Final Fantasy d6 (Complete System)

[asurai]

I believe it says in the book that the innate ability changes to that of the job you're changing too. But I could be entirely wrong, of course.

[Namillus]

Yeah, when you Job Change you get the Innate ability of your new Job and lose the Innate of your old Job.

[Dust]

Monster with a high finesse are currently WAY too deadly at low levels. The point cost for purchasing abilities will be expanded on and greatly revised in the next week or so.

[Break]

My friend has bookmarked the latest release. You can view and download it here:

Final Fantasy d6 with Bookmarks

[ToySoldierCPlus]

My friend has bookmarked the latest release. You can view and download it here:

Final Fantasy d6 with Bookmarks

Your friend is my new best friend.

[zoofman]

Your friend is my new best friend.

I ain't your friend, buddy!

Also, just registered to post some feedback, I DM'd the old version for a few months, and I liked a lot of the changes you made, which I'll comment on. Some things just leave me a bit confused w/ how you adjusted them, however.

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One thing I appreciate is you separated evasion and accuracy from the classes themselves, as well as not making all the skills "Have INT or DEX." This was a -huge- balance issue in my game, with several mages having SAD INT dependencies for everything they did, and the group's Samurai needing 4 stats. The Time Mage completely romped her at all combat due to having 21 Int at level 9 or so, with a magic shield that practically doubled her HP, two attacks per turn via Quick with an absolutely monstrous accuracy and damage value, and being nearly untouchable due to having like 16 Evasion. Sadly I'm not sure this Mage dominance is really put away with, due to the new stat system, and some of your class changes being...very questionable.

Basically let me say I like what you did with quite a few classes. Overall many of them did see improvement. I'm not sure why you didn't nerf the ones that were dominant before, though. Thanks to Power being basically a 'I'm going at killing stuff.' stat, Time Mages can still easily build to be monstrous melee machines by pumping PWR (A seperate issue I'll touch on in a bit), and using a martial weapon instead of an arcane one. Red Mages, who sorta tied Time Mages in class dominance, got -buffed- for some reason? Crimson Seal was one of the strongest skills in the game, why was it made static via Fastcast? This gives Red Mages an unreasonable amount of flexibility. I can't say I'm happy with Entertainers getting the extra accessory feature at all, either. That was one of the few things Engineer had that wasn't completely situational, and Entertainers were very powerful to begin with. These three classes in particular strike me as being a bit overpowered because of their ability to be combative compared to a Monk or Warrior.

This really comes around to my other point. I feel a few classes that are really cool conceptually, but needed some love, just didn't get as much as they really needed. The two that come to the top of my head easily are Engineer and Ranger. Engineers are heavily situational by campaign, Rangers don't really seem to have enough trade off w/ all their slow actions to be worth it (you could declare an action, and it not even be relevant next round). They didn't see much heavy tweaking, and you took Engineer's big consistent bonus away from them, which really hurts.

Some other classes just have -way- too many 'once per session' or 'once per combat' abilities, looking at Paladin in particular concerns me with this. Have you considered making a lot of these abilities work sorta like how they would in DnD, getting more uses per session or encounter at certain level ups? Like if you could use Orlandeau's Strike once a session, and gaining an additional use per session every 5 levels or so? Or some scaling frequency based off Force and Finesse scores? A lot of classes could -really- use something like this to make them easier to use.

And now, about the stat changes it's self. TL;DR is I think PWR is a terrible idea, but to be civil about it:

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The change to the stat system causes a few oddities in builds. PWR is essentially a meaningless stat as far as roleplay and characterization goes. It doesn't correspond to just physical strength or to mental acuity either. It seems to act as just a damage stat, and one that nearly everyone (except for DEX based damage classes and Red Mages with Charismagic) is forced to pump to remain effective. For ease of discussion I'm going to use the concept of generally mage classes (Black Mage, Time Mage, etc) and generally warrior classes (Fighter, Dragoon, etc) The problem is that mages do the same amount of damage as warriors with weapons, and it is very easy to multiclass from a mage class to a warrior class or vice versa without making any sacrifice in damage output between different methods of attack. It is conceptually strange that mages would actually do worse with their given weapon category (Arcane) because all of their spells work off of PWR and so they would probably be pumping that stat more for the damage output and equipping a PWR based weapon as well.

I understand the intention was to make it easier to multiclass, but perhaps someone who's building for that should be forced to plan ahead with a balanced build instead of making it so easy to switch between mage and warrior.

Additionally, the use of PWR as the 'damage stat' mixes a purely combat/mechanics-based stat into the same point pool as stats that have characterization and roleplaying meaning, like MND or DEX. Because of the need to remain effective and relevant in battle (which means, in most cases, pumping PWR), finding the points for the more characterization-focused stats to fit character concepts can be frustrating.

Lastly, the further abstraction of every facet of personal ability that would be relevant for a skill check (intelligence, charisma, strength, dexterity, force of will, etc., etc.,) into just two stats, Force and Finesse, makes skill checks feel very homogenized.

[Dust]

Much obliged for the bookmarked version! Saves me the re-upload while I fiddle with all sorts of formatting.

