The Arcanis Combat System

The Arcanis Combat System derives itself from a combat technique that relies on the ability to defend against attacks being up to the defender. This assumes that the user of a weapon is good enough with that weapon to know how to attack with it.

In this system, in order to successfully attack a player must fail at his defending roll which is based on their Armor Class (AC). Rolls are done within the Discord server for transparency.

Ranks:

Ranks will be calculated based on a point system. All newcomers will start off with 0 points when beginning RP with us unless otherwise dictated by a member in an officer role. (I.E. starting you off at the second rank instead of the first). Ranks are determined with the following point set in mind.

0-4 – Off The Docks
5-14 – Established Citizen
15-29 – Valued Citizen
30-49 – Budding Hero
50-99 – City Hero

There are three ranks reserved for established officers and royalty:

Arcanum Elite (100 points automatic)- Usually a Leader for an organization or Arcanum Entity
Arcanum Aristocracy (110 points automatic) – A member of the Royal Court and Royal Family
Arcanum Royalty – (120 points automatic) King/Queen

Character Creation:

Each character will be allowed a starting HP of 25 at character creation. Each character will also only be allowed 1 action per turn at character creation. All characters will also start with a Base AC of 6.

Players, as they play, will be awarded RP points on participation in events with a possible point per event participated in along with half a point for each NPC killed in the group or 1 point per airship battle. This is to encourage players to join in the RP whenever possible.

Points can be distributed as follows: (These are limited in some cases to prevent overpowering certain statistics.)
5 points for adding an action except in the case of actions 4 and 5 which cost 10 points each
5 points for 1 point of AC (Up to a maximum of 14 AC)
1 point per HP added (You can stack as many points as you have into HP as you like, though this is honestly not recommended)

Armor: Your character is allowed to use armor of various sorts, but each type of armor will only allow you to perform a certain amount of actions, or give you varying benefits. The armor types are as follows:

Cloth – Allows for up to 5 actions per round, 1 AC added. Allows Magic Use.
Leather – Allows for up to 4 actions per round, adds 2 AC. Allows Magic Use.
Chain/Scale – Allows for 3 actions per round, adds 3 AC.
Plate – Allows for 2 actions per round, adds 4 AC.

Special Armors: These armors are usually crafted or gifted from officers as rewards found in roleplay and contain varied effects.

Mithril Cloth – Same as standard cloth but allows for a 2 AC boost
Arcweave Cloth – Same as standard cloth but allows for a 2 AC boost and Arcane Energy Resistance 1
Hidesilk – Same as Leather but allows for an 3 AC boost
Mithril Plate – Allows for the same AC boost as plate but provides 3 actions instead of 2 as a max
Starmetal Plate – Same as standard plate except allows for a 5 AC boost

Shields: Shields of all kinds will allow for an additional 2 AC to be added to an armor class when used. This AC will only be added if a defense action is declared in that round. This will not stack with a block action and is used in place of it.

Shield Spells: Since Shield Spells can’t functionally be used as a physical shield a mage can elect to use a shield spell to cast a temporary barrier to prevent up to 5 points of damage each round.

Defend Other: Players using shields have the option to forego their own defensive shield AC in favor of using that to help mitigate an incoming attack for another person.  This will allow a character to add 2AC to the AC of a teammate.

Shield Other: Players with the ability to use a Shield Spell have the capability to forego using the action on themselves to Shield a teammate, allowing that shield spell to give a temporary 5 point damage reduction for that teammate.

Actions: Actions are defined as the things you can do in a particular round of combat. If you are allowed more than a single action then you have the capability of performing either more than one attack or a single attack and defense action. Healers will also have the option to initiate heal actions for others in group combat. In duels, heal actions will not be allowed.  All attack or healing actions are considered to attack or heal for a total of 5 points each. In attacks, this can be somewhat mitigated by resistances to magic or certain effects.

Defending: Defending against an attack action will be done by the roll of a d20 dice, your success determined by how well you roll. Your personal defense is determined by taking 20 and subtracting your total AC value. If your total AC was 13, this means that you are left with 7. When you roll, any roll 7 or lower means you failed in defending against the attack and take damage. If your AC is an 11, this means if you roll a 9 or lower, you’ve failed to defend and take damage.

