The Iron Toa

We still need to make a rule system, and I haven't worked on it for a long time. If you have any ideas, let me know. D&D stands for Dungeons and Dragons, a famous RPG rule system and collection of thematically linked settings.

Yeah. I think automatons like Bohrok should be a special case. They probably should have no Charisma, and be immune to normal mental attacks - I'm not sure if they would even need Will. Krana, however, would have those stats, and I think Krana would have high Will but most would have low Charisma.

I'll get back to this in a little bit, I need to work on homework this weekend, and this update in the game I've been playing has me occupied.

So what are the 9 stats then? Like what are the substats of Mental and Interaction?

That's sort of the idea I want, but I think it's too simple. Dexterity itself, for example, can be split into sub-attributes.

I don't know. Could you explain World of Darkness?

Good point.

I think we're doing this wrong, though. It's only you, me, and hopefully still makuta_icarax working on this. We lost a bunch of people along the way, while we should have even more. I say we need to take a step back and find out how to get people interested in this. Perhaps a different system would be more popular.

I don't intend to quit or give up on what we have so far, though. We should be able to adapt a lot of what we've already come up with.

I will also look for an existing Bionicle RPG I like and try it out so I get an idea of what we'll be adding a rule system to.

Edit: If we stay with this system, but make some more changes, how about if we had more sub-stats? Wisdom and Vision could go under Intelligence, while we could have things like Agility, Balance, and Manual Dexterity under Dexterity. I don't want to make things too hard, but if these changes make sense...

Remember, we're not using character levels or Wisdom.

Other people that were contributing to the project earlier were against a complex alignment system. I like the D&D axes, but there's really no game mechanics reason to have Lawful and Chaotic, so let's not make things more complicated. Good/neutral/evil should be easy enough to keep track of, though, and fit right into the Moral Light concept.

I don't want to encourage player favoritism, but I do think some sort of destiny system would fit well with the theme of Bionicle. I guess it requires some more thought. Any ideas?

As for the Perception stat I mentioned on the other post -- if we don't have it, should Spot, Search, and Listen checks all be based on Intelligence?

Well yeah, stats are going to be randomly rolled. There are virtual dice rollers you can look up or download. Unfortunately, that probably means we'll be using the honors system, but if I can find a way around that without breaking the rules restricting what websites I can link to...

I was just throwing out the idea of having Perception as a stat. I know there's a difference between intelligence and wisdom, but in our case we've combined them. The skills you mentioned could rely on Intelligence just as well.

We can continue this talk about stats on the new post I made. Let's reserve this one for talking about the species.

So maybe controlling it takes a lot of energy, and Nova Blasts can be so big because it's pure uncontrolled EE? That helps... but I feel like not all the way. I could do some more calculations later and see if I can come up with a good scale of things.

I'm also going to post a new update about stats and character creation soon. Have you read the list of races yet, makuta_icarax, and made any progress on the combat system?

Mask of Ice brought up something I think we need to think about -- what will we use for perception? Like Spot, Listen, Search checks -- do we need a seventh attribute for that, or should they be based on another attribute? Or stand on their own?

I added a new post with the stats we have so far, and how to roll a character. I'll try to come up with a system for skills and traits next. Once we have those and a combat/movement system, we should probably take some time to incorporate everything in a way that's well-balanced.

I like the idea of rolling 4d6 and picking the best 3, but I thought such a method would make the average stat 11 or 12. I don't want to have Wisdom as a 7th stat, but I'm considering having Perception. What do you think of that?

I would like to discourage min/maxing, and so make all stats viable, but remember you have a limited control over what your Attributes are.

The stat adjustments for some of them are kind of extreme now that I think of it. I will lower some of them.

There, I changed the subtypical modifiers that are + or - 2 to + or - 1 and the ones that are + or - 1 4 to + or - 2. For Matoran, the bonuses and penalties still add up to a net positive, because I couldn't think of any penalties that were that big for each element.

If you roll 2 d6 and pick the higher of the two values, what would be a good number to add to that result to get an average of around 12?

I think some Matoran should have more extreme stat adjustment than others, as long as all their bonuses and penalties add up to roughly equally good advantages. Matoran should be inferior combatants compared to Toa, except for a very skilled Matoran and/or very incompetent Toa. That's why Toa are usually the ones that do the fighting. That said, disadvantages of being a Toa include:

You don't have as much time to level most non-combat skills. Matoran spend most of their time working on these skills, Toa dedicate most of their time to adventure.

