Valtiel/Modular

This is not a larp system. It's a page of combat abilities - or rather, bits and pieces that can be assembled into combat abilities. I include it on this wiki as a useful resource for the periodic attempts at larp system writing that take place.

This page doesn't contain a hitpoint system. If we're using Jacob's "Frontier" system, replace all instances of "hits" or "hitpoints" below with "Wounds", and every instance of "Armour" with "Hits".

Note that there are things on this page which I personally consider too complicated to use.

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Core combat skills:

• Wield a more useful weapon combination than would normally be available.
  • Low-tier combinations: One dagger, one shortsword.
  • Mid-tier combinations: Paired daggers, shortsword and offhand dagger, bastard sword.
  • High-tier combinations: Paired swords, sword-and-shield, polearm.
• Deal damage
  • By weapon blow
  • By spellcasting
  • Typed damage
• Call status effects
  • By weapon blow
  • By spellcasting
  • typed status effects (?)
• Survive more damage
  • By having more hitpoints (which don't heal naturally)
  • By having ablative armour (which recovers at the end of every encounter)
  • By having resistance to a certain type of damage
  • By having total immunity to a certain type of damage
  • By being able to ignore N damage calls
• Resist status effects
  • By being able to ignore N effect calls
  • By being completely immune to a certain status effect
  • By being able to take one call as another, less severe call
• Temporarily grant yourself one of the above abilities (self-buff)
• Temporarily grant someone else one of the above abilities (buff)
• Heal yourself
  • Repair armour
  • Restore hitpoints
  • Heal yourself from unconsciousness
• Heal others
  • Repair armour
  • Restore hitpoints

Unregulated abilities can be done whenever you want at no cost. For example, you can hit someone with a shortsword for SINGLE as many times as you want and as often as you can (arguments about machine-gunning aside).

Regulating how many times you can do it:

• N times per day
• N times per fight
• It costs "willpower" (a per-encounter resource)
• It costs "mana" (a per-linear resource)
• It eats your armour (a per-encounter resource)
• It costs hit points (a per-linear resource)

Regulating how often you can do it:

• N-second cooldown
• N-second GLOBAL cooldown (you can't cast any other spell for N seconds either)
• N-second (obvious?) buildup
• N-word vocal (another form of the above)
• Out-of-combat only

Other restrictions:

• You can only use it while doing X (example: After activating this ability you are resistant to non-magical damage while you remain standing still)
• You must do X every time you want to use it (example: +2 degrees of damage whenever you stab someone in the back)
• You must do X once before you can use it (example: Heal yourself the first time you kill someone in every fight)
• It imposes a drawback on you when you use it (example: Gain +2 degrees of damage - all the damage you call is DARK and you are vulnerable to LIGHT damage for the rest of the fight.)

Some thoughts on the above: All the abilities for a particular class want to have similar regulations, for consistancy. (For example, all wizard spells might require vocals and cost mana, while all Demon-Spawn powers might impose a drawback when you use them.) Mage types, who have access to a huge range of spells, probably want to have them running off mana or willpower rather than each spell having its own uses-per-day counter.

Effects by spellcasting need to either be per-linear resources or need to have a global cooldown, or people will cast as fast as they can gabble the calls.

Immunity (either to status effects or to damage types) is really good, and is the kind of thing that should be available to PCs by temporary buff only, but be more common on monsters. Stacking multiple types of immunity should be impossible for PCs, partly because it's too good and partly because I don't want to force people to remember a long list of things they're immune to.

Buffs of any kind want to be on some kind of per-linear resource or you have them in effect every single fight. Healing (rather than armour repair) also needs to be a per-linear resource or you go into every fight on full health. Combat healing should probably not have too many difficult requirements since it's already quite tricky to do competently.

