Attributes

The maximum value of your characters' attributes is determined by their genetics, but the actual value may be quite a bit lower if they are not properly conditioned. For example, even if you have the theoretical ability to build a large amount of muscle, if you have poor nutrition or don't exercise then you will realize very little of it. Conditioning is different for each attribute, but generally no one will be able to condition all of their attributes to their maximum potential due to there only being 24 hours in a day.

Attributes are grouped between Chest/Stomach/Head/Limbs (L/R, A/L). Damage to one of these areas will affect all attributes within.

Chest

Endurance

Represents the strength of your heart, capacity of your lungs, and proportion of slow-twitch/fast-twitch muscle fiber. It determines how long you can go without suffering from exhaustion and how fast you move when traveling. Conditioned by traveling on foot. 0. Asphyxiated

1. Dainty sheltered nobles
2. City-folk
3. Knights and peasants
4. Professional soldiers
5. Adventuring heroes
6. Undead (cannot be tired)

Stomach

Immunity

This is essentially a combination of the liver, spleen, and other organs which regulate your immune system and ability to filter out toxins. 0. AIDS

1. Infants
2. Sheltered nobles and children
3. Rural commoners and knights
4. Elves and city-folk
5. Vampires (immune to disease)

Gut

Your stomach, intestines, pancreas, and other organs involved with your digestive system. Determines how edible food needs to be in order for you to effectively digest it and how much variety you need to be decently healthy. Cooking makes food more edible, but food that is more fibrous and less nutritious can only be improved by so much. 0. Vampires (cannot digest food, must get calories directly from blood glucose)

1. Elves (can only eat meat, fat, and luxurious elven plants)
2. Nobles, orcs
3. Professional soldiers, goblins
4. Peasants (can survive almost entirely on grains without huge penalty)
5. Livestock

Limbs

These attributes are separate among 4 limbs:

• Right arm
• Left arm
• Right leg
• Left leg Every physical check will use some proportion of these. For example, swinging a sword in your right hand is largely dependent on your right arm, but your left arm is also being used for balance and your legs are helping put force into it. Your torso is also twisting to support this, but rather than being a separate limb, your torso is essentially a fuzzy mix of all limb attributes (mostly arms).

Strength

Proportional to the total muscle mass of the limb. Arm-strength is important for attack damage, climb speed, and how well you keep your balance while blocking attacks. Leg-strength is important for movement speed and jump height. 0. Cripple

1. Child
2. Adult woman, pubescent boy
3. Adult man
4. Trained knight
5. Olympic athlete

Agility

The speed of your muscular reflexes and your ability to control them. Arm-agility is important for accuracy and parrying, leg-agility is important for stealth and dodging. 0. Paralyzed, unaware, or tied up

1. Drunken oaf, orcs, zombies
2. Clumsy, goblins, skeletons
3. Professional soldiers and knights
4. Heroes, surgeons, locksmiths
5. Elven heroes

Head

In theory eyesight/hearing should be further subdivided into eyes/ears for damage purposes, while intelligence and instinct are brain. In fact, ask a neurologist but intelligence/instinct would be correlated with different physical locations in the brain. But this is fine for now, we do not need infinite detail for the MVP.

Intelligence

The depth at which your character can think at. Applies a bonus to mental skills. In order to use your intelligence bonus, a skill has to give you time to think about the problem. 0. Not capable of conscious thought

1. Low-functioning autistic, toddler
2. Would struggle to learn even basic math
3. Can learn high-school-level math
4. Can learn college-level math
5. Can meaningfully contribute to the field of mathematics

Instinct

Your ability to make snap judgements without thinking. A character with high instinct makes for a good small group leader in battle, where making a quick, decent decision is more important than making an ideal decision but taking awhile to come to it. Applies a bonus to your mental skills. The bonus does not require focus, but is lower than an equal bonus from intelligence. 0. Unconscious

1. Takes a couple seconds to respond if you ask them a question
2. Absentminded
3. Alert
4. Veteran captain
5. Enlightened monk

