Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the RPG 1st.

[Mistborn]

Sup, Lord Mistborn here you may remember me from Apparently Expeditious Retreat, Swift is Broken. Or from my 397 post count arguing with Grognards on theRPGsite.

Well now I'm here to write a RPG about Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.

This raises a lot of questions

1)Why exactly would anyone want to play such a game.
2)What would players do in such a game.
3)What sort of system would a Nanoha RPG operate under anyway
4)how huge a weeaboo is LM for picking this as his first game to design

so to answer 1) the Nanoha magic system always seemed like it would be fun and easy to work with in a rpg and the fact the setting is expansive enough to support an rpg.

2) The PCs would I'm assuming be mages working under the Time Space Administration Bureau an inter-dimensional organization with the mission to protect the worlds of the Dimensional Sea from the Lost Logia, remnants of long gone magical civilizations and from the mages that would abuse their power.

So essentially the players are going to be mage gives missions to track down magical gizmos noone understands built by people who are long dead and capable of causing huge destruction if left unchecked, while preventing other mages who want them for possibly diabolic purposes from getting their hands on them. They could also be call in to deal with mad scientists conducting illegal research, deal with a Star Trek style swirly energy thingy, or basically any problem that a police organization would need to deal with in a setting that simultaneously fantasy and science fiction that needs a teem of wizards trained in asskicking.

3) for the mechanics I have a few ideas. I plan on looting the d20 system for as much as I can since that's what I'm familiar with. Character generation should probably be similar to mutants and masterminds where it's mostly point based but you also have a “level” in this case your mage rank that determines what you can do. If also thinking using a talent tree system for spells.

For most spells play should probably be able to cast whatever spells they now whenever they want. For the really big spells Nanoha is clearly a drain system. Using your best spell tires you out and people tend to try to hold back their best abilities until they can end the battle decisively with them.

Since characters defensive abilities tend to be fundamentally reactive I've been thinking of using opposed roll a lot. So when some tries to Divine Buster you in the face you activate Round Shield and then roll your defensive magic check as opposed by his buster spell check and if he beats your roll you take damage determined by how much better his roll is.

In terms of other mechanics we definitely need some kind of aerial dogfigting mechanic to help represent the human sized gundam style of combat the series is best known for.

4)yeah LM is a huge weeaboo


So any sugestions

[Mistborn]

Ok let's go into a little more about the system One of the first things any RPG needs is stats. So this is what I've got

Agility(AGI) this is one everyone should be familiar with tells you how fast you can move how quick your reflexes are, adds to initiative, and potentially a lot of other things. This is the stat easiest to build am entire character around. An example of an AGI focused character would be Fate Testarossa.
Durability(DUR) pretty obvious. determines how much damage your character can endure and how much of their bigger abilities they can use before drain starts to effect them, it also adds to your defensive magic bonus. An example of a DUR focused character would be Vita.
Mastery (MAS) This one is the degree to which your character intuitively grasps magical concepts. Like AGI it can modify a lot or rolls, having high mastery lets you access more “unfair” tricks like delayed binds. An example of a MAS focused character would be Chrono Harlaown.
Power (POW) The amount of raw magical power your character posses. since mages can amplify their physical abilities this stat also servers as a strength score. POW is the stat that modifies damage from spells or melee attacks. An example of a POW focused character would be the white devil herself Nanoha Takamachi.

Stats arn't everything everyone who's a mage has a Mage Ranks. Mage Ranks are E, D, C, B, A, AA, AAA, S, and SS. So essentially levels from 1 to 9 with a 10th level of SSS existing only in theory. Players should probably start at either B or AA and mostly stay there. B rank mages are a rank above the run of the mill D-C rank grunts and are probably elite teams attached to the ground forces. So less mahou shojo and more Seal Team 6. AA rank PCs are a level above the A rank aerial mages commonly employed by the TSAB dimensional navy but not so powerful that the setting will have are hard time challenging them.

For the nitty gritty of character generation the idea I have is for Skills and Spells

Your points in a Skill determine how good you are at a broad selection of things related to magic.
Examples of skills are.
Shooting Magic
Melee
Defensive Magic
Search Magic
Binding/Sealing Magic
Spatial Magic
Illusions
Telepathy
and probably more.

Spells are distinct abilities your character posses, to buy a spell you need to meet it's perquisites in terms of Stats skill level and possibly other spells. Examples of spells are Photon Lancer, Divine Buster, Area Search, Time-Space Containment Barrier, Optic Hide, Round Shield, and Starlight Breaker.

[MGuy]

Need more info.

[Mistborn]

Need more info.

What sort of info do you want, like I said this I's my frist time designing anything for real.

Well designing an entire system anyway

[ishy]

Why do you have skills?
Sounds like a better idea to just group spells and let your players have fun or just pick some skills but in that case don't do a point system. Those will most likely be: A) max the ones you pick or B) suck

[Krusk]

If PCs only go from level 4/B to level 6/AA your game only has 3 levels. Why have levels at all at this point.

I would think a build point system would work better for that. You start with 40 BP, and gain more every session. All powerful NPCs might have 100, and mooks might have 10.

Then you just give 1-2 BP per session, and no one realizes that your game only has effectively 3 levels, because they get some sort of advancement every session.

I didn't read most of the rest, as the setting isn't really my thing. This just jumped out at me.

[Mistborn]

Why do you have skills?
Sounds like a better idea to just group spells and let your players have fun or just pick some skills but in that case don't do a point system. Those will most likely be: A) max the ones you pick or B) suck

Mostly to make specializing in groups of magic more meaningful. Also combat is based on oposed rolls. So when you shoot your magical bullets at someone and they put up a force field then you roll your Shooting Magic vs their Defensive Magic and If you beat their roll you do damage based on by how much you beat their roll by.

