• This section is for roleplays only.
    ALL interest checks/recruiting threads must go in the Recruit Here section.

    Please remember to credit artists when using works not your own.

Futuristic Paragons of Tomorrow: Mechanics

P
Created at
Index progress
Incomplete

links

AtlannianSpy

Alarmed and Strangerous
Mechanics
Paragons of Tomorrow uses a system that is intended to be both simple and flexible, it is intended to be an aid to help you create interesting characters and stories without getting bogged down in fiddly mathematics or mechanics while still providing some level of structure and balance, to help provide weight and consistency to unfolding events. Do note that this system is mostly concerned with creating and tracking your character, in terms of resolving the precise outcomes of individual events we will be relying on discussion, compromise and collaboration.


Experience Points

Experience points are what you use to acquire new abilities or improve other ones. Experience points are earned generally by participating in story events, but you can also earn bonus experience from almost any kind of scene you might like to write. More powerful abilities cost more experience to continue upgrading, but more dangerous, impactful events will reward more experience points to spend, so you will always be able to grow to some degree.

Abilities
Abilities are probably the most important resource and mechanic in Paragons of Tomorrow, they describe what your character can do that other people can't, what makes them a super hero or super villain instead of just a regular person. Whenever you try to do something important or difficult: rescue children from a burning orphanage; flip and twist your way through the laser grid protecting a priceless artefact or conduct a mystical ritual of banishing for example you will be using one or more of your abilities and the more powerful your abilities are the more likely you will be to succeed. Your character can learn new abilities or improve their current ones by spending the experience points you earn from participating in events.

Each ability has the following properties.


Name: (The ability's name)
Origin: (In paragons all phenomena have either a Mystical or a Material origin. To put it simply is this a magical ability or a more science fiction kind of thing.)
Rank: (The higher an ability’s rank is the more powerful and versatile it can be but the more expensive it is to acquire in terms of experience points. The maximum rank that a character can raise their abilities to is limited by their hazard level: a concept discussed below.)
Effect: (a description of what the ability can do and how it functions, as you increase an ability's rank this will likely change to reflect its new, more powerful and versatile effects. )
Limitations: (Any drawbacks or weaknesses the ability has. Sufficiently disadvantageous limitations can bring down the overall point cost of the ability, as an ability's rank is increased you may decide to remove or mitigate its limitations rather than improving its effects.)


The Body and Mind Abilities
While most of your abilities will be unique to you, or at least rare and special, there are two abilities that every character will start with: The Body ability and the The Mind Ability.

The Body ability represents the characters overall physical fitness, resilience and strength. The higher you raise this ability the greater physical feats your character is capable of and they will be able to withstand greater amounts of physical punishment.

The Mind ability represents the character’s overall mental fortitude and capacity for concentration. Characters with a highly rank mind ability are more perceptive, alert and better suited to handling complex mental tasks in high pressure situations, they are also better able to withstand mental attacks or illusions. It’s important to note that character’s with low mind scores can still be intelligent or wise in various ways as it isn’t a complete assessment of their personality, the mind ability is more an assessment of the ability to calculate quickly and effectively in crises.

Ordinary humans will have Body and Mind ability ranks that range between 1 to 10, with scores of 1 being equivalent to a small child and 10 being equivalent to a top level expert or athlete. If you want to raise your Body or Mind abilities above 10, to outright superhuman levels then you absolutely can, you will just need some kind of explanation. Usually whatever gave you your or other superpowers will probably work fine as an explanation, but in some cases you might need to introduce a new element or plot device.


Support Abilities

Support Abilities are the other main resource you can spend your experience points on. Ability points relate to what a character is capable of as an individual by describing things like their super powers or special equipment but support points have more to do with the people and infrastructure that support them. Support abilities can be used to unlock all the classic accessories of a superhero or villain: everything from a secret lair; a squadron of loyal minions; a custom made super car with hidden weapons; the support of a vague yet menacing government agency; a vast, personal fortune or even a faithful sidekick. Almost anything or anyone that might support your actions as a hero or villain can be purchased.

Supports have a similar profile to abilities

Name: (The supports name's name)
Rank: (The higher a supports’s rank is the more powerful and versatile it can be but the more expensive it is to acquire in terms of experience points. Unlike abilities, supports are not limited by hazard level and even relatively weak characters can have very high rank supports if they are willing to spend enough exp on them.
Effect: (a description of what the support can do and how it functions, as you increase a support's rank this will likely change to reflect its new, more powerful and versatile effects. )
Limitations: (Any drawbacks or weaknesses the support has. Sufficiently disadvantageous limitations can bring down the overall point cost.



