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):
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
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.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
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.
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.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
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
Basic Movement:
All Leaders can move 1 square for each point of Move they have. They can move into any connected square. (connected with a line). To move into a square occupied by an enemy, you must initiate combat.
Forum application:
Each leader can be moved once per day, and the order is entirely based on quickest post.
NPCs cannot move independently (and peasants cannot normally move at all anyway), but they are restricted by their move *only* for each character's phase, not for the entire turn. A character must (normally) move with NPCs he is moving, though he may break off after or before a movement.
E.G.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Orb moves Ka Seilsmann the merchant (move 1, combat 1, income 2) (blue square with green border, in the above diagram) down to the mercenary camp ('M'), so he can hire the extra soldiers for a big push. As he doesn't want to bring the Soldiers (blue square with darker blue border) with him, they stay immobile.
The Grand Mufti then moves Barrebas the Fighter (blue square, black border, move 1. combat 2.) right, and takes with him the soldiers.
Insane now moves l33tf00t the Scout (Blue square, brown border, move 2. Combat 1) right twice, and on the second move can take the five soldiers now there with him, even though they have already moved their movement because they haven't moved yet during his movement.
Combat
Combat is pretty simple. Each character has a combat value, when one side initiates combat (moving into an enemy square or starting in an enemy square and), the total combat values are compared, and the losing side suffers casualties (morale points lost) equal to the amount they lost by. A leader with no morale points surrenders and may be ransomed (his side must pay gold equal to his levelx2 to ransom him). In the case of a draw noone is hurt. Morale lost may be distributed as chosen by the defeated side.
Some feats can cause the attack and defence values to vary. A leader is considered attacking if his side initiates the fight, and defending if his side doesn't.
For example
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Emir (big E, you can't miss him ;)) is now in a position in which he'll be trapped very soon if he doesn't act, so he moves with his soldiers (yellow square, red border) left into the square occupied by l33tf00t and his men currently.
The Emir has combat 4, and each of his two soldiers has combat 1, so they have a total combat of 6.
l33tf00t has combat 1, and each of his five soldiers has combat 1, so they also have total combat of 6.
The combat is a draw, there are no casualties, and the emir is now in the same square as l33tf00t.
Barrabas, seeing an opportunity, moves 1 square left to join the chaos. He has combat of 2, and initiates a combat by moving into a square occupied (at least partly) by an enemy.
The blues now have a total combat value of 8, as opposed to the Emir's 6, so the emir's side suffers 2 morale damage. The emir decides to take one point himself (he has 3 morale, so is now reduced to 2) and one to one of his soldiers (who is reduced from morale 1 to morale 0, and promptly surrenders and is removed from the board).
Gaining experience:
Experience is gained by enemy pieces being removed in a combat a piece is part of. One experience/level is gained for an NPC, two experience/level for a leader. Morale damage not resulting in surrenders is not counted. All pieces in a combat gain experience from one enemy being removed.
Leader experience tends to be carried across scenarios, while NPC experience is usually dropped after a battle which does not get them Leader status (a couple of higher-level ones might be retained). All level-ups are calculated at the end of a battle, not during it.
