Orb
06-06-2007, 21:09
Well, this has been stewing in my brain for a few days, so I thought I'd put it up.
Creator's Rant (explaining how it came/is coming about):
The traditional RPG is really difficult/irritating to put up into forum format. There are long delays while everyone sorts out movements and posts in initiative order, and the DM has to railroad players into dungeons and encounters just to speed things up a bit.
A few-months-old battle system concept (which I still have, btw, just decided not to post here because it used facing, which would really be a problem for internet format) gave me the initial idea of a simple game which anyone in the forum can move any character/unit/army of one side (can't move for both sides) once per day.
Al-Qahirah is essentially an expansion on that. Initially, my idea was for a Soldier-Priest-Magician-Assassin team of heroes going around mauling things, but, over time, the Assassin got replaced by the Scout (a slightly less pre-stated role) and the Priest got removed for game balance reasons, and the Merchant came into existence.
Now, these heroes seemed great, but as I started writing them down on paper, I decided to try a few individualising touches out for size. I entitled these (D&D influence) feats, and drew up a full tree-diagram doohicky and stats for the merchant and scout. After a little thought, I was wondering why on earth I needed them to be seperate heroes anyway.
The system has been reduced to a freeform selection from four 'feat trees' (Military, Mercantile, Mobile and Magical). Each tree begins with a single definining feat (grants an appropriate benefit, upping combat, granting income, adding a spell) and branches from there into three groups, each of which has two subgroups.
Thus there came into existence the three character brands (and a fourth for higher levels, but that doesn't matter at the moment)
Leader (sometimes referred to as PC - horrible D&D influences :wall: )
Soldier (sometimes referred to as NPC soldier)
Peasant (sometimes referred to as NPC Peasant)
Hero (sometimes referred to as PPC)
My original statistics concept was simply combat strength, cost/income and movement, but it now includes Morale (reference Hit Points in any other game), to make high-level Leaders a bit less vulnerable.
The concept developed a little, and I'd always really intended that NPCs be unable to move unless accompanied by a PC, and obviously be disadvantaged in combat against an equal level PC. The experience required is the thing I've thought least about at the moment.
Semi-preview which probably won't make sense because I haven't explained everything yet.
So, how does this actually work out:
3 'classes' to worry about at the moment:
Leader - Combat of 1/level. Morale of 1/Level. Income/Upkeep of 0. Move of 1.
A leader gains one feat per level, which he may select from any feat tree.
Soldier - Combat of 1/level. Morale of 1/Level. Upkeep of 1. Move of 1.
A soldier does not gain feats and may not move independently. When a soldier reaches the experience neccessary for level 6, he becomes a leader.
Peasant - Combat of 0. Morale of 1. Income of 1/level. Move of 0.
A peasant does not gain feats and may not move independently. A peasant who reaches level 6, rare as it might be, becomes a leader.
4 Feat Trees - Military, Mercantile, Mobile and Magical. At each level, a leader may select a feat, usually beneficial to help customise him. This system allows, for example, the two following characters, completely different in strategy and actions to coexist.
1 - Khail of Alexandria - Military/Mobile/Magical (Soldier/Horseman/Light Horseman/Turkomen, Scout, The Magician/The Fool)
Combat 8 (defence 7, offence 9), Move 5, Morale 7, 1/battle replace your statline (morale, special abilities, income and spells excluded) with that of any character in your square for 3 turns, and cause said character's feats (with the exception of morale feats) not to function for 3 turns.
A mobile build who can hop about the battlefield uniting NPCs for rushes, escape many threats, leap into gaps and cripple temporarily powerful enemies, while increasing his own power. Unfortunately, his relatively low defence could get him trampled by a knight-build combatant, and his movement feats are not much help to him moving an NPC attack, once the NPCs have all been gathered together.
2 - al-Afdal Shahanshah - Military/Mercantile
(Soldier/Horseman/Professional/Discipline, Merchant/Spice Trade/Slave Trade)
Combat 10 (defence 7), Move 2, Morale 7, Income 4, Can purchase mercs on own square.