If PCs only go from level 4/B to level 6/AA your game only has 3 levels. Why have levels at all at this point.

I would think a build point system would work better for that. You start with 40 BP, and gain more every session. All powerful NPCs might have 100, and mooks might have 10.

Then you just give 1-2 BP per session, and no one realizes that your game only has effectively 3 levels, because they get some sort of advancement every session.

I didn't read most of the rest, as the setting isn't really my thing. This just jumped out at me.

Like I said I'm poaching a bit from Mutants and Masterminds with the level point by combination. Your Mage Rank provides a hard cap on how many points you can spend on a single stat or skill to stop people from hyperspecializing.

As for PCs always being B or AA that was only a sugestion. I was thiking the players would gererally start a rank and then stay there for the entires campagin or maybe going up 1 rank

[Mistborn]

Since I'm not getting a lot of feedback I thought I'd give a quick sketch of the setting. Like I said before the the Nanoha setting is an odd blend of Science Fiction and Fantasy much of the tech is implied to be partially magical and mages use Devices hand-held computers in the shape of magic staves or weapons some of which have full AI in order to help them cast. Some of the details of the setting are kind of sketchy but fortunately someone has already fanwanked a lot of the background details and is on record saying she doesn’t mind if people steal her ideas.

So the basics. The Dimensional Sea is a vast ocean of mana “floating” in it are many worlds sometimes those worlds split into two separate worlds that are nearly identical so travel between worlds is often less Star Wars and more Sliders. The being said there are still a large variety of worlds the just tend to follow well know templates. One of those world template is type 1 worlds identical to Earth (indeed earth is one of the last worlds with a native human population to be discovered by dimensional civilization). Before dawn of history one of those worlds gave birth to Al-Hazard the first magical civilization and the first civilization to branch out across the Dimensional Sea.

They were a bit of a schizophrenic mix of hyper-advancement and primitive culture, their magic was less standardized than what came after they had a tendency to bolt spell elements together at random to see what would stick. A lot of the stuff they built is still around but noone understands how it works, why it works, or even what most of the damn things where supposed to do in the first place These items are know as Lost Logia and they ought not to be messed with, sadly there are tons of people who want to poke at them to see what makes them tic despite the potentially apocalyptic consequences.

Eventually the Al-Hazardians fucked up so bad that their home world dropped into imaginary space in a massive example of what is now known as a dimensional dislocation. This fuck up everyone so bad the civilization collapsed everywhere. Out of the ashes of the collapse rose the Dawn States several massive interdimensional superpowers foremost among them Belka. The Belkans led by their Sankt-Kaiser where the first people to create a standardized magical system. The Dawn States remained in a shaky equilibrium for a time but inevitability war broke out one grand scale, and what a war it was fought with guns, with magic, and with magitech superweapons of unimaginable power. Many of those weapons still exist buried on war scarred worlds. Even though these artifacts are classified as Lost Logia as well but many seek after them anyway, in hopes of using their power to set themselves up as petty tyrants outside the reach of modern authorities. The Dawn states broke down, society broke down, civilization itself broke down. When the last Belkan Sankt-Kaiser Olivie Segbrecht died after losing the Saint's Cradle the last of the Dawn States had fallen, the war ended if only because there was almost noone left to fight and little left to fight over.

The broken remnants of that era banded together to form a new organization. One that would hopefully prevent the cataclysms of Belka and Al-Hazard from repeating themselves the Time Space Administration Bureau. Despite being the dominate power in Dimensional space, the TSAB is young only around 70 years old, it's a haphazard organization one with out the resources to adequately police the entire dimensional sea. Heck they barely have the resources to police the territory they claim as administered worlds. The lack of both machinery and mages has caused the higher ups in the organization to secretly resort to unsavory methods. Illegal experiments into cloning, cybernetics, and lost logia are carried on in the shadows at the behest of some of the most powerful people in the organization. Understaffed, beleaguered, and corrupt as it is the TSAB is still the Dimensional Sea's best hope for a brighter future in a setting where the past is not truly past only buried shallowly like a landmine waiting to be stepped on.

[Mistborn]

So as long promised actuall crunch

Character Generation
Note in the rpg 1st you always round fractions up unless it tells you otherwise
Step 1 select your stats
To create your character the first thing you are going to need are your base stats you generate your base stat by spending stat points out of 12. No stat can be above 5 or below 1
Check your mage rank

Mage Rank	Mage Points (mp)	Skill Maximim	Ability Mod
E	20	1	0
D	60	3	0
C	80	4	1
B	120	6	2
A	160	7	3
AA	220	9	4
AAA	280	10	5
S	320	11	6
SS	400	13	7

Characters points are spent to buy Skills, Spells and Feats

Skill Maximum is the maximum number of ranks you can have in any Skills

your Ability Mod is added to your base ability score to determine your final ability score

Derived Stats

These stats are derived from your existing ability scores

Hit Points (DUR+2) HP is the amount of damage your physical body can take before you are rendered unconscious. Lost HP is recovered at a rate of 1 per two days

Barrier Jacket Hit Points (DUR*2+POW*2) Mages are protected by their barrier jackets, though they may appear light as cloth they are actually armor of woven protective magic as long as your Barrier Jacket has HP remaining those HP are depleted instead of your normal HP. Damage to your barrier jacket repairs at a rate of 1/8 (round up) every hour.