A bit of erratta;

• Fragile should be a Tier 1 property.
• The Red Mage's 'Spellblade' ability is now a Slow action instead of a Standard action, and the last two lines should now read as follows; 'The Red Mage may only grant one Spellburst property to one weapon at a time, and this job ability has no effect when used upon Improbable Weapons. The effects of Spellblade last until the Red Mage chooses a new spell to imbue the weapon with.'
• Elemental Spikes ignores M.ARM, and the damage is triggered whenever you are HIT with a successful short-range attack.
• The Engineer's 'Invent' innate ability should read 'the first of these must be Explosive, and the second'.... There's also a typo in the second paragraph, which should read 'this might be very bad news for...'
• Although it isn't explicitly spelt out, you do in fact die when Blaze of Glory is used. There's no reason a character with 12+ Destiny stockpiled couldn't use both Blaze of Glory and Cheat Death, however.
• The Geomancer's 'Wild Bear' geotrance only heals one chosen negative status effect from the target instead of all of them.
• The Engineer's 'Salvage' grants them a tier-appropriate Component, not a refined item. Whoops.
• Scathe's target should read 'Single' and be (PWR x 24) instead of (PWR x 22).
• When building a monster, you can never 'buy up' it's damage steps to be double what the base attack damage would be. A level 1 monster who does PWR x 1, for example, thus can't ever increase to PWR x 2. The most you could ever increase a PWR x 4 attack by would be 3 steps.
• The White Mage's 'Esuna' spell gets the following line. 'When this spell is used by a White Mage at 25% health or less, it is cast as an Instant action instead.'
• The first line of the Ranger's 'Sharpshot' limit ability should read 'By expending two points of Destiny, the Ranger's next attack deals (DEX x Twice Level) + 2d6 points of damage, ignores ARM, cannot miss or result in a critical hit or limit break.' As read currently, it can't be combined with stuff like Sidewinder, which wasn't the intention.
• The Ranger's 'Disabling Shot' now increases the critical hit rate by 2 instead of 1 when used for a Head Shot.
• The Monk's 'Sovereign Fist' attack may now also calculate its damage with any attribute.
• Level one monster damage should be calculated as (Half PWR) + 2d6 instead.
  

And a long response to zoof! As always, I truly appreciate the fact that you went through the process of signing up just to fill me in on your experiences and thoughts.
I'll be frank right off the start here; I definitely agree with some of your points, and many of my answers are going to sound like rhetorical questions when they are, in fact, real ones.

Time Mages can still easily build to be monstrous melee machines by pumping PWR (A seperate issue I'll touch on in a bit), and using a martial weapon instead of an arcane one.

Assuming the Time Mage still casts spells, presumably they still have a decent MND attribute (which they'd use for arcane weapons); is the extra 4-5 point difference (at best) between the attributes at low levels really a concern?
If you're referring to a completely martial Time Mage build with little to no casting at all, this sort of boggles me. They have a grand total of zero abilities that would be more beneficial to a front-line fighter than a caster, with the exception of Blink before haste starts being common on...well, on every character in the game. I suppose you could also argue that Mana Shield is a great defensive mechanism for someone who completely abandons their casting side, but there's way better options out there if you're going this route that actually scale better as the game goes on.

Red Mages, who sorta tied Time Mages in class dominance, got -buffed- for some reason? Crimson Seal was one of the strongest skills in the game, why was it made static via Fastcast? This gives Red Mages an unreasonable amount of flexibility.

The rest of their abilities are certainly less impressive. Their Innate is boring and while useful, prevents them from doing other stuff. Overwhelm and Divert Spell are fun to play with, but then make the Innate ability even less useful and again, really require a specific build to make work. Flourish is solid but hardly broken, and again, requires a very specific situation to function. So forth and so on. Their main perks are in Charismagic - to prevent the MADness that the other jobs have been mostly freed from - and Natural Aptitude, which is downright silly and brokenly good but unrelated to combat.
At low levels, Fastcast prevents spell interruption (which Black, Time and White mages can already do through Focus, Blink/a myriad of spells, and Clear Mind, respectively) and at higher levels, allows for two spells a round; which is, admittedly, something we're keeping an eye on. But there's far more dangerous stuff flowing around right now, like a Black Mage who abuses the hell out of Favored Spell, and that's getting priority when it comes to fixin'. After a dozen playtests and lots of number crunching, I'm unconvinced that Red Mage isn't in a good place right now.

Engineers are heavily situational by campaign, Rangers don't really seem to have enough trade off w/ all their slow actions to be worth it (you could declare an action, and it not even be relevant next round). They didn't see much heavy tweaking, and you took Engineer's big consistent bonus away from them, which really hurts.

I'm especially interested in Ranger feedback right now; they were THE end-all be-all damage machines in the last version, and it's entirely possible we went too far with the tweaking. I'm happy with how they play, but maybe not the actual numbers or non-combat utility. I'd love to see some actual-play job comparisons at the mid-to-high levels.

Engineer is honestly one of my favorite Jobs. I think the Innate remake was much-needed, even if it went from something really original to something a lot more....mechanically pedestrian, for lack of a better phrase.
I'd like to see Junkyard get removed completely and give them new and cool (and ideally a passive bonus), and I'm open to ideas. But I don't know if I agree that having two accessories was really their defining feature as a Job.
Right now, we're seeing Engineer use Invent to really great effect round after round. Before someone pops a potion the Engineer is there slapping on Alchemy to double the effect. As soon as the monster's magical weakness is determined (through Libra, if need be), the Engineer is the one handing out the appropriate Elemental Strike to whichever heavy hitter is lining up the big smackdown for that round for double damage.
There's a distinct lack of caster supportin' with them right now, and the abilities don't work smoothly together the way I'd like (as in, you don't get better and better as an Engineer the more engy abilities you accumulate, unlike something like Dragoon). But that's where the job is going to be tweaked in the future, and we're not looking at buffs for it at this time.

On the flip side, I don't like Entertainer. I absolutely loathe their Opus limit ability and wish it wasn't something that so many other people clamoured for and helped to build. The fact that they're so powerful is something we're (again) watching closely.

Some other classes just have -way- too many 'once per session' or 'once per combat' abilities, looking at Paladin in particular concerns me with this. Have you considered making a lot of these abilities work sorta like how they would in DnD, getting more uses per session or encounter at certain level ups? Like if you could use Orlandeau's Strike once a session, and gaining an additional use per session every 5 levels or so? Or some scaling frequency based off Force and Finesse scores? A lot of classes could -really- use something like this to make them easier to use.