Also, unless you're a skilled enough crafter, the bonus to crafting Matoran get will be removed, because Toa aren't programmed to do such jobs as much. (Nuparu, for example, continued to be a crafter as a Toa.)

Assassins and abductors will seek you out, especially in later years. To Dark Hunters and other bounty hunters, most Matoran are insignificant, but killing or capturing a Toa is worth a lot.

The idea of different elements being controlled by different attributes could work in a different setting, but that's not how it works in Bionicle. It's all about mental power. The way we're doing things, I think the average value for a stat will be 12, and Toa will have high Will (like 16 or 18 I'd guess). I'm not yet sure how much EE a Toa will have, but I think it will be the same for every Toa and be in the hundreds. We can adjust the power costs you can up with if necessary.

I've done the most common and influential species. I think I will stop adding to the list for now to make sure the ones I have now are balanced and work on other parts of the project. If anyone wants to work on the more obscure species, the ones listed at the bottom, that would be welcome. Even if you don't want to come up with stats, stuff like characteristics and society would be helpful.

I was thinking our main currency could be gold, not in coins but by weight, just how it backs currency in real life. But we can get to that later. Let's ignore that stuff until we get the game mechanics down.

As for Nova Blasts, I don't think any Nova Blast should automatically kill a Toa (well, maybe a few, like gravity, but I'm not sure). I'm taking my concerns about the amount of EE Toa have to Storyline and Theories.

Why does perception have to be based on Wisdom?

I'd like there to be more variety among Matoran than just +2 and -2 to certain attributes. As long as it balances out, different and bigger adjustments to stats should work.

I want resistances and vulnerabilities to be more specific than half or double damage.

I like the expertise dice idea, but I don't think it should necessarily be based on race. I think it should probably be linked to feats and skills.

I'm still trying to figure out what the EE pool should be for Toa.

Elemental manipulation will be a skill, or maybe merged with a generic 'power control' skill, and it will affect things like you mentioned. I'm not sure what you meant by having it be based on an ability determined by their element.

Hm, well insight fits pretty well into Intelligence but perception -- that's a tricky one. I'd say things you detect quickly should be based on Dexterity, because it's sort of a reflex thing. Things that you need to search for, well finding those would depend on Intelligence, because it would help to be smart enough to know how to find it.

Really, there are different systems, and you could make a case for having different attributes, but what we have so far seems to work just fine, and it would complicate things to change the attributes at this point.

And take a look at my Races list and tell me what you think, if you're up for a long read.

Edit: I just thought of a couple more things, one of which isn't so much an immediate concern, but I should still mention it while I have it in mind.

The first is using Nova Blasts as a measure of a Toa's elemental power. We know a Nova Blast consumes all of a Toa's EE, and for an average Toa will encompass an area larger than Metru Nui. (Let's assume that's for a Nova Blast at full EE capacity.) Gali Nuva's Nova Blast, which was more powerful than a regular Toa's, flooded all of Karzahni. Metru Nui is roughly 47.6 kio by 24 kio, so let's say a regular Nova Blast is 80 kio in diameter. (I was going with 50, but I don't think Toa Nuva Nova Blasts should be that much bigger.) Her Nova Blast was described as creating a wall of water 1 000 feet high, or 222.22222... bio. For a regular Toa, I will reduce that value to 100 bio, or 450 feet.

The ground (or whatever is underneath the Toa) would certainly take some damage, but I think most of the effect would occur on the plane the Toa is standing on and above. So the blast would be dome-shaped, I'd say -- but not a hemisphere, because that would mean its height would be as large as its radius. So... man, this is taking some research! I was going to use a simple length*width*height formula, but I noticed that wouldn't suit this at all. (Several minutes later...) It looks like the value we're looking for is the volume of... half of an oblate ellipsoid. The volume of that shape is calculated by the formula 4/3 * (pi) * a^2 * b, in which a is the radius of the circular plane in the middle, and b is the length perpendicular to that plane from the middle to the 'flattened' edge of the ellipsoid, if you follow me. In our case a = 40 kio = 40 000 bio (half the blast diameter) and b = 0.1 kio = 100 bio. So the volume is 640(pi)/3 cubic kio. Divide that by two, and we get 320(pi)/3 cubic kio. This is approximately 335 cubic kio, or 335 000 000 000 cubic bio!