Stress Resistance (DUR/2) The strongest spells inflict stress, for every point of stress in excess of your Stress Resistance you take a penalty to all rolls and checks

Excess stress	Penalty
1	-1
2	-2
3	-4
4	-5
each additional point	-2 special

Each time you take stress in excess of your SR+4 roll a d20 on and subtract your stress penalty, on a 5 or less you fall unconscious

if you have stress under your stress resistance you heal 1 stress per hour if you have more stress than your stress resistance you heal 1 stress every 8 hours

Step 3 chose your magical system Magical systems are sort of like your magics operating system

Belkan: The oldest magic system Belkan magic focus on magic boosted Melee attacks. Belkan mages are known as Knights and can be found almost everywhere. Belkan mages add +2 to melee and gain extra Barrier Jacket HP equal to the Ability mod for their Mage Rank.

Midchildan: Mid Style is the standard magic system of the TSAB it's a jack of all trades system that focuses on ranged magical attacks and have a diverse selection of spells. Midchildan Mages add +1 to shooting and shielding spells. They also get a 20% point discount when buying spells

Step 3 Spend character points.
-Skills cost 2 character points per rank to buy

-Spells cost a number of points listed in their description.

-Feats cost a number of points listed in their description.

Step 4 Background points: there's more to a character than their mage rank characters also have background points that they can spend on non-magical stuff like non-magical skills, personal resources, and Rank in the TSAB.

Step 5 Construct your Device: Your Device is a magical tool that helps you cast spells.

Gameplay
Ability Tests very rarely so situations will require an Ability test roll the d20 if it's more than the target number you succeed if it's less you fail

Skills Checks when you use a Skill roll a d20 and add your skill ranks and associated stats and compare your roll to the target number you succeed is it's less than that target number you fail.

When you use a skill as an attack in combat the person your are attacking will either have a passive defense which is represented by a static number or an reactive defense which is represented by an opposing skill check. If your final roll is less then their passive defense number or opposed roll your attack fails. If the number is higher you score a success based on the degree to which you beat the opposed number If you attack a defenceless target you automatically score a break
less than 5: Graze 5 or more: Hit 10 or more: Impact 15 or more: Break


Actions in combat
In a standard combat round you can take one move action, one standard action, and one minor action you can't trade down actions, deal with it. You can also take one reaction per round.
Standard Actions: cast most spells, maintain a spell.
Move Actions: use a movement effect, cast a small number of spells, activate your barrier jacket and device
Minor Actions: cast a small number of spells switch your device's mode
Reactions: Activate a reactive defense

Spells with a casting time greater than 1 standard action: Some spells have a casting time measured in rounds these spells require that amount of time to “charge up” after which they can be cast as a standard action. While charging a spell you can not take any other actions. You can chose not to fire a spell you have charged, but you must spend your standard action each round maintaining it

Durations: effects with a duration always have that duration counted down at the end of the turn of the person they effect when an effect has no rounds left that effect end's

Passive, Active, and Reactive effects: All effects are either Passive, Active, or Reactive. Passive effects happen automatically as long as you are under no conditions preventing them however passive effects don't allow you to make opposed rolls instead the operate as a static number equal to your bonus. A Spell is active if you spent your last standard action casting or maintaining it Active effects always give you an opposed roll. Reactive effects are used in response to an action usually an attack Reactive effects only grant an opposed roll against the action that it was used to respond to.

Conditions
Sometimes bad stuff that isn't damage or stress happens these are conditions conditions prevent you from using actions
Pinned: Can't move
Dazzled: Can't use effects that target people other than yourself
Dazed: Can't use reactions
Stunned: Can't Act
Bound: Can't use movement potentially lose other actions see the spell that bound you


Moving: positioning is fairly abstract in Nanoha the RPG 1st humans have a base speed of 30ft per round as a move action and can move 60ft as a full round action or 120ft as a full round action (though this loses you your reaction for the round)
Positioning we don't track people precisely in Nanoha the RPG 1st so I'm borrowing the the ANSWER concept from Frank Trollman

Adjacent	0-5ft
Near	5ft-100ft
Short	100ft-500ft
Way Out	500ft-1000ft
Extreme	1000ft-1 mile
Remote	1 mile

Layered Effects: Some effects have layers. Breaking them down requires destroying all layers. as long as an effect has more than one layer reaming it is still functional. a success against a layered effect removes one layer though some spells may remove more than one layer on an exceptional success. If an effect can be layered and how many layers it can have is determined by the spell description


Magic Skills

Bombardment(POW+POW) High power attack magic that has a long casting time and can hit large areas
Binding(MAS+POW) Magic that holds people in place and restricts their motion and spell casting, as well as magic that seals the powers of lost logia
Counter(MAS+POW) Magic the counters or dispels other magic
Information(MAS+MAS) Magic that finds things, communicates across long distances, and creates illusions.
Melee (MAS+POW) Magic that enhances your ability to hit things.
Movement(AGI+MAS) Magic that allows faster movement, flight, and the ability to evade attacks
Shielding(DUR+POW): Shielding magic protects you and others from harm by creating magical force fields.
Shooting(MAS+POW) A fast and versatile form of attack magic
Spatial(MAS+POW) Magic that allows teleportation and the spatial containment barrier
Support(MAS+DUR) Magic that heals others or enhances their abilities
Spells 101
Prerequisites you need the listed prerequisites to take the spell
Spell construction: Ok so I'm not going to write a huge list of spells instead players get to make their own .
To create a spell first chose the base element. You can then add one module to it, adding second module to the spell increases the cost of that module by 50% adding a third module and every module after that costs 100% more. When ever you upgrade a spell you can chose to have the spells point cost refunded and re-buy that spell or a spell base element that's listed as an upgrade.