It's been our experience that the average fight is about three rounds, maybe 6-7 for bosses. Older versions of the game had abilities that were used X number of times per whatever, and we found that it just wasn't necessary and lead to things feeling repetitive. There's a lot of 'wait for the right moment!' mojo this time around, which I think plays pretty well. I'm not at all worried about this particular thing, especially at the crazy rate that characters get new job abilities.

PWR is essentially a meaningless stat as far as roleplay and characterization goes.

I've heard this enough that I want people to rest assured, I'm definitely sitting up and taking note. And I'll be the first to admit it - naming this attribute something that completely ruins immersion was enormously dumb of me.
From a gameplay standpoint, I think having one attribute that governs magical and physical damage works really well. I'd like to keep this if at all possible. Not to mention that it is enormously canon in the FF-verse to see generic warrior-type characters busting out powerful spells in-between melee attacks, and the system had to support that kind of build right from the start. You even noted that this was the likely reason for the attribute change later on.
But at the end of the day, you're right; the name's probably gotta go and the description revised.

It is conceptually strange that mages would actually do worse with their given weapon category (Arcane) because all of their spells work off of PWR and so they would probably be pumping that stat more for the damage output and equipping a PWR based weapon as well.

Given that I so wholeheartedly agreed with you on the last point, you'll have to explain why this is conceptually strange to me.
So we've got Fred, the black mage. Mechanically speaking, the only weapon he gets is a hunk of wood. He does more damage with a Fire spell than he does by smacking something with his stick. (And we'll ignore the fact that an Arcane weapon might manifest as a bauble of light or a lightsaber for the moment.)
So to resolve this, he stops being a black mage and starts being a fighter. He learns how to use a sword and then, when he goes back to black mage, he keeps that martial ability and can now use his excellent PWR attribute for damage.

I definitely think that the Arcane weapon property needs to be better, because this one-in-thirty-two-chance of a spell refund is more or less garbage. Something that would help promote pure casters sticking with said weapon instead of trading out a staff for a sword, but without any sort of significant buff. And again, this is something I'm open to suggestions on.

Because of the need to remain effective and relevant in battle (which means, in most cases, pumping PWR), finding the points for the more characterization-focused stats to fit character concepts can be frustrating

Now, this one is interesting. If I understand you correctly, what you're saying is the new attribute spread is actually detrimental to roleplaying, because by building, say, a fighter who is old and wise as opposed to 'powerful' (as we've discussed, whatever that means) is not doable, and that certain jobs just HAVE to increase PWR in order to stay relevant.
I know you wouldn't make this kind of statement lightly, especially not after stating that 'someone who's building [for a unique concept] should be forced to plan ahead with a balanced build.' So really, I'm curious where this one comes from - have you stumbled upon a Job that just can't WORK without PWR, and if so, I'd love a more detailed description! This is really something I'm trying to avoid.

Lastly, the further abstraction of every facet of personal ability that would be relevant for a skill check (intelligence, charisma, strength, dexterity, force of will, etc., etc.,) into just two stats, Force and Finesse, makes skill checks feel very homogenized.

I hear you loud and clear. It's far from ideal, but I think it's an improvement over the original 'attribute ratings' nonsense which was a carry-over from the Returners, which was in turn a carry-over from D&D. Going from unnecessary and clunky to oversimplified, mind you, but I think I'd rather start with the latter and improve upon it from there. It's easier to add complexity than fix something that's mostly pointless.

[Story Time]

...I don't have any business offering quarter slices of P.E.A.C.H.es...but maybe I'm too talkative today...

I've heard this enough that I want people to rest assured, I'm definitely sitting up and taking note. And I'll be the first to admit it - naming this attribute something that completely ruins immersion was enormously dumb of me.
From a gameplay standpoint, I think having one attribute that governs magical and physical damage works really well. I'd like to keep this if at all possible. Not to mention that it is enormously canon in the FF-verse to see generic warrior-type characters busting out powerful spells in-between melee attacks, and the system had to support that kind of build right from the start. You even noted that this was the likely reason for the attribute change later on.
But at the end of the day, you're right; the name's probably gotta go and the description revised.

Adjudicating a statistic which has multiple uses can be approached by having separate traits / attributes and then averaging them together. This may not be ideal for Dust's plans.

Given that I so wholeheartedly agreed with you on the last point, you'll have to explain why this is conceptually strange to me.
So we've got Fred, the black mage. Mechanically speaking, the only weapon he gets is a hunk of wood. He does more damage with a Fire spell than he does by smacking something with his stick. (And we'll ignore the fact that an Arcane weapon might manifest as a bauble of light or a lightsaber for the moment.)
So to resolve this, he stops being a black mage and starts being a fighter. He learns how to use a sword and then, when he goes back to black mage, he keeps that martial ability and can now use his excellent PWR attribute for damage.

In Final Fantasy V ( and in other games ), there was a staff weapon which would Cure / Heal the target attacked with it. Having non-interesting / non-effective staff weapons for a mage character is a GameMaster flaw, not a flaw of the system. Though...having examples of such weapons in the weapon section might be helpful.

[Arete]

Regarding the description/characterization of Power (PWR), a rename I suggest would be Bravery (BRV). Description-wise it represents valor, tenacity, and the ability to dominate others, pairing nicely with the other "willful" stat Resolve, which is all about standing up to other's punishment. In relation to Final Fantasy it has precedent in Dissidia, where your Bravery determined the strength of HP attacks, both magical and physical.

EDIT: Also in regards to mages learning martial weapons... wouldn't this be easier to just pick up Weapon Training than spending Destiny to switch to and from a fighting Job? Unless you're picking up job abilities to help you fight it doesn't seem worth it.