(I wish they had me solve Bionicle-related math and physics problems at school.)

And the Nova Blast devastates everything that hits it. What's that mean? I estimate something on the order of 20d6 damage. We haven't figured out how much EE it takes to fill a certain amount of volume, or how much it takes to do a certain amount of damage, but we don't need to figure that out to know that a Toa's maximum EE pool is very large. So my question is: how can we make it so that a Toa will run out of this energy after a long and draining battle, without breaking from this bit of lore? I know it has something to do with Toa being unable to control their power perfectly, but I'm not sure how exactly it'll work.

The next thing I thought about was currency. We don't have to worry about it too much right now, though. The only unit of currency we know is the Widget, which is used by Matoran. Roodaka described them as 'ridiculous', which makes me think it's not a popular currency in places like Xia. I think different species, cultures, and regions should use different currencies, which we can work out when we work on the Society and Geography part. But what should the standard that backs and unites all these currencies be? Should it be (protodermic) gold?

I did suggest Wisdom a while ago but was convinced not to simply because we won't use it in a game mechanic sense. If you want your character to be considered wise, you can roleplay him that way, but as far as an effect it has on stats, it can be merged into Intelligence.

Maybe we could keep track of character levels based on skills, but the idea was level wouldn't be very important. Actually, that reminds me, we'd better keep that in mind before we get too carried away with skills.

Thanks Mask of Ice, but you need to take a closer look about how we're doing things. We're not using character levels (though we will use levels to keep track of skills), and we don't have a Wisdom score. The reason we don't use Wisdom to encompass Will is because Will isn't a measure of how smart you are in either intellect or wisdom. It's a measure of mental strength, which in biomechanical beings is greatly dependent on race.

I already have a pretty big list of elemental subtypes. I'm going to make a new blog update with it very soon. And I will definitely change the 3d6 roll to best 3 out of 4d6. What about the rolls that are 1d6? Roll twice and take the best? Or should you only get one shot for those?

The Matoran traits aren't uniform, but lots of the adjustments are -2 and +2, then an additional bonus. I will post what I have later today on a separate blog update, and you can critique it there.

I think things like 'Miner' and 'Engineer' would have more to do with skills, and maybe traits. We haven't gotten to them yet, but I did think it over a little last night (well, early AM) when I went to bed.

My idea for traits is this: each character has a certain amount of points, say 5, to spend on traits at character creation. Each trait is in one of three categories: a negative one, which grants a point, a neutral one, which neither grants nor costs points, and positive ones, which costs a point. Or perhaps they should cost two each, but certain races get a discount. Or maybe some cost one, some two, some three, etc. In any case, I don't want it to be exploited, of course.

For skills, I decided each time a skill is used, you gain one XP point. It takes 10 XP to get from the first level to the second, and that number doubles every time. So to get from level 10 to 11, you need 5120 XP (if my calculations were correct -- I'm kind of in a hurry now.) But you don't need to do all that while playing like normal. You can have your character practice, so he gains a certain amount of XP per hour. For combat, at least, he will only gain half XP from practicing on his own, but training with a partner benefits both with normal XP gain. Say if he has days off he can automatically practice for a certain number of hours (maybe up to 6 or 8 or something). In addition, he gains additional XP over years that aren't covered, depending on what he would be doing. Like if you make a character for one campaign, when it's done the next one you play is 1000 years later, and your character hasn't been in stasis or something that whole time, you can adjust his skills to represent the experiences he... experienced in the between time.

Please add your comments and suggestions. I have to go to school now, I will check back and work on my races and stats list this afternoon.

I was thinking about what separate posts we should have (once we have enough of each to make a decent start), and I came up with the following:

Attributes Basic Stats, Races and Sub-Races

Stats

Races and Sub-Races

Characters and Traits

Combat and Movement

Non-combat Skills

Powers and Energies

Items and Upgrades

Society and Geography

Rahi and Creatures

Does that sound good? I'm probably forgetting something.

Edit: Oh, monsters. I'll add that to the list -- as 'Rahi and Creatures' -- and change 'Attributes' to 'Basic Stats'.