Hazard Level
Hazard Level is an approximate measure of how much damage a parahuman could wreak on human society. The higher a paragon’s hazard level the more powerful threats they can contend with but the more scrutiny they tend to receive from enemies and onlookers alike. In game play terms the main function hazard level plays is to separate characters and events in to "weight classes" . Everyone will have a fighting chance against opponents within their weight class, but things will be more unbalanced when contending with threats outside of their hazard level.

Each level of hazard is roughly equivalent to ten ability ranks and in fact a character's current hazard level determines their maximum cap for the rank of an ability: hazard level 1 characters can only raise their abilities up to maximum of 10. Hazard level 2 characters can raise their abilities up to a maximum of 20 and so on.

Hazard levels are also used to describe the danger of particular missions or crises: A hazard level 1 emergency might be something like a gang of street thieves: A hazard level 3 mission might be more along the lines of a rampaging squad of cyborg assassins. For the most part paragons will primarily tackle events at their current level: players can still get involved in events outside of their hazard level but will play more of a supporting or cameo role: paragons meddling in events above their hazard level would likely be outclassed directly confronting the main threat but may be able to conduct important reconnaissance or sabotage, or protect or evacuate civilians for example. Paragons getting involved in events below their hazard level obviously have less direct limitations, but will often be too busy or constrained by political considerations to intervene directly, but they might be able to give some advice, pull some strings or neutralise an opposing power of their own threat level attempting to interfere with the situation.


Hazard Level 1: Hazard level 1 characters have a definite edge over the average person, but not much more, in fact often a fit, healthy person armed and trained is often enough to qualify as a level 1 hazard. In open combat they can usually contend reliability with a handful of ordinary humans but larger or more well equipped groups can often subdue them.

Hazard Level 2: Hazard level 2 characters are serious threats to most people, often being capable of destroying small buildings and overwhelming medium groups of conventional law enforcement personnel. Well trained, well equipped response teams are often needed to take down level 2 hazards.

Hazard Level 3: Hazard level 3 characters are capable of destroying entire city blocks or small towns alone. Level 3 hazards are military grade threats: heavy weaponry such as tanks, air support or artillery alongside fully armed infantry are often needed to defeat them.

Hazard Level 4: Hazard level 4 characters are national level threats capable of wiping out major cities singlehandedly. Conventional armed forces generally cannot engage level 4 hazards without incurring unacceptable losses as they lack the ability to concentrate firepower precisely enough to target them and face the risk of individual elements being defeated in detail. Most nations have secretive forces or protocols designed to neutralise level 4 hazards but for those who do not the only realistic option is often strategic level bombardment

Hazard Level 5: Level 5 characters are destructive and difficult enough to subdue that they can constitute existential threats to most major nations. Conventional weaponry and forces are barely hindrances to level 5 hazards and even the widely accepted standard response (Multiple level 4 hazard response teams working in a coordinated and prepared fashion) are expected to suffer heavy losses when engaging a level 5 hazard.

Raising Hazard Level

While characters can develop their abilities with time, effort and experience to a certain extent, transitioning between hazard levels represents a more drastic evolution of the character’s abilities, it isn’t possible to achieve this simply through spending experience like normal.

After characters raise at least one ability to the cap of their current hazard level they can choose to undergo an Ascension arc. This is a special story event focused chiefly around the character in question, though other character's may participate as well. This story arc's main purpose should be to provide an explanation for how the character is becoming more powerful but it also should showcase some kind of dramatic growth or change in the character to add dramatic impact to the transformation. The realisation of a goal; a new understanding of the world or the transformation of an important relationship for example are all potential ideas for an ascension arc.



Experience cost formulas

As mentioned above, you can improve your characters abilities, or learn new ones, by spending the experience points you earn while Roleplaying.

Learning New abilities
The cost to learn a new ability is equal to the ability's rank, multiplied by the hazard level required to learn it.

For example a rank 5 ability will only cost 5, multiplied by 1 as having a hazard level of 1 is sufficient to learn up to rank 10 abilities.

A rank 15 ability will cost 15, multiplied by 2 (as a hazard level of 2 is required to learn abilities with ranks of 11 to 20) for a total experience cost of 30 points.

Upgrading existing abilities

To upgrade an ability your character already knows, you simply need to spend experience points to bring the amount you have already spent on the ability up to the amount it would cost to learn at the new, higher rank.

For example a character who knows a rank 5 ability would have spent 5 experience points to learn that ability. A rank 6 ability would cost six experience points to learn, so for them to improve their rank 5 ability to a rank 6 ability would only require them to spend one more experience point to make up up the shortfall.

a character who knows a rank 15 ability would have spent 30 experience points to learn that ability. A rank 16 ability would cost 32 experience points to learn, so for them to improve their rank 15 ability to a rank 16 ability would require them to spend two more experience point to make up the shortfall.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top