[Mistborn]

Basic Bombardment Spells

Magical Cannon
Prerequisites: Pow 5
Cost: 5 mp
Action: 1 round
Range: Short
Magical Cannon is one of the most simplest bombardment spells and one of the simplest spells requiring only the raw power to pull it off. Magical Cannon is a beam of compressed magic launched at the enemy with violent force. Magical cannon gains a +4 bonus against shielding magic and deals the flowing damage Graze 1/2 POW Hit 1+POW Impact 1+3/2POW and 2 penetrating Break 2+POW and POW penetrating

Power Burst
Prerequisites Pow 5
Cost 10 mp
Action 1 round
Range: special
Power Burst hits everything you want to hit (so not your party members) within short range of you targets that are adjacent to you can't evade.

Area Bombardment
Prerequisites: Pow 7
Cost: 15 mp
Action: 1 round
Range: Way out
Chose a point in space or a person, Area Bombardment hits everything (including your party members so play nice) in Near Range of that point or person, if you targeted a person they can't evade nor can anyone adjacent to them. Area Bombardment has a +4 bonus against evasion even if the targets are in position to evade Damage is Graze 1/2 POW Hit 1+POW Impact 2+3/2POW Break (1+POW)x2

Spell modules

Aftermath: (cost: 20 mp) anyone who receives a Hit from your bombardment spell is dazed for one round and anyone who receives an Impact or better is dazed for two rounds

Quicken spell (cost: 20 mp): you can cast a quickened bombardment spell with a casting time of 1 round as a standard action or shave 1 round of the casting time of a bombardment spell with more than one round of casting time casting a quickened bombardment spell inflicts 1 point of stress.

Improved Range (cost 10 mp) Increase the Range of your bombardment spell by one increment

Improved Area (cost 10 mp) increase the area by one increment creatures not in the outermost increment can't evade

Extended Spell (cost 15 mp) you can extend the casting time of the bombardment spell by 1 round in exchange the spell gains a +6 bonus and it's damage increases by 3

Shield Breaker (cost 15 mp) (only Magical Cannon is eligible) on an hit or better your Magical cannon destroys two layers of Shield Magic rather than one, on a break it destroys all of the layers and inflicts hit damage.

Focus Bombardment (cost 40 mp) you gather the ambient magical energy around you to empower the ultimate magical attack a focus bombardment takes an additional round to cast and gains a bonus and increase in damage equal to the ambient mana rating of the surrounding area.
Casting a focus bombardment causes 4 points of Stress

Selective(20 mp) your bombardment spell doesn't hit your allies.

Binding Magic:
binding magic entraps it's victims in chains and shackles of light. It also can deactivate many Lost Logia. When you maintain a bind you can chose to add one additional layer A mage that has been bound can attempt to break the binds with raw strength as a full round action the mage rolls a POW check (DC 15+binder's skill ranks in bind) a success removes one layer. Binds becom passive if they are not maintained
Basic Binding Spells

Chain Bind
Prerequisites: MAS 5
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Short
Chain bind prevent anyone under it's effect from moving and can be layered up to two layers

Restrict Lock
Prerequisites: MAS 6
Cost: 15 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Short
Restrict Lock prevent anyone under it's effect from moving or using melee attacks can be layered up to three layers Restrict lock can be taken as an upgrade to Chain Bind

Grounding Bind
Prerequisites: MAS 6 POW 6
Cost: 25 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Short
Grounding Bind prevent anyone under it's effect from moving, using melee attacks or casting any spell that don't target grounding bind. can be layered up to three layers Grounding Bind can be taken as an upgrade to Restrict Lock

Spell of Sealing
Prerequisites: -
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Short
Spell of Sealing seals the power of a Lost Logia item if the binding check is successful the Item is rendered inactive.

Binding Spell modules
Cooperative bind (Cost 10 mp) as a standard action you can add one additional layer to a bind that someone cast

Reactive Bindings (Cost 20 mp) when you are the target of melee attack you can use a binding spell as
a reactive defense if the attack isn't successful then the person who attacked you is subject to your bind.
If the attack is successful you it hit's you one degree better then it would otherwise be.

Extended Bind (Cost 15 mp) If you extend the casting time of your bind by one round your bind gains a +4 and inflicts another layer of bind

Counter Magic.

Basic Counter spells

Shatter Binding
Prerequisites: POW 4
Cost: 5 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Near
This spell destroys bindings reviving a +4 bonus against them. A success destroys 1 layer on a graze 2 layers on a hit or better and 3 Layers on a break

Dispel Magic
Prerequisites: -
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Near
This spell ends other spells on a success removing 1 layer from a layered effect

Counterspell
Prerequisites:-
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Short
This spell interrupts the casting of a spell with a 1 round or greater casting time if you succed on a counter magic test (with a +4 bonus) vs the spell's skill

Spell modules

Improved Unweaving (Cost 20 mp) you can use counter magic on effects that are effecting you as a minor action.


Information Magic: Magic that creates illusions, facilitates communications, hacks into magical computer networks, searches areas, and jams communications are all filed under information magic

Basic Information Spells

Area Search
Prerequisites: MAS 3
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Special
Range: Special
Area Search scans the are for an object or objects what objects you can locate is based on that objects difficulty rating less than your ranks in search. Search magic attuned to magic finds all magic, lost logia, and mages you can locate in the area an tells you the nature and location of them and automatically tells you the amount of ambient mana in the air. If the object is less than 2 search ratings harder to find than your effective search ranks you know it's in the searched area but not it's location. When searching for non-magical objects you must specify the material you are searching for and you receive the location size and general shape of all objects of the specified material in the searched area. If you search for humans specifically you can tell if they are injured if your search rating is 4 greater then the difficulty to locate them. (don't modify this for the persons rank as a mage.)

