Character Advancement: The Reason to Adventure

[Alpharius]

What sort of system is Arthropocalypse going to utilize in regards to character advancement? Classes and Prestige Classes? Will players be confined to pre-existing species, or will those merely be a jumping-off point for things more formidable?

[Quest Lord]

I think we should start with real species, but possibly having a bunch of fictional species might be fun, usable at DM digression of course.

[Alpharius]

I think we should start with real species, but possibly having a bunch of fictional species might be fun, usable at DM digression of course.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of starting with, say, an ant, but being able to purchase things like pincers, wings, a stinger, etc. That ants don't usually have access to. My thinking is, once you've created your character, are you locked out of certain adaptations, to keep you from deviating from the norm in regards to ant species, or is anything available, for the right price?

[Quest Lord]

Maybe allow unusual trait additions for an extra cost, and add a note about DM digression (so any broken combos can easily be NO'd).

[Alpharius]

I guess one of the first things to figure out is the various classes/families, what ability(s) are the trademark(s) of each, and what multiple families use.

Niches to fill, and who fills each, are probably important too.

[BrokenMuse]

From the /tg/ thread and my own thoughts, here's what I see:

Ants: A generalist capably of several choices. They can help support the group or operate as fearless fighters. Get bonuses for working in groups.
Bees: Like ants, but airborne and with a stronger bent towards support (healing, scouting, etc).
Butterflies/Moths: Frail and useless as fighters. Scales from their wings produce a variety of effects. Maybe the "wizards" of the game.
Beetles: Powerhouses. They're the tanks of the group. Strong and able to take a hit.
Cockroaches: Hard to kill. May not be the strongest of the group or the fastest or the most aware, but has staying power. Can be a clever and stealthy scout.
Dragonflies: Aerial rogues. They're fast, deadly and can't take a direct hit. On the ground they lose much their advantages.
Spiders: Stealthy predators. Depending of if its a web weaver or hunter, they're either best suited to laying traps and waiting or taking the fight to the enemy. Not the best as the tank/main fighter, best suited to flanking with bites and well-placed webs.
Scorpions: Berserkers? They sting and sting and don't back down.

The latest tg thread mentioned having larval/nymph stages of play. For most species that wouldn't change much (pretty much like playing at low levels) but for butterflies or dragonflies, it'd be like creating 2 different characters.

[Quest Lord]

You'd have to have different stats for larvae and adults. Some species would be near unplayable as larvae (ants for example), but others might get to have a larval stage that can be played with. Maybe depending on your leveling up, your stats might change but you'll get bonuses depending on what you leveled up as a larvae. For example, if a caterpillar of level 3 had some bonuses to Vitality it would keep the bonuses, even if it's base stats changed. For bonuses to Str, they might become Vit or a more useful stat? I think the mechanics for this might have to wait until we have a more thorough base system though.

Are we even going with a level based system?

[Alpharius]

I think a level-based system is easiest, when you consider that that's how most people are used to playing it.

Honestly, D&D reskinned for bugs with some suitable mechanics fixes is how I see this being the most fun.

[Quest Lord]

Grabbing from another thread, where it was grabbed from the /tg/ thread:

Stats
Vitality: Generic Health
Strength: How strong
Rigidity: defense, improved with chitin and stuff. Having higher generally means you have less...
Flexebility: dodging and grappling. More leaves you less rigid, but better in combat.
Agility. Speed. Centipedes have FUCKFAST Agility.
Intelligence: is required to use exploits, set traps, etc.
Social: grants teamwork bonuses. Hive animals would have tonnes of this, but lower intel.

I think these stats might work a bit better then the D&D thing. Also, D&D has weapons being a bit of a bigger deal for melee combat, etc. then this will (FANGS AND STINGS). Might be better systems to work with, or just build a simple system from the ground up, stealing what works from whatever. I'm fairly unfamiliar with most PnP RPGs though, so I might be a bit off base here.

[Alpharius]

Honestly, I think using D&D as a model, and deviating wherever it doesn't do the trick is probably the best way to get started.

[BrokenMuse]

I'm not a big fan of DnD/d20 systems, but hashing out the system details can be done in the system voting thread.

Grabbing from another thread, where it was grabbed from the /tg/ thread:

Stats
Vitality: Generic Health
Strength: How strong
Rigidity: defense, improved with chitin and stuff. Having higher generally means you have less...
Flexebility: dodging and grappling. More leaves you less rigid, but better in combat.
Agility. Speed. Centipedes have FUCKFAST Agility.
Intelligence: is required to use exploits, set traps, etc.
Social: grants teamwork bonuses. Hive animals would have tonnes of this, but lower intel.

I'd put Rigidity as a trait instead of attribute. It'd be something some species would have as a default/cheap to buy (Beetles, for example) and either unavailable (Butterflies) or costlier (Bees) for others. Have some sort of restrictions such as "If Rigidity/Armor is X, Flexibility cannot go above Y."

Social could also represent a "swarm" aspect.

[Quest Lord]

Well, if we go that way, instead of weapons, each species will have various types of basic attacks, and some abilities.

So an ant might have bite 2, sting 2 and acid spray 1, depending on species. If we break the attacks down to basic types and attached values for how powerful they are (so an ant might have sting 2 but a bee might have sting 6) it would be easier IMHO, so that we can make rough equivalents across species, etc.

[Alpharius]

Perhaps the various attacks are affected by a character's size, but beyond that, they can be buffed in various ways.

[Quest Lord]

I'd put Rigidity as a trait instead of attribute. It'd be something some species would have as a default/cheap to buy (Beetles, for example) and either unavailable (Butterflies) or costlier (Bees) for others. Have some sort of restrictions such as "If Rigidity/Armor is X, Flexibility cannot go above Y."

Social could also represent a "swarm" aspect.

