, you and the GM will discuss fitting disadvantages. Below is how it may look in advanced levels:
Slash: Lv. 2 - Charging his hyprspace energy into the attack, Wind creates a hyperspace slash attack that deals out critical damage. Energy Used: 15
Slash: Lv. 3 - Quickly teleporting past the enemy, Wind uses his own momentum to dash-teleport slash with his hyperspace slash attack along the enemy. Disadvantage: This leave him momentarily disoriented. Energy Used: 25
Slash: Lv. 4 - Channeling critical levels of hyperspace into the slash attack, Wind unleashes a torrent of energy into the enemy upon slashing them, creating an impact that knocks them back if it hits. Disadvantage 1: This depletes his stamina by 15. Disadvantage 2: He cannot perform this move for 20 minutes. Energy Used: 40
This is just an example. To recap:
Learn New Skill: 5 levels
Second Level of Same Skill: Five Levels
Third Level of Same Skill: 10 Levels or 5 Levels/Disadvantage
Fourth Level Of Same Skill: 15 Levels/Disadvantage, 10 Levels/2 Disadvantages, 5 Levels/3 Disadvantages.
3) Skill Limits
To begin with you have a limit of 4 racial based skills/abilities/talents and 10 skills. I will go more into the racially unique stuff in another sub-section below, since they share a pool with abilities and talents.
To gain a new skill slot, it takes either 20 levels or 10 levels and a disadvantage to your character overall. Certain racial or class abilities may grant you free skills that you can seek out as well.
1) What is an ability?
Abilities are moves that enhance a character or influence their stats in some manner. An ability might be something like entering a hightened state of strength for a limited amount of time. Previously it may have been something like cooking or riding a horse, but those are now talents. An ability now are things that effect the character in some manner, even if it's healing their own body due to damage. Like skills, you can pick from a pre list of abilities or make your own ability if the GM okays it. They work the same way as Skills above.
2) The example:
Abilities can take energy, like the Slash example above, or it can be infuenced by other things. A regeneration healing ability might take both energy and stamina. It various depending on what is taken. There are unique racial abilities as well, but that is covered below. An ability could also be a special move that is not 100% attack based. Below is an example:'
Teleport: Lv. 1 - Wind activates his hyperspace to instantly transport from one location to another. The maximum distance is 100 meters. Energy Used: 5.
And like skills, the leveling up of abilities is the same:
Learn New Ability: 5 levels
Second Level of Same Abilityl: Five Levels
Third Level of Same Ability: 10 Levels or 5 Levels/Disadvantage
Fourth Level Of Same Ability: 15 Levels/Disadvantage, 10 Levels/2 Disadvantages, 5 Levels/3 Disadvantages.
3) Ability Limits
To begin with you have a limit of 4 racial based skills/abilities/talents and 10 abilities. I will go more into the racially unique stuff in another sub-section below, since they share a pool with skills and talents.
To gain a new ability slot, it takes either 20 levels or 10 levels and a disadvantage to your character overall. Certain abilities may increase talent or skill slots, depending. Few abilities effect other abilities.
1) What is a talent?
A talent is something your character is good at - a talent that defines them amongst others. You can create talents of your own, with GM approval, of course, or pick them from a list of talents. A talent is something like - expert horseback riding, or computer expert, or cooking expert. While you don't necessarily need to have said talents (you can speak with the GM to see if your character can squeak by in something - like riding a horse without falling off, but not being good at horseback riding), but the talent in itself is what sets you apart, especially depending on what aspects of the talent you focus on, since talents have 5 tiers and 2 bonus tiers.
2) The example
Talents do not take up energy or anything to use. They are what you are innately good at doing. With five tiers, you can develop your talent as you see fit. When you are picking a talent from the list, you may see different choices you can take within that talent's field. You cannot take a more advanced form of the talent right away, you have to fill that into tier 5. When making talents, keep that in mind. Lets say you want to focus on a computer systems expert.
Tier 1: Computer Understanding - you understand computers and can use them better than the average person, capable of doing feats on them others can't always manage.
Tier 2: Computer Hacking - you can hack computers to get into their data storage units. This allows you to attempt to invade computers of the enemy.
Tier 3: Computer Programming - you can create your own programs to run on computers, aiding you in various tasks.
Tier 4: Computer Infostruction - you are able to build computer infostructures better than others so that you can run high end information.
Tier 5: Plugged In - you can plug into computers remotely and access them with your programs you've designed. This allows you not to have to be at the computer to use it. This takes up an item slot to use your datapad to plug yourself in.