Object	Difficulty Rating
Non-magical object building size	-1
Non-magical object bus size or larger	1
Non-magical object bus size or smaller	3
Non-magical person sized	6
Non-magical smaller than a breadbox	8
Human (non-mage)	5
Mage B rank or weaker	3
Mage A-AAA rank	0
Mage S rank or greater	-2
Active Spell	as the caster +2
Time-Space Barrier	1
Lost Logia or Magical object* high energy	0
Lost Logia or Magical object* low energy	4

In addition you effective ranks in search are modified based on situation

Situation	Difficulty Rating Modifier
Searching the area within near range of you	0
Searching the area within short range of you	2
Searching the area within way out range of you	4
Searching the area within extreme range of you	8
Searching each mile radius you add to the search area.	4
Cast Area search as a minor action	4
Cast Area search as a standard action	0
Cast Area search as a 1 round spell	-4
Take 1 Minute to cast area search	-6

Telepathic Link
Prerequisites: -
Cost: 0
Action: None (passive)
Range: Short
Telepathic link allows you to impart your thoughts to another mage within short range who also posses the telepathic link spell. You may also create a temporary link that allows you to send messengers across any distance on the same world as a standard action, you can have an number of such links active equal to your ranks in search.

Jamming Field
Prerequisites: -
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Special
Jamming Field creates an area centered on you where searching magic, telepathy, and other communications effects are non-functional. Jamming Field is a passive or active effect like other spell and can be defeated by an opposed information magic check however Jamming Field has a +4 inherent bonus. The area created has a maximum radius that is based on your ranks in Information magic

Rank	Maximum Radius of Area
1-4	Near
5-6	Short
7-9	Way out
9 or more	Extreme

Optic Hide
Prerequisites: Information Magic 6 ranks
Cost: 15 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Personal
Optic Hide bends the light around you making you invisible. Moving more than 100ft a round causes the the air around you to ripple revealing your position to anyone familiar with invisibility casting a spell that targets someone who's not you, attacking someone, or being hit for damage ends the spell. Otherwise you can't be detected by visual means, have fun with that.

Silhouette
Prerequisites: Information Magic 6 ranks
Cost: 15 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Short or Special
This spell creates the visual illusion of an object, creature, or force, as visualized by you. The illusion does not create, smell, texture, or temperature. You can move the image within the range of the spell. Images created by silhouette can't be larger than one 10ft cube per rank in Information Magic. Alternatively Silhouette can create a number of illusionary duplicates of yourself or another person you know well equal to your ranks in Information Magic. Silhouettes share you passive evasion value and vanish if they are struck or you stop maintaining the spell.

Melee: Melee primarily involves hitting people with things you know the drill

Basic Melee
Prerequisites: -
Cost: 0
Action: Standard
Range: Adjacent
You hit the target with your device your fists or some other melee weapon on a success you do damage Graze ¼ POW{round down minimum 1} Hit ½ POW Impact POW Break 3/2 POW

Shield Shattering Blow
Prerequisites: POW 4
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Adjacent
this attack functions as basic melee only you gain a +2 bonus against shielding magic effects

Swift Strike
Prerequisites: AGI 4
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Adjacent
this attack functions as basic melee only you gain a +2 bonus against evasion effects

Dazing Strike
Prerequisites: POW 5
Cost: 15 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Adjacent
this attack functions as basic melee only you daze the target for Graze 1 round Hit 2 rounds Impact 2 rounds Break 3 rounds

Knockback Strike
Prerequisites: POW 5
Cost: 15 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Adjacent
this attack functions as basic melee only the target is Pinned for Graze 1 round Hit 2 rounds Impact 2 rounds Break 3 rounds you also hurl the target away form you out to near range (short range on a Break) casing them to take falling damage if they hit a hard surface.

Spellburst Strike
Prerequisites: POW 5
Cost: 15 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Near
You strike an nearby enemy with magic released from your fist or weapon on a success you do damage Graze ¼ POW{round down minimum 1} Hit ½ POW Impact POW Break 3/2 POW

Melee modules

Critical stun (cost 20 mp) on a break your melee attacks stun the target for one round

Parry (Cost 10 mp) you may use melee as a reaction to defend against shooting magic or melee attacks

Improved Parry (Cost 10 mp: requires parry) when you successfully parry an attack from an enemy Adjacent to you you deal damage as though you had successfully melee attacked them.

Flurry (Cost 20 mp) When you make a melee attack you may chose to make that attack a flurry roll twice for the attack and pick the highest roll. Using flurry inflicts one point of stress.

Whirlwind (Cost 20 mp) When you make a melee attack you may chose to attack as many people as you can reach doing so inflicts one point of stress.

Movement: for every 2 ranks you spend in movement your base land speed increases by 10ft
Passive evasion all characters have a passive evasion score that applies as a defense as long as they are capable of movement.

Basic Movement Spells

Evade
Prerequisites: -
Cost: 0
Action: Reaction
Range: Personal
When targeted by an attack evasion serves as an active defense if you successfully evade an attack you may move your speed

Rapid Move
Prerequisites: AGI 4
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Move
Range: Personal
You may move a twice your speed you may take your standard action at any point during this movement.

Spelljump
Prerequisites: AGI 4 POW 4
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Move
Range: Personal
Launch yourself into the air with magic. You move as though you are flying at twice your speed though some restrictions apply. You can only change directions if your are in contact with a solid opbject and if you end your movement in the air you fall. You may take your standard action at any point during this movement.

Flight
Prerequisites: Mage Rank A or higher
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Passive
Range: Personal
You gain a fly speed equal to twice your Base Land Speed

Blitz Charge.
Prerequisites: AGI 4
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Move+Standard
Range: Personal
Move three times your speed, then you may make one of your melee attacks at a +2 bonus

[Mistborn]

Shielding Magic.

Basic Shielding Magic Spells

Basic Protection
Prerequisites: -
Cost: 5 mp
Action: Standard or Reaction
Range: Personal
You create a sphere of magic around yourself defending you as an active effect as long as it is maintained. You may also use Basic Protection as an reactive defense.