Edit again: The list of Stats is going to be pretty big, so I'll make it its own thing. Really, the list of races will be more than big enough to stand on its own.

Edit again: I'm typing about character creation in the Races list, and decided we need to come up with traits and feats. Maybe Characters and Traits should be its own post?

Okay, I will add what I have for a list of races in a little while. Then maybe I'll see about making separate posts for powers and physical combat, but I'm not sure if I'll be ready to. For now, we can discuss those topics here.

And I decided sub-racial Attribute modifiers (that's what I'm calling them) for Matoran elements will mostly be +2 or -2, but I have a few cases of -/+4 and a couple -/+1. They'll still need work to be balanced, especially keeping in mind some elements grant bonuses and penalties to damage resistance, skills, movement speed, and other effects.

Exactly - I think extreme use of a Kanohi should do significant Endurance damage, but usually using a mask should be easy once you figure it out. But it's that first time that I'm talking about. It's not an ability someone can unlock at will - something has to push them to succeed in that first try.

You make a good point about the second issue. And I realized that eccentric Matoran - such as Matoran adventurers - are more likely to be Toa. How rare Toa are will depend on the setting - maybe in some settings you will be able to chose to start as a Toa or a Matoran you know has the potential, in others you can never play a Toa, and in others it's random. I'm hoping we can put enough detail into other species, even obscure ones, to make them fun to play.

Oh, and what do you think about me posting my list of races on a new blog page?

Actually, Matoran should be less acrobatic than beings like Toa, but their small size should give them a bonus to dodging. And there's no reason their aim, climbing, and other abilities can't be good. So I think I will give Matoran average or just slightly less than average Dexterity. An average score of 11 sounds good. I think I will use these average values for Matoran (minus subracial modifiers), and while I'm at it I've decided to use the first three letters of each Attribute for an abbreviation:

14 Cha, 11 Dex, 12 Int, 8 Str, 8 Tou, 10 Wil

Does it look good to you? I will work out what the modifiers are for each subrace, and will change what stats of other species I have so far to match this new way of doing it. If it's ready, I will post it tomorrow.

Matoran are very industrious, so I was thinking they should get a bonus to crafting, and take less Endurance damage from strenuous activity. I don't mind if they're very tricky characters to play in combat against larger things, but they should be far from useless, so I need to come up with realistic bonuses for them.

Ability to use Kanohi powers should be based on race/form - all Turaga should be able to use Noble masks but never Great masks. But for the sake of beings like Skakdi and the Barraki's species that can use Kanohi but do not always, I think I will have it be based on Will. What should the Will requirements to use Noble and Great Kanohi powers be? Maybe 14 for Noble and 18 for Great? 12 and 18? 12 and 16?

Couple other things to think about that aren't important now but we might as well get out of the way if we have a good idea:

-What should the chance of a Matoran having the potential to become a Toa be? Keep in mind that to become a Toa, they have to both have this potential and come into contact with Toa Energy from an existing Toa. But I want to know is how likely it should be for a Matoran to have latent Toa energy, ignoring the probability of it being unlocked.

-What should the Will save be for the first time activating a Kanohi? I think it should be very difficult, nearly impossible to use it at will the first time, but circumstance bonuses would help greatly. (Just like in Legends of Metru Nui.) Maybe it should even be up to the GM when first-time Kanohi users have a chance of succeeding.

Mask of Ice:

I'm not sure what you mean about ditching ability adjustment for Toa. Their stats should certainly change when they transform from Matoran, if that's what you mean. I like your idea about choosing the best out of two rolls. Do you think we could incorporate that into a sort of Destiny system? Also, your idea of rolling 4d6 and discarding the lowest roll might be best - that way it would be unlikely to get a terrible score. But on the other hand, it might make things too complicated.

And I think I will use -2 and +2 elemental modifiers for Matoran. Any other modifiers can be based on things like feats and traits. For example, instead of Onu-Matoran being able to put 2 additional points into Str or Int, they could just take the Miner or Engineer trait, which could do more than affect those two stats. And those traits would be easily available to Onu-Matoran, but not exclusive to them.

We can have the average be 12, then. I realized the Dex for Matoran now is kind of low. I have to work on homework now but I'll take another look at it when I get the chance. But does having the physical stats and Will have a smaller range make sense?