Calls always affect you unless you have a special rule saying they don't. A "MASS HOLY DOUBLE" hits everyone in the room, except the golem with the rule that he's immune to HOLY. The ghost who has the rule that he's driven back by HOLY damage takes a "Repel 10" as well, but that's because his rules say he does, not because it's an inherent property of the HOLY call. Typed damage is usually a small upgrade to normal damage. (Note, there is an alternative way of doing this which is basically the opposite: Calls never affect you unless you have a special rule saying they do. Most things have the special rule "calls with no type affect you". Under this system, typed calls are a downgrade rather than an upgrade unless you're fighting things which are immune to untyped damage (which are rare, and incredibly scary). This is good for a few things, such as handing out powerful anti-undead spells or artefacts which are useless for fighting the living, or allowing demons to be banished without having to brief everything else in the system to ignore the call "BANISH DEMON".)

If you wish to have a spell which only works on demons, you need to either:

• Introduce the "Harm <foo>" call, which means "ignore the rest of this call if you are not a <foo>".
• Give anyone who has that spell the ability to call "detect demon" at range and an instruction not to cast the spell on something unless they're sure it's a demon.
• Stick religiously to the physrepping guidelines for demons so no-one is ever in any doubt.

The THROUGH call as in TT - which causes any damage it appends to go through armour - explicitly does not exist in this system.

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Calls:

Range qualifiers:

• Strike-range: Hits a person you strike with your weapon.
• Target-range: Hits the person you specify.
• Arc-range: Hits everyone within 3m in an arc in front of you (arc might be a fixed size, or might be "hold out your arms to specify the arc at the time")
• Mass-range: Hits everyone within 3m.
• Wide-range: Hits everyone within 10m.
• Touch-range: Hits one person who you must be in touching (non-offensive spells only)
• Spray-range: When casting a spray-range spell, you can target any number of people in a certain area (within 3m of first target?) - call the effect at Target-range on each of them in turn.
  • An alternative to spray range, as suggested by NT?: Blast. When you take a call prefixed with "Blast", you take the full effect of the call, then repeat the call with "Mass" instead of "Blast". Example: Bob takes a "Blast Magic Double". He takes a Magic Double to the torso, then immediately calls "Mass Magic Double", hitting everyone around him as well.
• Retributive effects: Not actually a range. Some spells are retributive - after you cast them, they target the next person who hits you or makes a call at you. Some might be Retributive Mass, in which case you make a Mass-range call the next time you take a call.
  • Someone who has a retributive effect up is required to wear or (prominently) carry a special type of red headband, called a Halo, which is visible in-character as an ominous glow. Hitting something with a Halo will either get you zapped or cause an explosion.

Call system notes:

• Damage called at range hits the torso.
• The call system should probably distinguish between "I have just spent resources on negating that status effect" and "I am completely immune to that status effect".
• Typed damage does nothing special unless the target has a special rule saying it does.
• Resistant means "take one degree less damage from it". Vulnerable means "take one degree more damage from it". People who are Resistant or Vulnerable are encouraged to roleplay taking more or less effect from the appropriate type, but this is not a requirement.

A random idea about durations:

• Some calls don't need durations. "Cleave 30" is a mistake - when you take a Cleave, the arm struck is taken to zero hits, it doesn't wear off
• Some calls have durations, in seconds, as a number appending the call. For example, "strikedown 10" means "fall over and stay down for 10 seconds".
• Some calls have no durations. "Strikedown" means "fall over, but you can get back up immediately".
• Some calls have the duration "permanent", which doesn't end until after the fight - and sometimes doesn't even end then. "Strikedown permanent" means "fall over and don't get back up". If you have been hit by a permanent effect, a ref will tell you if it wears off at the end of the fight.
• Some calls have the duration "Lock", meaning that the caster is constantly working to keep the effect active, and will indicate they can do so by pointing their finger at you. "Strikedown lock" means "fall over and don't get back up until I stop pointing at you". Casters with Lock effects will know what causes them to break the lock - damaging the caster is a reliable way of achieving this.