[Dust]

In Final Fantasy V ( and in other games ), there was a staff weapon which would Cure / Heal the target attacked with it. Having non-interesting / non-effective staff weapons for a mage character is a GameMaster flaw, not a flaw of the system. Though...having examples of such weapons in the weapon section might be helpful.

That's even a weapon property this time around.

[elmerg]

Honestly, looking at Dissidia, you have a precedent for attacks (Physical and Magical) being from one stat, since that game series only has Attack Power that functions for Bravery damage on all types of attacks, with BRV being the damage function of HP attacks. Honestly, you could go the route of Tactics and, as the poster above me said, use Bravery to alter Physical attacks and Faith to alter Magical attacks.

Not sure exactly how you'd work them in (because, honestly, if I'm playing a Black Mage in FF I'm not usually going to be swinging a staff or rod at an enemy, I'm going to be blasting them with Fire or Blizzard at low-levels, and Graviga, Darkga and Ultima at high levels), but it's there for you to look at.

[Falcon777]

After taking some time to read through the new version, I feel as if I ought....wait wait, I don't have any moral obligation to speak up, I just darn want to :p . lol ok onto being more serious.

Here's an interesting conundrum that I've found.

Mind:this score represents your capacity for knowledge, your speed of understanding, general mental agility, and knack for channeling magic.

Intelligence (INT) - This score represents your capacity for knowledge, your speed of understanding, and
general mental agility. It is used primarily in determining the effectiveness of magic and granting a higher
MP stat.

Considering these two descriptions, and the general use for mind in the second version, Mind essentially is an mp/skill stat with some extra special use here and there. It is also essentially Intelligence as far as
role-play is considered, not spirit. In fact, resolve for all practical purposes is the new spirit stat, excepting the special cases of things like charismagic and all those nifty things white mages can do with mind. Now I'm not really big on Constitution being called Resolve mostly because an hp stat (imo) shouldn't be related to your determination, especially since brings into mind ideas of depression affecting your hp (or worse, LOTRO). But that's actually an aside and doesn't really touch on the issue that I'd like to bring focus to. It is rather this: there seems to be a rather unfortunate...problem with finesse and skills. It seems that a character who is an incredibly flexible person could have more skills in negotiation than an almost equally smart person, that is, someone who is nearly equally smart to the first person's flexibility. That may sound confusing, so let me put it in this example:

A group of players get together to play a game of final fantasy d6. The game master at the very beginning let's everyone know that elves will have the greatest political power in this world, thus the language elvaan is incredibly important. Now player one decides he wants to play as a dark knight and to increase his ability to cast spells he has a higher than average MND stat (9). He also has an above avg DEX stat at 6. Player two decides he wants to play as a very flexible monk, thus he has DEX as his main stat while PWR is his secondary stat (I know that it isn't necessarily probable, but it COULD happen). His DEX is 10, and his MND is 6. Both players have the rest of their points distributed towards PWR and RES. Now player one's character has a finesse of 3 and player two's character has a finesse of four. Both player's role-play that their characters recognize the importance of knowing elvaan, thus they both max their character's ability to speak that language. Player one's character is in fact smarter, but he is incapable of grasping quite as much as the monk because he has less...finesse? No, he is incapable of grasping as much because he's less flexible, which in turn empowers finesse. This really is the reason why finesse, force, and PRW have role-play problems in the game. They are ambiguous. Specifically with this example, the dark knight DOES have a faily good chance at passing up the monk on elvaan language skill checks since he gets two dice to roll, however, it doesn't make sense for him to have less potential in language when he is the smarter one. On the flip side, it also doesn't make sense for a white mage with a very high MND score to be able to have a greater potential to out climb a fighter that has a better DEX score than the mage. Will the mage always out climb him? not if their respective finesse and skill scores allows for overlap with the inclusion of dice (very likely), however it doesn't make sense for a white mage with higher MND to have a greater potential in athletics when both characters put their best into learning the skill. I can understand how it might have been frustrating for many warrior class characters (or rather, their respective players) to be incapable of putting a lot of skill points into important skills based around intelligence and spirit, but it simply doesn't make sense for characters who's base stats don't make them naturally inclined towards a skill to be able to place more points into such a skill than their collegues who ARE more naturally inclined (and who in fact want to do so).

Sorry if this comes off as rather harsh (or repetitive for that matter). I'm in fact not really that frustrated with the system, but that's probably more coming from the fact that I have no one that I can play the game with. I also realize that it wasn't your intention to cause such hypothetical situations from arising, especially since most players will probably not go out of their way to have a greater finesse stat than normal while sacrificing damage to do so. It just seems odd to me.

[steelsmiter]

All that stuff you just said

Yeah that's pretty much it for me too!.

[Dust]

You know, you probably could have shortened that whole thing by saying 'It's odd that increasing DEX also increases mental skills like languages.' And you'd be right.
You could also rephrase it and say that it's bizarre how being smarter makes one a better acrobat, for example. Two sides of the same coin.

The best system for general realism is probably something like D&D's, where you're only allowed a flat number of skill points in each skill (or a checkmark denoting you're just 'better at it', if we're talking 4e) and then each separate skill is improved by a base attribute.
One of the things we talked about doing for a long time was to streamline the skills, but that definitely didn't happen this time around. What we WANTED to do was have two contributing factors to your skills - how smart you are, and how determined and focused you were. This would be represented by the two attributes that were called MND and RES in this release.

But the more we fiddled with it the more we realized it didn't quite work happily that way. So it was put off for a few months until we actually see more of the game in action - and in retrospect, it was a good idea, since it looks like attributes need a very major rethink anyway.

For now, Thieves and Ninjas and Rangers are just naturally skillful jobs even if they might be as dumb as a brick, and we suggest you don't think TOO much about the logic behind it.

[Story Time]

That's even a weapon property this time around.

"My interest doth arise one notch."

The best system for general realism is probably something like D&D's[...]

Nine category attribute system...

