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Classes

Anthile

Steel marks flesh
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Everything about the classes will be discussed in here.
 
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Anthile

Steel marks flesh
Local time
Today 9:13 AM
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
3,987
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Re: Skills, feats & classes

<I am currently wiriting something here>
 

Artifice Orisit

Guest
Re: Skills, feats & classes

Philosophy Class System
(from another thread where I derailed myself)
Now I’m not suggesting we drop the philosophy idea completely, just that perhaps it could be used better as a sort of class or alignment system… a mental class system perhaps to work alongside the typically physical classes which determine one’s role in battle. So for example a nihilist could use the “depressing speech” ability to attempt to debuff opponents but an absurdist counters with the “ludicrous perspective” ability to evade it. Perhaps players can just make up these abilities during the game, with the only limitation being the extent of their chosen philosophy and how often this trick can be pulled, once per every 10 rounds maybe? Anyway, now the GM has to play storyteller and decide how such a clash of philosophies would play out. Clearly in this situation you’d expect the absurdist to have been successful and the GM will tell a little story about how the speech failed because the absurdist kept poking fun at the nihilist, or something to that effect. Naturally the better one’s made up ability fits within their chosen school of philosophy then assumedly the better the PC implements it and thus more likely that fate (the GMs whim) works in their favour.

Oh, I’ve just had a great idea.
Philosophy Class: Totalitarianism.
Description: I’m right and you’re wrong.
Weakness: Ineffectual unless played from a tactical advantage.
Actually, being a system does it go in the rules section?
 
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Anthile

Steel marks flesh
Local time
Today 9:13 AM
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
3,987
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Re: Skills, feats & classes

Classes so far:

Stoicist
Focus: Melee, cybernetics
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Stoicist believe that there is only a physical world. It is their goal to achieve absolute indifference towards everything what sentient beings describe as good or bad. Only those who are truly apapethic towards any affect are truly wise. The three pillars of Stoicism are Autarky (self-sufficiency ), Ataraxia (imperturbability ) and Apatheia (apathy).
Although their philosophy seems rather egoistically they try to extend it on all humanoid beings. To accomplish this bold plan they rely on cybernetic enhancements which they implant into their bodies to achieve greater control over mind and flesh.
They are organized in so-called orders which world views can (slightly) differ from the doctrine of their highest authority, The Exalted One, who resides in Adiaphora, the holy city of spheres.
Since cyberware is mostly ancient technology and due to the fact that only simple enhancements have been backwards engineered and reproduced, Stoicists are rather rare and not a real political or military power.
In battle they use their superior physical abilities and seek close-range combat where they use steampowered melee weapons or integrated weapons such as flamethrowers or shockers.
Stoicists are the only class that is completely unable to use psionics (except from psionic equipment) and to compensate for this they have the most cybernetics slots.



Epicurean
Focus: Melee, psionics
Epicureans are not so different from Stoicists at the first sight but soon one will see the vast difference. They concentrate on the things that provide pleasure and try to avoid adversity.
While "good" Epicureans try to achieve pleasure for everyone, "bad" Epicureans tend to be egoistical hedonists. Their main principles are Ataraxia (freedom from fear; tranquility of soul) and Aponia (freedom from pain) which they try to reach.
Instead of choosing their fate like the Stoicists for example they are born with their powers.
The most important trait of Epicureans is the ability to change their shape at will.
At young age they can barely control it but with increasing experience they are able to morph particular limbs or even their whole shape. The more the aspired form is different from the own nature the more likely is a loss of identity and sanity. There are many legends about Epicureans who turned permanently into stones or trees.
Due to their psionic nature, Epicureans can sense kindred spirits easily and are drawn to each other.
They don't really have a real culture and often live together in nomadic tribes outside of the cities.
Epicureans love to tell stories and their most important myth is about the first Epicurean, a divine being that transmuted into what we call universe. Because of this and that they often morph into animals they respect nature and life in general though this is not the norm.
While fighting they transform their bodies into powerful weapons or armour. Their psionic powers usually have just a short range and thus they are mostly found in the first row.