The remainder of this page is a list of effect calls, provided as a kind of pick-and-mix bag for anyone writing a larp system.

Things that are fairly common, uncomplicated, or generically useful LARP-system combat calls:

• Repel - stay at least 10m away from me for N seconds
• Attract - stay at least within weapon reach of me for N seconds
• Halt - stand motionless for N seconds or until next hit
• Freeze - stand motionless for N seconds
• Snare - you can't move from where you're standing for N seconds
• Strikedown - fall over
• Disarm - drop what you're carrying
• Silence - you can't speak or cast spells for N seconds
• Stun - the limb I just hit doesn't work for N seconds
• Cleave - the limb I just hit is taken to zero hits immediately

Some slightly special calls, none of which should trigger retributive effects:

• Detect <foo> - If you are a <foo>, say "ping".
• Recognise <foo> - If you are a <foo>, tell me what sort of <foo> you are.
• Curse - Something (probably something bad) will happen to you later, consult a ref or the person who cursed you after the fight.
• Heal - Gain N hitpoints, up to your maximum.
• Repair - Gain N armour points, up to your maximum.
• Purge - If you're under any status effects except DROP or CURSE, they end immediately. If you are under any short-term beneficial or debilitating effects, they end too. If you have a retributive effect up, it is canceled, and your Halo falls off. If you are under long-term beneficial or debilitating effects, they persist, but speak to a ref after the fight to find out if they fade later.
• SLAY - You're dead. No questions. Cannot be resisted.
• DROP - Fall over, you're unconscious and cannot be woken by any means, a ref will speak to you later. Cannot be resisted.

And some whimsical ones, some of which might be nice to have, others... less so:

• Sunder - Your armour shatters! Any hits you take for the remainder of the fight will ignore armour.
• Weaken - you are weakened, and can't deal damage with melee weapons for N seconds (or "deal one degree less damage" for the less severe version).
• Doom - you are doomed. Double all damage you take for N seconds (or "you are vulnerable to all damage" for the less severe version).
• Fear - you are mortally afraid, and must flee from anyone who attacks you for N seconds (but can cast spells and backstab people just fine).
• Enrage - you are overcome with psychotic fury and must attack the caster to the exclusion of all others, until they are dead, for N seconds.
• Confuse - you cannot tell friend from foe. You may not attack anyone until you take damage, at which point you must attack everyone indiscriminately, for N seconds.
• Obey - you are sorcerously compelled to obey the caster's next command.
• Vanish - You disappear from the world. Stay where you are with your finger in the air (indicating that you are not there IC) for N seconds, then reappear.
• Blind - Your vision is fogged. You can't deal damage with melee weapons, parry, or cast target-range spells for N seconds (but you can still run away or cast self-target, touch-range, and mass-range spells).
• Ignite - you are on fire, and will take a FLAMING SINGLE every three seconds until you stop, drop, and roll for three seconds, at which point the effect ends.
• Life-drain - you are having your life-force siphoned away, and will take a MAGIC SINGLE every five seconds until the caster of this effect is dead.
• Tangle - your legs are wrapped in brambles, and if you move your feet you will take a DOUBLE to the leg you moved (up to once for each leg), at which point the effect ends.
• Bees - you are under attack by a swarm of deadly insects and will take a VENOM SINGLE every three seconds if you are not running, for N seconds. (the call would have been "Swarm" but shouting "BEES!" at someone is funnier).

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Note that I've never been able to work out a way for spray range to work - you have everyone on the field having to know where everyone else is in relation to them, and pay attention to every call even when it's obviously targetted at someone else in case the someone else has actually snuck up behind them and they're in the spray range... --ChessyPig

Spray isn't "Mass range centred on that guy" it's "as many targets as you like in a certain area, called individually". Spray isn't a call, it's a different type of spell. --V

Include in the call system a call with the meaning "take this effect, then call a MASS (this effect)". Then it's only slightly worse than MASS. --NT

That might work. --V