As long as Strength determines movement speed, power, and range while Wits determines hand-eye coordination and synchronous movement, there will be verisimilitude to the system.

[Arete]

For now, Thieves and Ninjas and Rangers are just naturally skillful jobs even if they might be as dumb as a brick, and we suggest you don't think TOO much about the logic behind it.

And in the meantime, picking up Skillful Hero can make a skill-focused character stand out from those who just have a high Finesse.

[Eathanu]

You could also rephrase it and say that it's bizarre how being smarter makes one a better acrobat, for example. Two sides of the same coin.

To be fair, an acrobat does need to know just how to do that, and that's where intelligence comes in.

I've been fiddling with your system since the new one came out, twisting it to my own ends. Basically, my interest in running an actual Final Fantasy-ish tabletop game is pretty much nil, but the Returners gave a great starting point for a system set in my own constructed world, and then I found FFd6, and that was an even better one.

So I'll make a longer post later, offering up some of the changes I've made (it covers six large .txt files now), but the hope is that character generation will be totally different and still compatible with the rest of the system with tweaking.

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Basically, I have six attributes instead of four; Strength, Agility (deals with EVA), Dexterity (ACC, ranged/concealed damage, etc.), Wisdom (Essentia, or standard MP-using spell casting), Resolve (among other things, magical evasion), and Charisma (deals with Empathy, another type of spellcasting, pretty much).

(STR + AGI) / 4 makes Vitality, which determines the character's HP when added to their racial bonus and multiplied by their level. Their class also gives a bonus per level, but I'll get to that in another post. Vitality also controls the maximum value for skills like Athletics and Survival. (DEX + WIS) / 4 is still Finesse, used mostly for skills (there are a disproportionate number of skills which use Finesse as their dependency) and as a Reflex save. Lastly, (RES + CHA) / 4 makes Willpower, which controls some of the mental skills (such as Medical and Negotiation) as well as resistance to a bunch of mental status effects. When it comes to saving throws, only the "aggressor" actually rolls; the Finesse Defense, for example, is calculated as Finesse + 7.

So far, I'm having a lot of fun converting the rules. For my needs, I wanted fewer classes (there are only four) with greater customization, so every level you take a "level package," which tells you how many skill points you get, the HP and MP bonuses, and what sort of new spells or abilities you can pick up.

Knights get the sort of things you'd expect: versions of Jump, Break arts, and the like. They upgrade them with Enhancements (still not happy with that name though), and use most of them with Stamina Points. (SP is calculated with Vitality + 2)
Mages are the regular spellcasters. They get Essentia spells, which are split into five elements: Fire, Water, Air, Wood, and Metal. A mage can specialize or choose not to. A multiclasser may only choose two non-opposing elements to cast from (such as Fire + Air or Fire + Metal)
Diplomats use Empathy, which is cut into three philosophies: Open Palm and Closed Fist, stolen from Jade Empire, and Clasped Hands, a middleground and party-buff set. Empathy is totally free to use, but it's all either simple and passive, weak and Standard, or Slow actions across the board.
Experts eschew the other magics in order to focus on skills, so they can raise their skills higher than the other classes. They can choose to get ungodly good at one thing or split themselves among every skill and be competent in all of them.

I don't want this to drag on longer than it has, so I'll just say that with the point-buy system I devised for the stats and the more clear-cut divisions between what the stats actually are, it's easier to define what a person actually is by the numbers on their sheet. Combat balance will be a problem for me (already has been), but I'm getting somewhere with this.

As mentioned, I hope to post a bit more here, because my system will hopefully be great for those who aren't so much interested in the Final Fantasy side of this system as they are the system itself.

[Arete]

Actually, a further thought occurred to me regarding the "why does being dexterous make me better at languages" issue; the Language skill includes reading and writing comprehension too, and coordination is part of Dexterity, so it's not as ridiculous as first blush. I know it might be getting into dissecting specific examples, but I mention it because caution should be held against changing the system too much until an obvious need to do so is found.

[Eathanu]

Actually, a further thought occurred to me regarding the "why does being dexterous make me better at languages" issue; the Language skill includes reading and writing comprehension too, and coordination is part of Dexterity, so it's not as ridiculous as first blush. I know it might be getting into dissecting specific examples, but I mention it because caution should be held against changing the system too much until an obvious need to do so is found.

Heh. I nixed the Language skill entirely for my thing, but that has a bit more to do with the world. Before a certain point, there's only (in practical terms) four languages anyway, and statistically speaking there'll be at least one person in each party who speaks any given language.

Not quite the long post yet, but I figured I'd offer up the point buy the way I do it as well as a couple other tidbits.

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First thing of note, which ties in with the above, is that I've set up the weapons list to a more D&D-esque thing. The main reason for this is having fun things from 3.5E that I liked making it into this system. Things like scythes getting a ×4 critical multiplier, and generally "weaker" weapons making up for it in other ways. The FFd6 stuff is still there; it's just that weapons that defy their normal description get other powers and such. Going along with this was a desire to have the system work within any age of Emaria, including when guns came along. Having them all be Ranged weapons would have been boring (and confusing, in some cases), so things like the Sniper Rifle need a Slow action to fire, but have a Long range, a ×4 crit multiplier, and an 11-12 crit range.

Anyway. Attributes. The basic idea is that each attribute starts at 2 before racial modifiers; 5 is considered "average" rather than 3. 25 is considered the average stats for the gods; Mhogul, being a goddess known for her wisdom, would have a WIS closer to 28 and a CHA closer to 20, but you get the picture.

