First things first: all combat is
completely optional on Shattered Fates. If you don't want to bother with combat, you don't have to read this. If you just want to make your character, get roleplaying, and come look at combat later, you don't have to read this until you want to.
Now that that's out of the way, another caveat: the stuff outlined here is all to do with PvE Quest threads. The idea is, we want to give you a really loose, simple system for your character so that you can do stuff like quests with your friends, fighting monsters and bandits and whatnot. To this end we've created what is hopefully a simple combat system that allows as much interpretation as you want.
So, let's break it down. When you start figuring stuff out for combat, you'll choose a
Basic Class. Right now, there are six basic classes:
- Soldier
- Warrior
- Thief
- Red Mage
- Black Mage
- White Mage
Your class and level determine your HP, STR, MAG, and SPD. All these stats are hopefully as simple as they appear: HP represents your health pool. STR represents how much damage you do with a normal attack. MAG is used for some spells and abilities. SPD determines who gets to go first in combat in a quest (some abilities use SPD as well).
The basic idea of this system is that it's as flexible as you want it to be, so the Quest Master can decide exactly how they want to use the system. For instance, if a QM decides that people get two actions per post, they can; if they want to give everyone a special action they can use during that quest, they can. Generally, your QM is the go-to for any clarification.
Furthermore, at level 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, you get to choose one ability from the list of abilities for your class. You can choose any ability from the list that is equal to or less than your current level (for instance, if you're Level 3 and you have one Level 1 ability, you may choose another Level 1 ability from your class OR one of the Level 3 abilities). Because player inventories are managed by the players themselves, you can change how you made these choices from the ground up, at more or less any time: however, we do encourage people to not be constantly switching classes in a way that makes little sense for your character, and when you start a quest, it's considered polite to list your current stats and abilities for your QM. Even if you change your abilities during a quest, we suggest that all QMs use the ability list you entered the Quest with during the entirety of that Quest.
The last question you might have is "How do I get experience?" Not by posting--you get
gold from posting (you also get gold from completing quests/threads). You get experience after you've completed a quest. Just notify a member of staff that you have a completed quest ready for review, and that staff member will review the quest and decide how many experience points you'll get. You need 5 experience to level up.
With respect to weapons and armor, you can have whatever weapons and armor you like--but they won't affect your stats. For instance, Rwaht has a honkin' huge katana sword thing, but his strength is determined only by his class and level. Only items purchased from the shop (Battle Accessories) can actually change your stats.
One last thing. The whole idea here is to have
fun--you'll notice that all the abilities we have listed are very vague in description. That means you can interpret them however you want! Let's say you're a Thief, and you want to use the "Stagger" ability (which does damage and lowers an opponent's speed). How does your character use that ability? Up to you! Maybe your thief uses a trip wire to befuddle an opponent, maybe he throws a throwing star in his face, maybe he just knees him in the groin. Think of quests and combat as a bit like Dungeons & Dragons: there might be some numbers and a list of abilities, but the only point of all of this is that you use this stuff to share as fun and interesting a story as you can come up with!
(Also, if you have any complaints, or if anything at all is unclear and you need some clarification, feel free to message Rwaht, who designed the battle system/abilities and thus is wholly responsible for blame).
The information on the basic classes is
here.