Attacks: All attacks are classified as doing 5 points of damage if the strike succeeds. Resistances and vulnerabilities will either subtract or add to that damage as needed based on the announced factors. Attacks may also be combined actions, so if you have more than one action, you can either announce that you are making two separate attacks, or can make a single massive attack by adding your action points together in a single action.

Healing: Healing actions will always heal for 5 points total.

Block Actions: Block actions can be declared and will allow for a 1 AC bonus for any form of blocking physically if no shield or shield spell is possible.

Magic Based Combat: General spellwork will be classified with the same damage as regular attacks with the exception of Resistances and Vulnerabilities. These are based on the combat at hand and it should be announced that if a magic user is present in the attack that any player resistances and vulnerabilities be announced before combat begins. The attacker must announce the damage type.  If no vulnerabilities or resistances are announced then it is assumed that none exist and standard damage is applied.

Resistances: If your character resists certain types of attacks, such as fire, ice, positive, negative, this will play in the reduction of the damage caused, not in the resistance to being hit by it. This will reduce the damage caused by 2 points

Vulnerabilities: In retrospect, if your character is vulnerable to a damage type, it will add 2 points to the damage caused.

It is expected that you play your character honorably. If you have a particular resistance or vulnerability, make sure you let your opponent know before the combat begins.

Death and Unconsciousness: In general play against NPCs, or in a duel not considered a friendly sparring match, if a player is knocked unconscious by going below 0 HP and their HP goes below -10 then they are considered unable to be healed. This is extremely rare and should be agreed to happen before any such combat involving character death is allowed. A bandaged character will have the bleeding or life drain stopped so they cannot dip below -10. Any healed character has the possibility of regaining consciousness, so a player at -2 that is healed for 5 points will regain consciousness with 3 HP.

Airship Combat: Airship combat will work in a similar way, except airships will have a set amount of HP and Armor.  Every airship also has a shroud to defend it which will aid in defending against a single attack of any kind, but the Captain of a ship must announce that he is using the shroud.  Rules for that will follow.  The actions taken by the crew will heavily depend on the amount of crew an airship can hold, as well as the amount of actions each crew member is allowed individually.  Airship Statistics are as follows:

Scout Class: Maximum 3 crew members, Armor Class of 12, HP of 60
Frigate Class: Maximum of 4 crew members, Armor Class of 10, HP of 80
Cruiser Class: Maximum of 6 crew members, Armor Class of 12, HP of 100
Battleship Class: Maximum of 8 crew members, Armor Class of 14, HP of 120
Capital Class: Maximum of 8 crew members, Armor Class of 16, HP of 140

Repair Actions: An airship can be repaired mid battle but takes the actions of a crewman for that turn, regardless of how many actions that crewman may have available.  All repair actions are 5 hitpoints per turn.

Captain’s Seat: All airships will have a designated Captain.  The Captain is in charge of the Airship Shroud which is a powerful defensive screen.  Only the Captain can make use of the shroud and cannot designate this action to any other crew member.

Pilot’s Seat: A single crewman can be designated as the ‘pilot’ for the airship.  While the pilot cannot operate the shroud they are able to take evasive action in order to help increase the likeliness an incoming attack will fail by giving a ‘dodge’ AC bonus to a ship.

Evasive Action: Airship Pilots or Captains can elect to take an evasive action as one of their actions instead of any other action. Evasive Action will enable a temporary increase in AC of 2 for the next round of combat. On the Capital Class, this will only increase AC by 1 since the ship is a much larger size and will not move as easily.  For the Scout Class, since this is a small and very maneuverable ship, this will increase the AC by 4 for that combat round.  When Evasive action is used, this uses every action the crewman in the pilot’s seat has, regardless of how many actions they have overall.

Shroud: Using a powerful magical crystal system an Airship Shroud is capable of negating up to 25 points of damage in a single round, but can only be used once every 5 rounds of combat.  Once the shroud is engaged it only remains active for a single round, and then must be recharged.  This action uses up all actions for the crewman in the Captain’s seat, regardless of how many actions the crewman has overall.

Note: In order for characters to have statistics, the character’s bio must be made to be believable in a combat scenario.  Not everyone is going to be in a combat role, such as if you are playing a young boy or girl, or young prince or princess, and haven’t yet proven yourself in any combat form.  Such characters, while considered royalty, will not be considered as Officers.  Only a single established Officer character will be allowed.

This system is copyrighted, care of Kinjita Karedric, and should not be copied for use or changed unless given permission by Kinjita Karedric.