The Iron Toa

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 wonder of the pocket dimensions collapsed when the Matoran Universe died.

Except Mata Nui gave his people the ability to speak Agori when he landed, I think, when Bota Magna was still out in space. He cured the mutations when Spherus Magna was whole again.

So, why wasn't Brutaka cured of his mutations by Mata Nui? Was the Bota Magna fortress shielded against that, or did the Antidermis possession block it, or what?

I think the Mask of Life had a lasting effect on Vezon that let him activate masks despite not normally having the focus to do so.

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?

Ha! No question. Strong yes!That said, I do hope it would be handled right if it did come back. I guess as long as Greg Farshtey was still working for LEGO, he'd probably get to work on it again, and then it would be like what we're used to.

I wonder, then, if it takes more EE for a Toa of Air to manipulate air, because they would rarely actually have to create their element.Actually, I have another question, too: can Skakdi unleash Nova Blasts? (I would hope not, and think not, otherwise they'd probably be setting them off constantly...)

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.

...What else would they manipulate?I think he means how much Elemental Energy it costs to manipulate an element instead of creating it from nothing. That's a good question, one I'd also like an answer to. I agree, but I wonder if denser elements cost more EE to materialize. Like would a 1 x 1 bio block of stone take a Toa of Stone more EE to create than it would take a Toa of Fire to fill the same volume with flames. That makes a lot of sense. But I still don't have a satisfactory answer as to how Toa can run out of EE from normal use when they have enough to cover a whole island. Even if the Metru were using their powers very inefficiently, it seems to me they should have been able to pour their power into the Morbuzakh for days straight.

Yeah, it doesn't really add up. Maybe there's a normal threshold of how much EE they can use, and only a Nova Blast calls upon all of their reserves?

Well, if he started at full EE, wouldn't he be able to hurl as much fire in fireballs before recharging as he could release in a Nova Blast all at once? We don't know how many fireballs that is, but I'd say, just on the basis of elemental energy (not considering mental and physical fatigue) that would come out to thousands, or even millions of fireballs.

But does it take days to deplete it completely and then days to recharge it completely? And I was pretty sure it recharged constantly, too, but wasn't sure.

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.

So Elemental Energy runs out and recharges over the course of days, then? I thought it was more on a scale of a few hours for some reason.And does the energy recharge over time whatever a Toa is doing, or does the Toa actually have to rest to get it back?

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.

I'm pretty sure they were made with some defense in mind, either in case the robot was invaded or things went wrong inside (which they did). After all, they invented Rahi and probably intended for those to be wild.

Actually it was said that a regular Toa's Nova Blast is big enough to cover all of Metru Nui. That's a lot smaller than her Nuva Nova Blast, which flooded all of Karzahni, but still pretty darn big.

I think we went over this already, but I need to go over it again:How can a Toa run out of elemental energy over the course of hours of regular use when this power all together is enough to cover tens or hundreds of square miles (with enough force to devastate everything in the area)? I know it has something to do with them not having perfect control over their elements, but a clear explanation would be good.

When the water passed over Tahu in the movie, it did heal his cuts (I'm almost positive). So maybe it was some sort of elemental combination that causes protodermis to regenerate.And Toa Energy has to be combined with elemental Water to be used for healing? I thought it could be used for healing directly. Or are we just talking about elemental powers here?

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?