Eyesight

0. Blind
1. Needs glasses, many fantasy enemies like goblins or zombies
2. Below average human
3. Above average human
4. Elven warrior
5. Hawk, elven archer

Hearing

0. Deaf
1. Muffled, many fantasy enemies like goblins or zombies
2. Attended too many rock concerts
3. Has never been to a rock concert
4. Deer
5. Blind monk

Skills

Skills are divided into two categories: mental and physical. The former is governed by intelligence and instinct, the latter by agility. Physical skills are

Training

Skills increase on a much longer timescale than is conventional for RPGs, they are not increased via an abstract XP/leveling system and very little of their value comes from actually using them during gameplay. Instead they are trained during your character's off-screen daily schedule. We are not actually simulating a schedule, at least not for the MVP, instead you're basically just allocating a ratio between your skills (which is given a sensible default when picking a character) and your character is ostensibly spending time training them on their own time.

The main difference between this and directly allocating skill points is that if your character is convalescing or traveling they won't be able to train most of their skills. Not all skills are equal though in terms of how much training time they need to be effective, they all have their own falloff curve. The number in the parentheses next to a listed skill here is the number of hours that it takes for it to be 50% effective. The rate of increase from training is lower the higher they get, providing an upper-asymptote for how skilled a character can be in a particular skill. Additionally, skills atrophy with disuse, so even an immortal elf or vampire cannot become optimal at everything (though they may get close) due to there being only so many hours in a day.

Intuitive vs Trained

Intuitive skills can be attempted without training, the check is an average between their associated attribute and the training rank. Trained skills on the other hand receive no benefit without actual training regardless of how high their associated attribute is, the training value is a ceiling. Most skills relevant to the MVP happen to be intuitive.

Formula

# TODO: pain_penalty, morale_penalty


const CALORIES_PER_ENDURANCE = 1000
const FATIGUE_EXPONENT = 5
fn fatigue_penalty(player):
	fatigue = player.calories_used_today / (player.endurance * CALORIES_PER_ENDURANCE)
	1 - fatigue^FATIGUE_EXPONENT

const MAX_CHECK = 5
fn skill_check(player, skill, focus_level):
	hours = player.hours_trained(skill)
	training = MAX_CHECK * (hours / (hours + skill.half()))
	(reflex, focus) = match skill.type():
		mental => (instinct, intelligence)
		physical => (agility, precision)
	attribute = reflex + focus * focus_level
	mut check = if skill.is_intuitive():
		(training + attribute)/2
	else:
		min(training, attribute)
	if skill.type() == physical:
		# armor penalty ranges from 0-0.4, with full-plate being 0.4
		if skill.is_upper_body():
			check *= 1 - player.upper_body_armor_penalty()
		else:
			check *= 1 - player.lower_body_armor_penalty()
		check *= player.encumbrance_penalty()
	return check

Each skill is represented in the stats window as a pair of horizontal bars. One represents the value as if focus_level was 0, the other as if it were 2. Each bar is measured in terms of hours trained, with non-equidistant ticks at each whole number value of the skill check. Any penalties such as from encumbrance, armor, or injuries are designated by a color on the bar, so that the white portion shows how much the skill currently is, while the colored portions show how much each penalty is affecting the final value.

Mental

Will (intuitive, 5000 hours)

Ability to resist pain or avoid morale penalties. 0. Generalized anxiety disorder / panic disorder

1. Coward
2. Cautious, sensitive to pain
3. Professional soldier
4. Brave hero
5. Zen monk

Charisma (intuitive, 20000 hours)

There's no persuasion system or anything for the MVP, this is just a morale buff for the party. You lose focus during combat, so instinct gives you tactical morale while intelligence gives you traveling morale. 0. Autistic

1. Cold and aloof
2. Boring
3. Friendly
4. Funny
5. Professional bard

Medicine (trained, 10000 hours)

The MVP is not going to have a herbalism system or diseases, so whoever has the highest medicine skill simply gives a party-wide bonus to health recovery speed. 0. Provides no help to anyone injured