Area Protection
Prerequisites: POW 4
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Standard or Reaction
Range: Adjacent:see text
as Basic Protection only the spell also can be extended to cover anyone adjacent to you.

Round Shield
Prerequisites: MAS 5
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Reaction
Range: Personal
as Bacic Protection except Round Shield instead creates a flat plane of force. Attacks that poses a special bonus against Shielding magic only receive ½ of that bonus against round shield. In addition if your MAS is higher than your DUR then you may add that to your roll instead.

Shielding Spell Modules

Shield other (cost 10 mp) You may cast the shielding spell over other people at short range.

Unbreakable Shields (cost 40 mp) when an attack defeats your shielding effect that you cast as a standard action or reaction you may chose to instead take 2 points of stress (3 points if the attack scored a break)

Shooting Magic

Basic Shot
Prerequisites: -
Cost: 5 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Short
You create one or more projectile of magical energy and launch them at the target on a success you do damage Graze ¼ POW{round down minimum 1} Hit ½ POW Impact POW Break 3/2 POW

Sniper Shot
Prerequisites: MAS 5
Cost: 10 mp
Action: 2 rounds
Range: Extreme
You create one or more projectile of magical energy and launch them at the target on a success you do damage Graze ¼ POW{round down minimum 1} Hit ½ POW Impact POW Break 3/2 POW. Sniper Shot cannot be upgraded

Stunning Shot
Prerequisites: POW 5
Cost: 15 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Short
As Basic Shot on on a hit or better the target is stunned for 1 round, stunning shot can never target more than one creature

Pinning Shot
Cost: 15 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Short
As Basic Shot only on a hit or better the target is pinned for 2 rounds

Blaster Shift
Cost: 15 mp
Action: 1 round
Range: Short
As Basic Shot only you make three attacks. Casting Blaster Shift Inflicts 2 points of stress

Shooting spell modules

Countershot (Cost 5 mp) when you are attacked by a shooting effect you may use the shooting spell as a reactive defense

Multitarget (Cost 10 mp) when you make a shooting attack you can attack a number of targets equal to your ranks in Shooting magic however you do so you take a -2 penalty if you attack a single additional target and an additional -1 penalty for each additional target beyond the first.

Homing Bullets (Cost 20 mp) your shooting spell can't be evaded
Returning Bullet (Cost 20 mp) your shooting spells leave additional bullets in the air if you have Countershot you can use these bullets to shoot down other shooting spells otherwise on your next turn you may make a basic shooting attack as a minor action

Spatial Magic

Basic Spatial Spells

Close Teleport
Prerequisites: POW 5 MAS 5
Cost: 20 mp
Action: Move
Range: Short
You teleport to a point in Near range of you. If you attempt to teleport to a place that is occupied by an object the spell fails

Planetary Teleport
Prerequisites: POW 6 MAS 6
Cost: 20 mp
Action: 5 rounds
Range: Special
You and one person per rank of spatial magic teleport to another point on the same planet. You must have visited this place before, be incontact with a teleportation beacon at the location, or be observing this area with Information magic.

Dimensional Teleport
Prerequisites: POW 6 MAS 6
Cost: 20 mp
Action: 5 rounds
Range: Special
As Planetary Teleport only you can also transport yourself between dimensions that are linked to each other if you don't have a target destination in mind or a beacon to latch on to you appear at a random point high above the ground

Time-Space Containment Barrier
Prerequisites: POW 6 MAS 8
Cost: 10 mp
Action: 1 round
Range: Special
Time Space Containment Barrier creates a shadowy mirror world overlaying reality that pulls in all magical beings an effects. Barriers can be broken by magical cannons or teleported out of with an opposed bombardment magic or spatial magic check. Sucessive castings of Time-Space barrier add layers to the barrier, each layer gives a +4 bonus against attempts to break out of it,

Support Magic

Basic support spells

Jacket Heal
Prerequisites: -
Cost: 10 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Near
This spell heals an amount of barrier jacket damage equal to ½ your Ranks in Support Magic

Physical Heal
Prerequisites: Support Magic 7 ranks
Cost: 20 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Adjacent
Physical heal heals an amount of barrier jacket damage equal to twice your ranks in Support Magic and 2 points of Hit Point Damage

Boost
Prerequisites: Mage Rank B
Cost 20 mp
Action: Standard
Range: Near
as long as you maintain the spell and the target is in range they receive a +6 bonus to all rolls

Feats feats are character options that are not spells


Build Feats: are a special form of feat you can only have one Build Feat

Agility Focus [Build] (Cost 20 mp)
You gain a +2 bonus to Evasion and your Base Speed increases by 30ft. You can also use your AGI in place of MAS on Melee attacks, Shooting Spells, and Evasion. In addition you gain an extra reaction per round useable only for evasion.
Bombardment Mage [Build] (Cost 20 mp)
You gain a +2 bonus to Bombardment Spells and all of your spells do additional damage based on your Mage Rank

Mage Rank	Extra Damage(Graze)	Extra Damage(Hit)	Extra Damage(Impact)	Extra Damage(Break)
B	0	1	1	2
A	1	1	2	3
AA	1	2	2	3
AAA	1	2	3	4
S	1	2	3	4
SS	2	3	4	5

Defender [Build] (Cost 20 mp)
You gain a +2 bonus to Shielding Magic. You can use your DUR instead of your POW on Shielding Spells. You gain an extra reaction that may only be used for Shielding Spells

Mastery Focus [Build] (Cost 20 mp)
You gain a +2 bonus to Binding and Shooting Spells. You may use your MAS instead of your POW for Shooting, Binding, and Shielding Spells

Shock Trooper [Build] (Cost 20 mp)
You gain a +2 bonus to Melee and Shielding your base speed increases by 20ft You may use your AGI in place of MAS for Melee Attacks. You gain a bonus to your damage and barrier jacket HP.