Mortal characters like the players get 30 points to distribute during character customization. Bringing the attribute up to 5 costs 1 point per point, 2 per point up to 8, and 9 and 10 require 3 points each. This allows one to boost two stats to 10 at the detriment of all else, or become one point above average in all stats (all 6s). After applying racial modifiers, the attributes may range from 1 to 11, but the general idea is that they all should fall between 2 and 10. So as an example, Silvikk is an Emarion monk; She's starting out Knight and multiclassing to Diplomat. Emarions get +1 CHA and -1 STR, so her starting stats are:
STR 5
AGI 8
DEX 6
WIS 4
RES 6
CHA 7
Characters still gain 1 attribute point per level and an additional 1 every other level, so a character can, if they are hyper-focused on it, raise on stat to above godly levels. This is on purpose :)

A thing I forgot to mention in the last post is that Stamina Points for Knight powers have an Empathy equivalent as well: EP, or Enhancement Points (which is why I hate the Enhancements name for Knight power upgrades). EP raise the general effectiveness of an Empathy power, generally allowing them to kick all kinds of ass. Ex: "Ego Whip" is a Closed Fist discipline that hits an enemy at Short range for 3 damage steps, another within short range of him for 2, and another for 1. An enhancement point raises the initial hit to 6 damage steps and allows the chain to go on for six enemies. (We're planning on playing on a hex grid, so figuring out this stuff should be simple)

EP is equal to a character's Willpower (might be lessened from there though) and only recovers with a full rest. A short rest will raise a character's SP back up to half of it's maximum. These two values generally replace Destiny, which I thought was a great idea, but one that it can quickly become difficult for a GM to gauge whether or not they're giving enough or too much of it.

Oh, and for casters, the replacement for Destiny is pretty much just increased costs of their spells for effects like silent casting, allowing them to cast spells while silenced (and cast spells without breaking stealth until it goes off) and things like that. If I wind up needing more for them I can always allow them to dip into EP as well.

Anyway, I hope someone gets something out of these. Dust's system has really gotten me working on overdrive trying to perfect the system for my own needs. I, uh, really appreciate having something to do, actually.

[Mono Vertigo]

Okay, so I've been reading the new version... things were changed that I didn't expect, others stayed the same. While I'm trying to digest the new stuff, I wonder how balanced everything is (no, I'm not implying anything, I genuinely want to know if some things are unbalanced because I didn't get to play or calculate things yet).
... so, no, I don't really have anything constructive to say yet.
(Oh, yes actually, just one thing: I personally am not fond of mechanics where doing certain things make you gain negative points of DOOM. I tolerate the Gambler's Bad Luck because its consequences make sense, are extremely simple, and points vanish after use, but the same doesn't go for the Time Mage's Paradox.
Also, grafts were cool, but at least it's not too hard finding a way to integrate them back.)

EDIT:
OH WAIT BEFORE I FORGET the Red Mage doesn't seem to have an Innate Ability like everyone else. Or maybe it's Runic, but it's not clearly indicated, then. Is it normal?


@Eathanu: those are interesting changes you've made!
... though, honestly, it doesn't feel like Final Fantasy anymore to me.
But hey, your choice, if you like the result, good for you!

[Story Time]

EDIT:
OH WAIT BEFORE I FORGET the Red Mage doesn't seem to have an Innate Ability like everyone else. Or maybe it's Runic, but it's not clearly indicated, then. Is it normal?

I believe that Runic was noted by Dust to be the innate ability for the Red Mage.

... though, honestly, it doesn't feel like Final Fantasy anymore to me.

...completely and whole-heartedly agreed.

No offense meant, of course.

[Aniseed]

Hey, Dust. I'm working with Zoofman and a few other people in going over this system, and I just thought I'd post a bit more of our views in response to your last post (thank you for taking the time to respond to it, by the way).

Regarding Martial Time Mages:

If you're referring to a completely martial Time Mage build with little to no casting at all, this sort of boggles me. They have a grand total of zero abilities that would be more beneficial to a front-line fighter than a caster, with the exception of Blink before haste starts being common on...well, on every character in the game. I suppose you could also argue that Mana Shield is a great defensive mechanism for someone who completely abandons their casting side, but there's way better options out there if you're going this route that actually scale better as the game goes on.

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Magic Shield and Blink are enough to make a Time Mage a deadly physical fighter; the point we've been trying to make is that a Time Mage can, with minimal effort, be very difficult to hit (Blink/Invisible), take very little damage when hit (Mana Shield), and hit twice a round for severe damage before anyone else can (Quick). A comment from our group's Time Mage:

Besides to say that Time Mages definitely get haste earlier than everyone else via quick, and that an early level martial Time Mage only really needs enough MP to cast quick, then invisible once in a round via blink and then sit through the rest of combat on magic shield MP.

If they focus on MND, they reap the benefits of the best support spells in the game, massive MP which lets them sit on their Mana Shields for even longer, and they also benefit from MND damage on Arcane Weapons.

Yes, this is just one build of many, but as it stands, melee Time Mages are not only viable, but are excellent tanks.

Regarding Red Mages:

The rest of their abilities are certainly less impressive. Their Innate is boring and while useful, prevents them from doing other stuff. Overwhelm and Divert Spell are fun to play with, but then make the Innate ability even less useful and again, really require a specific build to make work. Flourish is solid but hardly broken, and again, requires a very specific situation to function. So forth and so on. Their main perks are in Charismagic - to prevent the MADness that the other jobs have been mostly freed from - and Natural Aptitude, which is downright silly and brokenly good but unrelated to combat.
At low levels, Fastcast prevents spell interruption (which Black, Time and White mages can already do through Focus, Blink/a myriad of spells, and Clear Mind, respectively) and at higher levels, allows for two spells a round; which is, admittedly, something we're keeping an eye on. But there's far more dangerous stuff flowing around right now, like a Black Mage who abuses the hell out of Favored Spell, and that's getting priority when it comes to fixin'. After a dozen playtests and lots of number crunching, I'm unconvinced that Red Mage isn't in a good place right now.