Like skills and abilities, it costs levels to take the tiers.
A New Talent / Tier 1: 5 levels
Tier 2: 5 levels
Tier 3: 10 levels
Tier 4: 10 levels
Tier 5: 15 levels
You can also get two bonus tiers added after you have all 5 tiers. Bonus Tier 1 costs 10 levels and 1 disadvantage and Bonus Tier 2 costs 10 levels and 2 disadvantages, but you can make your talent stronger or add a more powerful level to it.
3) Talent Limits
You can have 5 talents before you reach your talent limit. To get a new talent slot it costs 15 levels.
Several times in the above sections you have heard me mention that I would get to the Race's unique skills/talents/abilities. They do not count toward your overall limits and have their own shared pool number. When you begin, overall unless you opted to get more of something in your initial 25 level creation, you will have 5 talents, 10 skills, 10 abilities, 4 special attack slots, 1 sub-class, 1 class.
However, the races to begin with share a pool of 4 unique race skills/abilities/talents. That makes you pick and choose what you want to learn. Depending on what you learn and how you develop your racial talents/abilities/skills you will be given the option of purchasing additional numbers in the shared pool for levels - 20 levels when given the option. Due to the limit, you have to carefully decide what you want to learn and how you want to learn it.
1) What is a Sub-Class?
Sub-classes are unique things with a ton of skills/talents/abilities under them. You begin with a limit of only 1, but when you pick which sub-class you want to learn, you can opt to learn a certain number of them without penality to your skill/ability/talent limits. Each sub-class will tell you how many you can learn. The skills within cost levels and are listed as how much each talent/ability/skill costs. They vary from each and from sub-class to sub-class. You use your normal level ups (not your Class Levels) to spend on these options.
To purchase a sub-class, it costs a certain amount of levels and you have to have a slot open for one. It is wise to get a sub-class in your first 25 levels simply because you can get one there for two levels despite the cost of a Sub-Class. You can find the costs for each Sub-Class next to the Sub-Class category. You cannot, however, take a more advanced sub-class that requires another sub-class to be learned with your first 25 levels.
2) Sub-Class Limits
You begin with only 1 sub-class. You can get more sub-classes, but to raise your limit it costs levels, like everything else. To increase your sub-class limit, it costs 30 levels.
3) Can I take some of these ideas to use in my own way?
Yes. You can indeed use any of the talents/abilities/skills used in Sub-Classes as long as you rework it in your own unique way with the GM AND you don't phrase it the same way AND you don't take the Sub-Class they're from. Just note: you will be filling one of your talent/ability/skill slots and spending the normal levels each tier/level costs, but you can work it how you see fit and how you want to work it.
Classes are specialized trees that grant you certain talents/abilities/skills. You can either pick from the Classes the one that best suits you, or you can create your own with the GM and make up your own skills/talents/abilities in it. When creating your own, you have to be very focused - for example, the Knight Class focuses on fighting type things. They would not be very Rogueish. Glance over the other classes when thinking of your own and know the GM will be very tough when it comes to creating a Class.
Classes have their own Levels and you apply them to the list of skills/talents/abilities listed. Classes have their own limits on how much of each category you can learn as well. In a Class, you can learn 5 Skills, 5 Abilities, and 5 Talents. There is no way to raise this limit, so you have to pick and choose from the choices available. How much each thing costs will be listed beside the available skill/talent/ability, as well as the proceeding levels to it. I advise you to read up on each Class carefully.
Classes are definitely for people who plan to do a lot of combat/main missions. If you are creating a character that only part of the time does combat/missions, you can get by just fine with everything above, or less. This system is for you to develop your person as YOU want after all.
You can only learn One Class Period. You cannot increase Class Limits. The one you choose is the one you are guiding down. However, below you will find out its not the end of the world.
Level Up Bonuses: Advanced Classes
Advanced Classes are accessed any time after you reach Lv. 25 in your Class Levels. You can choose to continue to fill up on your 5 Skills, Abilities, and Talents if you want, increasing your Class Level as high as you want, but anytime after reaching 25 you can stop learning your Class of choice and move to an Advanced Class. The Advanced Class has to build off what the previous Class was about - a Hunter might branch off into a Rogue or an Assassin, or a Knight into a Master of Arms or Defender of the People.
Advanced Classes work much the same way as Classes. You learn: 5 Skills, 5 Abilities, and 5 Talents. There is no way to raise the limit and the various skills and tiers cost a certain amount of levels to learn. If you create your own Advanced Class, it has to build off your created Class.