Mage Rank	Extra Damage(Graze)	Extra Damage(Hit)	Extra Damage(Impact)	Extra Damage(Break)	Extra Jacket HP
B	0	0	1	2	4
A	0	1	1	2	5
AA	0	1	2	3	6
AAA	1	1	2	3	7
S	1	2	2	3	8
SS	1	2	3	4	9

Tomorrow Background points Device Rules and Sample Character since this entire thing is probly incoherent

[Avoraciopoctules]

I was rereading the setting write-up several posts back, and I had a thought. This corrupt government organization sending operatives on police missions hooks into plenty of tropes I've encountered before.

Is this an appropriate game for retelling the story of Spec-Ops: The Line with more frilly lasers? If so, what would be the equivalent of the encounter where the PCs drop white phosphorus on a bunch of civilians under the assumption that it is just a bunch of densely packed enemy soldiers?

Are diseases from alien worlds a big problem? Could an interplanetary teleporter spread pandemics without extensive decontamination procedures?

What happens when a planet tries seceding from the TSAB? Does it collect taxes enough to care, or would it just laugh because that meant less responsibility?

[Quantumboost]

If so, what would be the equivalent of the encounter where the PCs drop white phosphorus on a bunch of civilians under the assumption that it is just a bunch of densely packed enemy soldiers?

Canonically, the TSAB doesn't use matter-based weapons, due to seriously nasty wars that occurred using those sorts of things. The magic lasers in the series have a lot of stopping power but aren't actually lethal - the title character near the end of the series fires a full-power blast which cuts through most of a magitech spaceship's walls (the youtube link in the MPSIMS thread), and the target survives. Not that the spell failed or missed, it just doesn't kill.

So, in the above scenario, the PCs are horrible murderous bastards who don't give a fuck about other people. Not because civilians, but because white phosphorus.

[Avoraciopoctules]

So pacifism is a pretty big deal in this setting, I take it? That's handy to know, it presents the government in a rather different light than the write-up seemed to suggest.

Flesh-eating nanites and superplagues probably don't fit into this conceptual space then, I'd imagine.

[Mistborn]

So pacifism is a pretty big deal in this setting, I take it? That's handy to know, it presents the government in a rather different light than the write-up seemed to suggest.

Flesh-eating nanites and superplagues probably don't fit into this conceptual space then, I'd imagine.

The don't use stuff that kills people thing is a very recent thing and it's mostly because the TSAB is more of a police force than a military.

In theory you could have those things as leftovers from ancient Belka or Al Hazard. They've made worse things.

[Avoraciopoctules]

What about the risks of secession and problems of cultural integration between worlds?

What do worlds get out of being part of the TSAB, and what does the TSAB get out of policing them?

Based on the whole friendship-laser thing, I would imagine the TSAB focuses on rehabilitative justice rather than punitive. Are there any potentially controversial things it views as crimes? Will someone shoot you with a friendship laser for smoking the wrong plant?

[Mistborn]

What about the risks of secession and problems of cultural integration between worlds?

What do worlds get out of being part of the TSAB, and what does the TSAB get out of policing them?

Based on the whole friendship-laser thing, I would imagine the TSAB focuses on rehabilitative justice rather than punitive. Are there any potentially controversial things it views as crimes? Will someone shoot you with a friendship laser for smoking the wrong plant?

The organization of the TSAB is pretty vague in cannon. I'm mostly using Aleph and Earth Scorpion's interpertation that the TSAB is sort of a more ingratiationist space EU. So worlds can theoretically leave but it would be a huge pain for everyone involved

As for what the TSAB gets out of policing Dimensional Space think of lost logia as lose nukes, no one ends up happy when their are lose nukes.

I assume the TSAB is pretty chill about a lot of things. Remember they have illegal supersoldier projects operating under the radar because they do not have the resources to protect their people form the various nastiness that previous civilizations have left littered around.

[Avoraciopoctules]

So a game in this setting is going to look more like the Cuban Missile Crisis, but with mana cannons?

[Mistborn]

So a game in this setting is going to look more like the Cuban Missile Crisis, but with mana cannons?

Not completely since weaponizing lost logia is had since though they are insanely destructive they are also black boxes. So what you think is a WMD could be an Al Hazardian toaster or something and even if it can blow up a planet good luck figuring out how to activate it without blowing yourself up.

[hyzmarca]

So pacifism is a pretty big deal in this setting, I take it? That's handy to know, it presents the government in a rather different light than the write-up seemed to suggest.

Flesh-eating nanites and superplagues probably don't fit into this conceptual space then, I'd imagine.

The don't use stuff that kills people thing is a very recent thing and it's mostly because the TSAB is more of a police force than a military.

In theory you could have those things as leftovers from ancient Belka or Al Hazard. They've made worse things.

The standard ship-to-ship weapon in setting is the Arc-en-ciel, a space-time distortion cannon that makes everything within a 100 kilometer sphere around the target point simply cease to exist. They can, quite trivially, raze planets via orbital bombardment.

What they outlaw is "mass weapons" which includes everything that isn't magic. The classification includes everything from swords to chemical weapons to nukes. Some people can get exceptions for their personal weapons, though, mostly swords and guns. While the inability to have a non-lethal setting is part of it, the big prejudice against mass weapons is related to nuclear fallout and other long-term environmental damage. The Belkan Empire was apparently fond of salted nuke spam and Ancient Belka itself was rendered uninhabitable by nuclear fallout during the civil war, shortly before it was lost in a dimensional dislocation.