A slower built, but only slightly better in base combat ability. More importantly, Shahanshah can usually move fast enough to avoid NPC mobbing, and can support an extra 4 Soldiers, further boosting his good combat potential, and also can even summon up soldiers from nowhere, allowing him to move at his slightly higher rate and then strike home with no less than 14 attack, even if there are no other merchants on his side. Unfortunately, he's still easy pickings for a mobile knight-build, and can be taken out of action for a few turns by any opportunistic Magician.
Diatribe on some other possibilities.
A pure combat build at this time would probably have Combat 10 (attack 15, Defence 9) and 9 morale. A 'knight build', essentially a swift combatant, would have Combat 8 (attack 14, defence 6) and Move 4, or combat 9 (15/7) and move 3. While a Knight can often kill a lone enemy (particularly pure magicians) in a single turn, a magician can usually turn the tables on it with the basic Magician/Fool spell if he survives.
A pure magician at this level has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, either spam-casting a few spells or using more the more powerful "The Devil" and "The Tower Falling" Spells together to inflict a lot of damage to an enemy character. While the circumstances for a really nasty Magician spell can often be avoided, this isn't always the case, and often avoiding them is as painful as not doing so.
Pure merchants to be relegated to strategy and finance, but can usually handle themselves quite well, and truly unbelievably spam NPC mercs, with a Slave Trade feat and income 22. They have a quite impressive option which allows them to get a bonus income until they first move, which can lead to a pure merchant and merchant/scout cross together spitting out thirty-three NPCs whenever needed. There are (as always) counters for this, including a couple of spells, a few merchant feats and simply hitting the pure merchant with a knight or scout build.
Scouts are the least developed at the moment (I lost the tree!), but can usually hold their own, and have some potent weird feats available, that allow much better use of NPCs. They're most useful in simply being in the right place and forcing the enemy to act while coordinating your own side. A pure scout, however, can also, through the right feats move peasants, which can be quite helpful in any mission where your side's peasants are stuck in really awkward situations
Sample map, you'll have to speculate:
https://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5010/qahirahfullca3.png
Creator's Rant (explaining how it came/is coming about):
The traditional RPG is really difficult/irritating to put up into forum format. There are long delays while everyone sorts out movements and posts in initiative order, and the DM has to railroad players into dungeons and encounters just to speed things up a bit.
A few-months-old battle system concept (which I still have, btw, just decided not to post here because it used facing, which would really be a problem for internet format) gave me the initial idea of a simple game which anyone in the forum can move any character/unit/army of one side (can't move for both sides) once per day.
Al-Qahirah is essentially an expansion on that. Initially, my idea was for a Soldier-Priest-Magician-Assassin team of heroes going around mauling things, but, over time, the Assassin got replaced by the Scout (a slightly less pre-stated role) and the Priest got removed for game balance reasons, and the Merchant came into existence.
Now, these heroes seemed great, but as I started writing them down on paper, I decided to try a few individualising touches out for size. I entitled these (D&D influence) feats, and drew up a full tree-diagram doohicky and stats for the merchant and scout. After a little thought, I was wondering why on earth I needed them to be seperate heroes anyway.
The system has been reduced to a freeform selection from four 'feat trees' (Military, Mercantile, Mobile and Magical). Each tree begins with a single definining feat (grants an appropriate benefit, upping combat, granting income, adding a spell) and branches from there into three groups, each of which has two subgroups.
Thus there came into existence the three character brands (and a fourth for higher levels, but that doesn't matter at the moment)
Leader (sometimes referred to as PC - horrible D&D influences :wall: )
Soldier (sometimes referred to as NPC soldier)
Peasant (sometimes referred to as NPC Peasant)
Hero (sometimes referred to as PPC)
My original statistics concept was simply combat strength, cost/income and movement, but it now includes Morale (reference Hit Points in any other game), to make high-level Leaders a bit less vulnerable.
The concept developed a little, and I'd always really intended that NPCs be unable to move unless accompanied by a PC, and obviously be disadvantaged in combat against an equal level PC. The experience required is the thing I've thought least about at the moment.