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The problem is, Red Mages are in a good place right now - too good. Via Charismagic, they can use MND to calculate spell damage, weapon damage, and MP, and they Fastcast to pump out spells every turn forever. They also get access to Quick and Temper, allowing them to dominate low-level combat even more (and, with all that MND, they'll have plenty of MP to do so). Red Mages also get access to the 'best' armor in the game, as well as shields, without having to use features to grab them. They don't really *need* anything else. (That being said, I miss the old Natural Aptitude. :C Making up ridiculously specific skills was fun.)

Specifically regarding Fastcast:
Fastcast isn't powerful because it keeps spells from being interrupted, it's powerful because it makes spells happen immediately; either healing your ally before the big nasty monster gets another swing at it or dropping a status right before it's about to do something ridiculously powerful (like, say, a Final Attack, or even a slow action spell) or something similar.

Favored Spell is...really not that good? An instant spell 1/session is kinda not much compared to what RDMs can do. I think the only way it could be considered broken would be if you were to interpret the wording as 'you may cast any of your Favored Spells as an Instant Action 1/battle for each time you have taken Favored Spell which... honestly seems not to have been the intent? I'll gladly admit I might be wrong on this count

Regarding PWR, thematically and otherwise:

I've heard this enough that I want people to rest assured, I'm definitely sitting up and taking note. And I'll be the first to admit it - naming this attribute something that completely ruins immersion was enormously dumb of me.
From a gameplay standpoint, I think having one attribute that governs magical and physical damage works really well. I'd like to keep this if at all possible. Not to mention that its enormously canon in the FF-verse to see generic warrior-type characters busting out powerful spells in-between melee attacks, and the system had to support that kind of build right from the start. You even noted that this was the likely reason for the attribute change later on.
But at the end of the day, you're right; the name's probably gotta go and the description revised.

The problem we have with PWR as a stat isn't its name, it's the fact that a single stat rules damage for every class except for a very small handful of exceptions.

Not to mention that it is enormously canon in the FF-verse to see generic warrior-type characters busting out powerful spells in-between melee attacks

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Games with explictly-stated classes where magic damage only came at the expense of physical damage and vice versa:
FFI
FFII
FFIII
FFIV
FFV
FFIX
FF Tactics
FF Tactics Advance
FFTA2
FFX2
FFXI

Games without classes where magic damage only came at the expense of physical damage and vice-versa:
FFVI
FFXII
FFX

Games without classes where characters were consistently equally capable of dealing physical and magical damage:
FFVII
FFVIII

Games with explicitly-stated classes where characters were consistently equally capable of dealing physical and magical damage:
???

-Gishing is not common in the Final Fantasy series. Generally, swapping freely between magic classes and physical classes ensures that a character is mediocre at both, not excellent. Sabin will never be as good at flinging spells as Relm or Terra; Vivi can't hit things anywhere near as hard as Freya can; no matter what weapon an FFI White Mage equips, he'll be doing terrible physical damage. From what games, exactly, are you drawing your claim that characters are always equally capable at magic and physical attacks? I'd hardly say it's 'enormously canon'.

Given that I so wholeheartedly agreed with you on the last point, you'll have to explain why this is conceptually strange to me.
So we've got Fred, the black mage. Mechanically speaking, the only weapon he gets is a hunk of wood. He does more damage with a Fire spell than he does by smacking something with his stick. (And we'll ignore the fact that an Arcane weapon might manifest as a bauble of light or a lightsaber for the moment.)
So to resolve this, he stops being a black mage and starts being a fighter. He learns how to use a sword and then, when he goes back to black mage, he keeps that martial ability and can now use his excellent PWR attribute for damage.

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The point we're making here is that a mage who picks up a non-arcane weapon (via weapon specialization or anything else), is just as good at hitting things with it as a fighter is (and thus, the implication is that the only reason they're poor melee fighters in general is because of weapon choice, not inherent talent or lack thereof). We feel that this is a little nonsensical.

Now, this one is interesting. If I understand you correctly, what you're saying is the new attribute spread is actually detrimental to roleplaying, because by building, say, a fighter who is old and wise as opposed to 'powerful' (as we've discussed, whatever that means) is not doable, and that certain jobs just HAVE to increase PWR in order to stay relevant.
I know you wouldn't make this kind of statement lightly, especially not after stating that 'someone who's building [for a unique concept] should be forced to plan ahead with a balanced build.' So really, I'm curious where this one comes from - have you stumbled upon a Job that just can't WORK without PWR, and if so, I'd love a more detailed description! This is really something I'm trying to avoid.

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Every job that depends upon PWR for damage? Even without the worry of keeping up with fellow party members (which has been a concern in every game of FFD6 I've observed), the fact that monsters do get stronger and get better defenses will force every class save Ranged/Concealed users, Charismagic Red Mages, and maybe Arcane melee Time Mages to pump PWR for the majority of the game or risk obsolescence.

These have just been the observations of our group, but we think that they are a serious enough concern to bring up. Thank you for your willingness to look at player feedback!

[Mono Vertigo]

I believe that Runic was noted by Dust to be the innate ability for the Red Mage.

Missed it. Thanks!

So, generally speaking, I think I disagree with having a single stat dictate both magical and physical damage output. If someone wishes to have a character be able to fling spells and hit stuff efficiently, the Red Mage, Paladin, and Dark Knight classes are there for that (and a few others for varied magical effects). I don't think the average Black/White/Time Mage should be as proficient as a melee class when it comes to physical damage, and it seems I'm not alone to think that. It should take more than a single shared ability to obtain polyvalence.

[Eathanu]

Not to mention that it is enormously canon in the FF-verse to see generic warrior-type characters busting out powerful spells in-between melee attacks

I tend to think of two games in particular as the most canon of FF games, so my thinking is skewed by them quite a bit: FFs 4 and 9. You'll notice the only job-changing between the two is story-related, which I suppose speaks to my tastes.