You can only learn One Advanced Class Period. You cannot increase Advanced Class Limits. The one you choose is the one you are guiding down. However, below you will find out its not the end of the world.
Level Up Bonuses: Mixed Classes
Mixed Classes are a unique feature that allows a character to branch out a bit. Once you reach Lv. 25 in Advanced Classes you can choose to take this option or wait until you've learned all 5 Skills, 5 Abilities, and 5 Talents an Advanced Class has to offer you.
Mixed Classes allows you to pick another Class, not Advanced Class, and learn up to 9 total Skills, Abilities, and Talents, meaning you have to pick what you want to learn as you can only have 9 learned at the end of the day. You can learn all tiers of the particular choices. This allows you to customize and make a more unique character, like a Mage-Knight.
Once you reach Lv. 25, you have the option to do the same thing with an Advanced Class, built off the second class you picked. You can keep fully learning all 9 skills in the Mixed Class you picked and advanced to the Mixed Advanced Class when you're ready. Once you're at the Mixed Advanced Class you can learn a total of 15 Skills, Abilities, and Talents - you pick what you want.
Choose wisely when you make your combinations.
Disadvantages are unique things that put your character at, well, a disadvantage. They can be picked from a list or created by yourself and okayed by the GM. While it may not seem like a great thing to have a disadvantage, in the long run it will help define your character and you might find hidden surprises in the more deadly the disadvantage is that you pick.
Check out the Disadvantages tab above for more details.
Level Up Bonuses: Special Attack Slots
Special Attack Slots are slots that allow you to perform devastating attacks. Every now and then, through a combination of learned moves either in your race's talents/abilities/skills or your classes or other things you've attacked, you may be given the option of creating either your own Special Attack or taking one from the Class. These do not count toward your over all totals in those departments, though they cost levels to buy. It various depending on the special attack and Special Attacks have three tiers, each costing more depending on the move type and damage output. The final tier will come with a disadvantage.
Special Stuff and Items/Armor/Weapons
1) Stores, Quests, Items, Armor, Weapons
Whew, that's a lot above. Lets break it down a bit.
1-A) Weapons
When you begin you have a Primary Weapon and a Secondary Weapon. This includes, for dragoons, your dragoon weapon if you place it in one of these slots. An example, Alpha Cheryl uses her electric whip, that is her primary weapon. Secondary weapons are back up weapons for users or just another big ass weapon you want to use in addition to your main, like a super sword you might have found.
Certain Classes or abilities may allow you to hold more weapons if you find them. You can also just spend 30 levels to get a third weapon slot.
1-B) Items
You can only hold a Primary and Secondary Item. They have to be okayed by the GM much like the weapons. These items are useful items you may find on your journeys. For example, in Tareh, to hold more items like rope or glowstones or your coinpurse, it's recommended you buy a Backpack. That would go into a primary or secondary item slot.
Like Weapons, certain classes or abilities may give you more slots, or you can spend 30 levels to get a third item slot.
1-C) Armor
Armor is protective pieces of armor that defend you. You are given a tier 3 armor/gauntlet/foot armor of your choice to begin with and you can even make up your own armor, but it's still a tier 3 with no slots.
Armor includes: body, hands, feet. It comes in many forms and goes up to tier 12, then there's tier omega, and maybe something even more out there.
Blacksmiths can create special armor with slots added to it. If you take that talent you can work with the GM more on the subject. Armor varies on requirements to wear it, so you should look at it - Blacksmiths who make the armor can lower the requirements by spending extra coins on armor reduction stats.
1-D) Stores
There are various stores in towns that you can drop in to find good deals. There's also store items in the Stores tab that Wynne and Yewn keep stocked uip.
1-E) Quests
You can find out about side-quests in the Quests tab.
2) Angel Mark
The Angel Mark is something unique to Tareh. If you are marked by the Angel, you gain access to her magik and are given, automatically, 1 stat in MO and 100 mana. You should see the Angel Mark tab for more details on the various levels of the Angel Mark and Angel Magik for her magik.
Animas are unique devices that can be discovered throughout Tareh. They have their own level up system and you will be alerted immediately after sessions if your Anima has leveled up. There are abilities that can enhance Anima performance that you can spend your normal character levels on if you choose to do so.
You should check out the Anima tabs for the various animas to see what all there is to discover Anima wise, as well as the Animas tab in general for more information on them.