1. Knows to disinfect wounds with alcohol
2. Can treat common diseases (flu/cold)
3. Can treat some organ damage and uncommon diseases
4. Can treat most organ damage and rare diseases
5. Can treat all organ damage and all diseases

Faith (trained, 5000 hours)

This is a special sort of skill that also has an associated religion. You can only have faith in one religion. The upside of it is that it multiplies the morale bonus that you get from the charisma check of allies of the same faith (perhaps the min of each of your faiths is the multiplier). The downside is that it divides the morale bonus if you are of different faiths (add faiths together then divide?). Thus having 0 faith is advantageous in the unusual situation where you need a party of mixed faith.

Halbe: After the MVP we may want to move this into a separate system from skills called "Personality" which is more immutable and balanced via tradeoffs. "Religion" could stay as a skill, representing one's knowledge of a given religion, and is a requirement for the charisma-multiplier morale bonus from faith. Faith might also be renamed to "Conviction" and come with more downsides to balance out its huge upside, like one's unwillingness to compromise could make it difficult to deal with "morally flexible" characters.

0. Agnostic, atheist, or only only identifies with the faith to participate in holidays and not be ostracized.
1. Actually does pray and ostensibly believe, but doesn't think about it often in day-to-day life
2. Regularly attends church and will feel guilty for skipping, but still often view most of their life through a secular lens
3. Prays daily and means it, but not eager to become a martyr. Doubts only when faith is tested by serious adversity.
4. Willing to live an ascetic life. Will almost certainly not blaspheme or convert even when tortured
5. Will eagerly martyr for a righteous opportunity

Physical

Melee (intuitive, 8000 hours)

Agility helps you hit enemies that are actively trying to dodge or block your attacks, precision helps you hit enemies that are unaware of you or staggered. 0. Has never been shown how to use a weapon or observed for an extended period of time

1. Can split firewood with an axe, zombies
2. Peasant levy, orcs, goblins
3. Professional soldier
4. Knight
5. Elven warrior

Ranged (intuitive, 15000 hours)

You have to aim at a target for awhile to get your precision bonus, whereas agility helps more with point-shooting 0. Never practiced even throwing a baseball

1. Orcs, untrained peasants
2. Goblins, militia
3. Professional soldiers
4. Huntsmen
5. Elf rangers

Block (intuitive, 12000 hours)

The larger your shield is, the less you rely on your block skill to use it effectively. A pavise requires almost none (though considerable strength), a buckler or weapon require high skill to use effectively. Precision doesn't give you a bonus to your defense when blocking, but does increase the amount of poise damage that actually does occur on a successful block (automatically turning it into a parry). 0. Never been in a fight

1. Has been in some barfights
2. Fresh recruit
3. Professional soldier
4. Knights, heroes
5. Elven swordmasters

Stealth (intuitive, 8000 hours)

Agility reduces the noise that you make while moving, precision reduces the radius at which your party can be detected at when traveling. 0. Has never even attempted to steal cookies from the cookie jar

1. Most people
2. Can tiptoe around the house in socks without waking anyone, usually
3. Novice hunter, professional mercenary trained in ambush tactics
4. Practiced thief, veteran hunter
5. Master thief, elven hunter

Balance (intuitive, 30000 hours)

Relevant both for poise in melee and speed in difficult terrain 0. Cannot walk upright

1. Bit of a klutz, orcs
2. Can walk in high-heels, can dance in normal shoes, professional soldier
3. Can run and dance in high heels, amateur gymnast
4. Skilled gymnast or martial artist, can walk a tightrope
5. Graceful elf

Surgeon (trained, 10000 hours)

The speed at which you bandage/splint wounds and the healing rate, once-bandaged 0. Cannot reliably apply a bandage

1. Can dress a wound or apply a tourniquet
2. Can stitch skin, probably shouldn't
3. Can remove a bullet, good at stitching skin
4. Can remove an appendix or stitch an organ
5. Brain/heart surgeries