Subjectivist
Focus: Melee, anti-psionics, stealthy
It is not easy to describe what Subjectivists are. No one really knows where they come from or what they do. Scientists call their mysterious powers anti- or meta-psionics because they mostly affect the minds of other beings. Subjectivists are able to negate psionics and to create anti-psionic fields.
There are some rumours that they have been especially created to kill off psionics users.
The other, even more enigmatic ability is their power to "overwrite" objective reality with their own subjective reality (thus the name Subjectivists). Basically, it's like having a third arm – that works interdimensional. This power seems almost divine but it has its limits – it only works with anorganic matter and only on a very small area, constant usage can affect sanity.
And no matter how strong your arms are, it is unlikely that you will ever be able to lift a building with it.
Subjectivists are very rare and they usually try to avoid showing their abilities to other persons because more than once known Subjectivists have been killed off by the Guild or used for various experiments by other, shady organizations.
In battle they are able to attack from the shadows – even if there are none, they will gladly ignore the shining sun. Because that doesn't work too well from distance they have to use melee weapons and they will do that without honour.
The reality warping makes them terrific thieves and more than one Subjectivist used it to bend the laws.

Existentialist
Focus: Long-range, cybernetics, stealthy
The Existentialists are a loose brotherhood of information collectors. While the Stoicists are rather a collective of various, dogmatic machine-cults guided by one person as supreme authority, the Existentialists are only lead by a small council. The brotherhood knows only one goal: gathering all kinds of informations and artificats of past cultures. The members are only restricted by few rules:
1.The council watches you.
2.If you betray the council, you are dead.
3.Only reveal as many informations as necessary to strangers.
By normal people they are usually called wanderers because never stay long at one location and roam the wilderness between the cities. Existentialist can come from everywhere, former soldiers, orphans or bandits can be found amongst their rank. Usually they get hired by Existentialist talent seekers.
The organization provides them with weapons training, money and access to their information vault. What they are eventually do with all this is up to them as long as they fulfill their missions. Since bringing back the informations to the Great Library is the crucial point of being an Existentialist, they tend to fight from the distance with advanced firearms. Also, they use cybernetics to simplify that task but far less than the Stoicists. No one exceeds their knowledge about ancient and modern technology.



Monolatrist
Focus: Depends on the god, healing
Someone is called a Monolatrist when he ackknowledges the existence of many gods but decides to worship only one. In this case, it's a bit more complicated. In fact, the gods choose the persons they want as a real followers prenatally. Because of that they are gifted with psionics but a different kind that concentrates mainly on people, which means basically healing or killing.
The prenatal intervention leads also to some minor physical mutations like odd eye or hair colours, a sixth toe or partial scales. Depending on the culture, having such a person in the family is either a very good or a very bad thing.
Monolatrists are the most versatile class of all. They don't have a real combat focus and depending on the god that chose them they can even combine cybernetics with psionics as the only class.
Everything further, well, depends on the god.


Rationalist
Focus: Long-range, psionics
Rationalists are not born, Rationals are made. There are many legends about a shady organization called The Guild that takes children away from their homes and makes them "wizards" though the academical term is always Rationalist since they try to perceive objective reality and try to change it
on that level with the vast power of their minds. This means they have to learn a lot of formulas and the whole "magic" thing comes down to mathematics directly woven into the world.
Little is known about The Guild and their goals, their agents can be found all over the world and they sure are a power that has to be reckoned with.

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Just a quick summarization so far. Didn't thought that really through.
 

Artifice Orisit

Guest
Re: Skills, feats & classes

So this would be using one's philosophy as their class... it does fit nicely with the philosophy class system I described, although it also seems to limit one's ability to customize their character. If we kept the players "conventional class" and "chosen philosophy class" as separate aspects of their character then it would provide many interesting possible combinations; although this greatly reduces the game's focus on philosophy, possibly even limiting it to something akin to a prestige class.

Okay, nitpicking aside, I'm loving the class backgrounds :D
It may not be practical to have so much of the character's identity dependant upon their class but that’s no reason not to use the various factions you've described, in fact it makes a lot of sense. In a world where one's chosen philosophy either determines their role in combat or can be used as a sort of periodical "greater power" (a one use per day spell) you would expect beings from various races and societal roles to find kinship through their shared beliefs and form factions around that co-understanding.
Like how this forum is comprised of individual INTPs who joined of their own free will because they could relate to the other people here.

Since cyberware is mostly ancient technology and due to the fact that only simple enhancements have been backwards engineered and reproduced, Stoicists are rather rare and not a real political or military power.
I think we need to discuss exactly what level this world is at in terms of technological and magical development; also, given the presence of magic (or psychic abilities, which is different but similar) exactly how realistic this world is. An example being that steam-age medical knowledge should realistically be near useless, however we could hand-wave this by using Dr Frankenstein’s pseudo medical science as a reference for how amazing feats of medical science could be achieved despite the fact that he couldn’t perform a vasectomy.

Welcome to the mad science of narrative convenience :phear:
If it can be justified, it works... just ignore the fringe logic.
 
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