Yeah, that could work also. Particularly if we're going with an attribute [value] type deal where every attribute has multiple stages, etc.

[Quest Lord]

Perhaps the various attacks are affected by a character's size, but beyond that, they can be buffed in various ways.

Well for example a catapillar would be large, but if he had a bite attack it would be feeble. So instead having the different attacks with associated levels lets a small but vicious ant have a mightier bite then said catapillar. But it could be further buffed by abilities, etc.

[Bees]

I'd say order-based advancement where you go down the taxonomic "branch" you choose. For example, you could start as a generic, basal moth with flight and a bad taste, but later gain ability to pull off perfect aerial manuevers (skippers), imitate a certain species or object (Brenthia, bird-dropping moths), gain spots and such for intimidation (owl moth), grow in size (Hercules moth), produce warning sounds (crackers and sphinx moths), mask your pheromones to infiltrate nests of other groups (death's head hawkmoth), ability to hear and ward off bats with warning clicks (tiger moths) or any combination of those. Modelling your character after an extant species would be encouraged but not necessary.

[Alpharius]

I'd say order-based advancement where you go down the taxonomic "branch" you choose. For example, you could start as a generic, basal moth with flight and a bad taste, but later gain ability to pull off perfect aerial manuevers (skippers), imitate a certain species or object (Brenthia, bird-dropping moths), gain spots and such for intimidation (owl moth), grow in size (Hercules moth), produce warning sounds (crackers and sphinx moths), mask your pheromones to infiltrate nests of other groups (death's head hawkmoth), ability to hear and ward off bats with warning clicks (tiger moths) or any combination of those. Modelling your character after an extant species would be encouraged but not necessary.

Perhaps a system similar to multiclassing in D&D, but a little different. Perhaps it only takes a certain amount of levels to finish developing, say, imitation, but you haven't reached max level yet, so once you finish developing one trait, you get to work on another.

[Berserker Steve]

Perhaps there can be a career system where different paths give you a list of upgrades, like all those different moths can have their own tree and maybe it can be possible to cross trees but at a price of some kind.

[Quest Lord]

How we deal with this depends largely on chargen:
https://arthropocalypse.rpg-board.net/crunch-f3/chargen-great-part-of-the-game-or-greatest-part-of-the-game-t4.htm

However, I think a system roughly similar to Dark Heresy might be good, so beetles have the choice of this, this or this, at suchandsuch exp. Butterflies/moths would have a different set of abilities, etc. Some abilities might remove others, for example if a beetle takes giant pincers it might lose the ability to fly, or at least rank down it's flight ability by one, etc.

Fluffwise bugs don't change during their life, but we can handwve that away with the same post apoc. toxic goop that makes us sentient, able to have mixed parties, etc.

[BrokenMuse]

Perhaps there can be a career system where different paths give you a list of upgrades, like all those different moths can have their own tree and maybe it can be possible to cross trees but at a price of some kind.

It could be done with lists of traits, organized by focus: Offensive, Defensive, Support (though not in such generic terms). Each species subclass would have a favored list where the traits/upgrades are free or cheap but could purchase new ones from the other lists at a higher cost.

For instance, a hypothetical Butterfly Healer would have access to the Healing and Buffing lists. But now the Butterfly wants a little oomph to help out in combat so he takes Dustwings (which kicks up debris) from the Combat/Offense list. He won't be as good at it as a fighting butterfly (for a while), but there's that freedom of choice.

And what Quest Lord said.

[Bees]

I agree. Say, if you're a beetle, you'd start with a sturdy body, and take a few abilities from chargen. There onwards you can be a rhinoceros beetle by increasing your size and getting horns, tiger beetle with large mandibles and high agility, bombardier beetle with a ranged attack and so on. That would mostly remove the need to have sub-classes (a warrior ant is an ant with large mandibles and poison glands purchased, a worker is an ant with carrying capacity increase and stamina upgrades purchased, ant queen has pheromone and size upgrades etc. )

Many abilities should be available to everyone (or everyone but a few, eg: no armored moths), but some can be rather specific (eg: only mantids and scorpionflies get raptorial claws)

[Quest Lord]

"It could be done with lists of traits, organized by focus: Offensive, Defensive, Support (though not in such generic terms). Each species subclass would have a favored list where the traits/upgrades are free or cheap but could purchase new ones from the other lists at a higher cost."

Would the favoured list be one of those focuses, or a separate list, for each species?

If the first, why force players to specialise in a certain role? For example, give all butterflies equal access to all the butterfly powers, and if he wants to be a healer, he'll take the healing powers, etc. If the latter, ignore this.

[BrokenMuse]

Good point. It's the former. I'm smashing various systems in my head together and it's getting a little messed up.

Maybe organize several universal lists that deal with improving armor, natural weapons, speed, etc. Then each species has their own list with species-specific traits. So venom/poison, pollen/pheremones and whatever else.

[Quest Lord]

Maybe organize several universal lists that deal with improving armor, natural weapons, speed, etc. Then each species has their own list with species-specific traits. So venom/poison, pollen/pheremones and whatever else.

So the base beetle list might look like:
Hardened exoskeleton (5)
Size advantage (4)
Strength advantage (5)
Fomic spray (3)
etc.
where the numbers are max times it can be taken.

All beetles would have access to this list. Then the species Bombadier beetle would have:
Favoured skills:
Formic spray (4)
etc.
Where the numbers are the number of levels this species can take it at half cost. This may allow the species to take more levels then the type.

The species might also have:
Restricted skills:
Strength advantage (2)
limiting it to 2 levels of strength advantage.

??

[BrokenMuse]

Yeah, that's pretty close. Each subspecies would have guidelines on what they could and couldn't use on the main lists and the special skills only they had (like the beetle's spray).

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