Anyway, both of them definitely have specifically physical- and magical-oriented characters, and FF4 has, if I recall correctly, five stats: Strength, Speed, Vitality, Intellect, and Spirit. I think, and again this is one opinion among a sea of them, that you hit the nail on the head with the old version when it comes to the stats. I imagine if you looked, several of the other games in the series would have a similar layout as well.

So yeah, I think not only having a different stat for physical damage vs. magical effectiveness is the best thing, but controlling the two main magics with two different stats as well worked best. I think it makes Charismagic a more meaningful choice for a Red Mage, too. They are sort of meant to be a skill-oriented class, so Intellect will help them there; at the same time if they want to go for full magic, Spirit is the way to go.

With five stats, Force could easily just use Spirit and Vitality in order to make melee-types think twice about pumping just Strength.

[Arete]

With five stats, Force could easily just use Spirit and Vitality in order to make melee-types think twice about pumping just Strength.

That would cause mages to have the higher Force on average. If everyone tends to keep a decent Vitality rating by default, mages will pump Spirit more consistently, which would now be a dump stat for melee fighters. Part of the elegance of the four-stat system is that there are no dump stats.

I agree that arcane weapons need to be more desirable for casters. No MP Cost has already been stated to be essentially meaningless, so how about this: Once per combat, the user may reroll a single spell check, taking the result they prefer. Furthermore, the spell's cost is reduced by half. This makes it useful for both attackers, mezzers, and buffers, and lets the player choose when they get the MP reduction, in exchange for it being less extreme than 0 cost.

As for Power/Bravery making melee weapons the go-to for offensive casters, I think yes, this may be a problem, bu the solution should lie in giving martial jobs better abilities to enhance their non-magical combat. Blink and Mana Shield are potent, but if the Dragoon or Fighter are bringing their own persistent buffs to the table it's not so bad.

[wiimanclassic]

I support not using the same stat for physical and magical damage. It has next to no basis in the series itself outside of a spin off or 2 and makes it harder to make characters unique.

Like, you shouldn't be able to hit as hard with a weapon your proficient with as a mage of somekind as the party fighter. Encouraging a mage to have a higher physical strength to keep magic up to snuff is kinda....dumb.

Might work for a redmage but thats like saying a bard will need some strength, jack of all trades needs all stats.

[Falcon777]

While in terms of game play I have to agree with you wiiman...that uh...wasn't exactly a very kind way to put that. Personally, if I ever get a chance to play the game, I'll be thanking Dust till the cows come home. I honestly think that Dust already knows that there's going to be plenty of people that don't want to play in a system where mages have to split their stats to be decent at spell-casting; however, I personally still think that the game is FREAKING AMAZING!!!!

Okay, I'll go back to my corner now. (whispers, THANK YOU DUUUUUUUST!!!!)

[steelsmiter]

Steiner was pretty good at part time gishing! but yeah he was better on full tank WTFPWN mode.

[Aniseed]

I'd call Magic Sword a Teamwork Attack, not gishing.

Admittedly, that's nitpicking on my part.

[Mono Vertigo]

I'd call Magic Sword a Teamwork Attack, not gishing.

Admittedly, that's nitpicking on my part.

Yep, with the biggest hint being that he couldn't use it if Vivi wasn't also in the party. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't played this game in ages).

Again, the problem is that there isn't much of a point in playing most melee-only classes if mages can inflict the same amount of damage with attacks and spells, and have abilities that encourage them to do so (like the Time Mage mentioned earlier). I'm sure these abilities weren't intended to be used this way. It would be okay if the way stats work currently didn't also make them good warriors.
A non-exhaustive list of job/limit abilities that may invite mages to hit stuff (ignoring the Red Mage because he is intended to be a mixed fighter, and ironically, seems to rely more on Finesse attributes than pure Power):
- Crystal Cannon (gratuitous net stat boost)
- Bloodline (Aerial, Beast, Dragon)
- Mana Shield (of course)
- Blink (also evident)
- Telekinesis (when you don't want to use your own weapon)
- Momentum (twice as many attacks and the opportunity for even more actions)
- Reckoning (with the right weapons)
- Stronger Together (permanent buff)
- Shield Bearer (extra ARM is always useful when you're a melee fighter)

For the record, there are also several low-level spells that help melee mages more than casting mages:
- Elemental Spikes (nice little defensive perk in melee)
- Melt (forcing the enemy to drop their weapon or denying their defense? Yes please!)
- Temper (which will surely help more than some Paladins or Red Mages)
- Quickening (early, cheap way to boost yourself)
- Quick (less cheap, but even better)
- Time Slip (if you manage to make yourself younger, you can turn yourself into a berserker)
- Invisible (when you lack hit points or defense, aka whenever you play a melee mage).

In short, early on, with the right combination of abilities, you may rival - or even outdo - any other class that's supposed to deal physical damage. Take the ability that allows the use of more weapons, and forget arcane weapons forever; you don't even need to change jobs to improve your melee prowess (which, I think, is problematic). Most melee fighters can obtain the equivalent of spells to increase their strength or endurance, anyway, and the only difference with the spells above is that they take no MP (which doesn't mean much; these spells are cheap anyway, and some abilities have a limited number of uses, something that spells don't have). As a Time Mage, you can turn very early on into some kind of über-ninja, especially if you aren't afraid of Paradox. As a White Mage, you can look down on many Paladins. As a Black Mage, you can act as a less unstable Dark knight. As a Blue Mage, you can can enhance your strength, armor, and evasion and annoy most melee monsters.

This could be fixed either by revising abilities mentioned above, either, which I would prefer, by changing the way attributes work.



Phew, that was a lot of criticisms.
Sorry if that sounded harsh, Dust. I loved the old version, I still like the new one, and I really appreciate all the effort you've spent in making that system awesome. I would still like to play in that system, even if there are evident flaws.