Of course, magic isn't really non-lethal, either. With the amount of firepower high-ranked TSAB mages regularly through around, collateral damage is inevitable. On some worlds this can be reduced by those fields that put them out of phase with non-magic people. On places with large mage populations, however, collapsing skyscrapers remain a problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUJmYxVBlsg

Direct hits are non-lethal, but I really wouldn't want to do standing in any of those buildings.

[Avoraciopoctules]

My. The dynamic where arcanists are more likely to inflict harm to the bystanders than the people they are actually shooting at is certainly interesting.

By ship weapon, you mean spaceship, right? How easy is space travel? Do people actually trade physical goods between planets, or is space travel mainly for the military and transporters of information?

Whats the upper end of what normal, non-archeotech can achieve? Can a mad scientist pull a Doctor Wily and build 8 Robot Masters to try taking over their world with, or do they have to duct-tape a bunch of Logia stuff together first?

[hyzmarca]

My. The dynamic where arcanists are more likely to inflict harm to the bystanders than the people they are actually shooting at is certainly interesting.

They have a magical field that shunts them into an alternate dimension that doesn't have any muggles in it, so that helps keep collateral down. However, since that field would bring any civilian mages with them, so it isn't as useful on worlds that rely heavily on magitech, where there will be many low-level mages.

Mages are extremely durable, though. Barrier Jackets provide a passive force field powerful enough to take hits that shatter concrete.

That video was from the movie, by the way. It isn't canon, and is just a retelling of season 1 of the series, but it's the best example I can find of what bombardment magic can do to inanimate objects. The version in the series is less impressive, but still powerful enough to knock down skyscrapers, it just doesn't hit any.

By ship weapon, you mean spaceship, right? How easy is space travel? Do people actually trade physical goods between planets, or is space travel mainly for the military and transporters of information?

The TSAB has at least 61 Administered Worlds that they directly control and at least 97 Unadministered Worlds that are in territory they claim but not yet ready for overt contact. The ease of civilian space travel is never directly stated. Their ships travel in the Dimensional Sea, as mentioned in the first post in the thread. The different worlds are more like alternate Earths (complete with human civilizations) than alien planets.

Whats the upper end of what normal, non-archeotech can achieve? Can a mad scientist pull a Doctor Wily and build 8 Robot Masters to try taking over their world with, or do they have to duct-tape a bunch of Logia stuff together first?

A mad scientist did pull a Doctor Wiley and build 12 combat cyborgs. Cybernetics and organ replacement are apparently common on administered worlds, though creating super-human cyborgs requires working with fetuses. They've also got cloning and use that to supplement their ranks by cloning dead mages. It isn't reliable enough for mass production, though.

Nanoha's adopted daughter, Vivio, is a clone of Sankt-Kaiser Olivie Segbrecht (created by the aforementioned mad scientist because the Saint's Cradle, a super-warship powerful enough to take out entire TSAB fleets, was keyed to her DNA and couldn't be controlled without her).

Also, here is a video of the aforementioned attack that goes through multiple walls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBArXz3c ... re=related

The Combat Cyborg, Quattro, hidden in the CIC of a giant spaceship, has brainwashed Nanoha's daughter and forced them into a brutal fight. Nanoha is understandably quite angry about this. Quattro is quite secure in the knowledge that there are many layers of lethal defenses and a maze of corridors between her and her enemies.

Notice how the divine buster shot totally destroys the platform that she was standing on. If she wasn't a combat cyborg, the fall probably would have killed her. But Nanoha didn't care if Quattro died at that point. She just wanted to break the spell on Vivio.

The TSAB in general prefers rehabilitation over punishment, and is known to recruit exceptionally talented criminals into the organization. Fate Testerossa, one of the TSAB's top agents along with Nanoha (and Nanoha's lover if you follow the extremely obvious subtext), started out of a villain in the first season. But she was being manipulated by her mother. Several of the Combat Cyborgs from StrikerS are also rehabilitated and drafted into the TSAB, though Quattro isn't.

It's also worth noting that Nanoha and Fate are both 9 years old at the beginning of the series. In Fate's case, she's forced to fight because her mother is an abusive asshole who willing to force her preteen daughter into potentially lethal combat for her own schemes. In Nanoha's case, it's simply that the TSAB doesn't have enough adult mages of sufficient power to fulfill all of their obligations, so they're willing to use an exceptionally talented 9-year-old when one falls in their laps, even if it is ethically dubious and legally questionable.

The end result is that the TSAB's elite teams skew young. Nanoha, at age 19 she holds the rank of Captain in the TSAB marines, serves as combat instructor for Riot Force 6, the TSAB's elite special forces, and commands one of their squads. And by age 24 she's accumulated so many injuries that she can't fight anymore and is just raising her daughter.

Meanwhile, Hayate Yagami, at age 19, is a freaking Lieutenant Colonel.

[spongeknight]

Is this project still going anywhere? Because I'd love to play a Nanoha game. That shit is epic.

I don't really think you're going in the right direction with the actual game mechanics though. Nanoha is definitely a class-based universe. Just look at the main characters: Fate starts the series as an agility based close/mid range fighter and ends the series as one too. Nanoha starts as a mid/long range bombardment type and stays that way forever. Hayate starts as a superlong artillery mage and stays one forever. Signum is a strength based melee fighter, ect ect.

So a point system is weird considering literally every example character in the Nanoha universe stays on a rather linear progression of skills. That just screams class system to me. And that way, instead of magic being based on rank or skill investment or something else equally difficult to balance you can just have them be class abilities that enhance the basic use of a type of magic. For example, everyone can swing their intelligent device in melee, but a Belkan knight is going to have a bunch of bonuses to do so. Similarly everyone can fire off a few mid-range homing bolts but the Bombardment class will be much more accurate and damaging with them.