Semi-preview which probably won't make sense because I haven't explained everything yet.
So, how does this actually work out:
3 'classes' to worry about at the moment:
Leader - Combat of 1/level. Morale of 1/Level. Income/Upkeep of 0. Move of 1.
A leader gains one feat per level, which he may select from any feat tree.
Soldier - Combat of 1/level. Morale of 1/Level. Upkeep of 1. Move of 1.
A soldier does not gain feats and may not move independently. When a soldier reaches the experience neccessary for level 6, he becomes a leader.
Peasant - Combat of 0. Morale of 1. Income of 1/level. Move of 0.
A peasant does not gain feats and may not move independently. A peasant who reaches level 6, rare as it might be, becomes a leader.
4 Feat Trees - Military, Mercantile, Mobile and Magical. At each level, a leader may select a feat, usually beneficial to help customise him. This system allows, for example, the two following characters, completely different in strategy and actions to coexist.
1 - Khail of Alexandria - Military/Mobile/Magical (Soldier/Horseman/Light Horseman/Turkomen, Scout, The Magician/The Fool)
Combat 8 (defence 7, offence 9), Move 5, Morale 7, 1/battle replace your statline (morale, special abilities, income and spells excluded) with that of any character in your square for 3 turns, and cause said character's feats (with the exception of morale feats) not to function for 3 turns.
A mobile build who can hop about the battlefield uniting NPCs for rushes, escape many threats, leap into gaps and cripple temporarily powerful enemies, while increasing his own power. Unfortunately, his relatively low defence could get him trampled by a knight-build combatant, and his movement feats are not much help to him moving an NPC attack, once the NPCs have all been gathered together.
2 - al-Afdal Shahanshah - Military/Mercantile
(Soldier/Horseman/Professional/Discipline, Merchant/Spice Trade/Slave Trade)
Combat 10 (defence 7), Move 2, Morale 7, Income 4, Can purchase mercs on own square.
A slower built, but only slightly better in base combat ability. More importantly, Shahanshah can usually move fast enough to avoid NPC mobbing, and can support an extra 4 Soldiers, further boosting his good combat potential, and also can even summon up soldiers from nowhere, allowing him to move at his slightly higher rate and then strike home with no less than 14 attack, even if there are no other merchants on his side. Unfortunately, he's still easy pickings for a mobile knight-build, and can be taken out of action for a few turns by any opportunistic Magician.
Diatribe on some other possibilities.
A pure combat build at this time would probably have Combat 10 (attack 15, Defence 9) and 9 morale. A 'knight build', essentially a swift combatant, would have Combat 8 (attack 14, defence 6) and Move 4, or combat 9 (15/7) and move 3. While a Knight can often kill a lone enemy (particularly pure magicians) in a single turn, a magician can usually turn the tables on it with the basic Magician/Fool spell if he survives.
A pure magician at this level has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, either spam-casting a few spells or using more the more powerful "The Devil" and "The Tower Falling" Spells together to inflict a lot of damage to an enemy character. While the circumstances for a really nasty Magician spell can often be avoided, this isn't always the case, and often avoiding them is as painful as not doing so.
Pure merchants to be relegated to strategy and finance, but can usually handle themselves quite well, and truly unbelievably spam NPC mercs, with a Slave Trade feat and income 22. They have a quite impressive option which allows them to get a bonus income until they first move, which can lead to a pure merchant and merchant/scout cross together spitting out thirty-three NPCs whenever needed. There are (as always) counters for this, including a couple of spells, a few merchant feats and simply hitting the pure merchant with a knight or scout build.
Scouts are the least developed at the moment (I lost the tree!), but can usually hold their own, and have some potent weird feats available, that allow much better use of NPCs. They're most useful in simply being in the right place and forcing the enemy to act while coordinating your own side. A pure scout, however, can also, through the right feats move peasants, which can be quite helpful in any mission where your side's peasants are stuck in really awkward situations
Sample map, you'll have to speculate:
https://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5010/qahirahfullca3.png