Attributes, Traits, and Skills

Combat in Continuum is determined by dice rolls, using a combination of your character's Attributes, Traits, and Skills to determine how skilled and/or powerful he or she is when trying to effect something. Before going into the nuances of combat itself, this page is meant to list all of these characteristics and what they do in the grand scheme of things.

Attributes
Attributes are usually the base numbers that you use for most rolls, save for when using supernatural abilities like magic, psionics, or innate abilities. While they may be rolled alone, Attributes may also be combined with skills to further heighten your chances at obtaining more successes by throwing more dice.

There are 12 main Attributes, all of them grouped into four distinct realms:
 * the Physical realm possesses Constitution, Strength, and Dexterity
 * the Social realm possesses Charisma, Honor, and Appearance
 * the Mental realm possesses Creativity, Education, and Computation
 * the Soul realm possesses Alertness, Luck, and Willpower

The Physical Realm

 * 1) Constitution: This attribute determines how physically resilient your character is. From 1 to 2, your character possesses average durability. 3 to 4, your character possesses great prowess. 5 and up, your character possesses superhuman durability, taking insane amounts of damage to bring down. Constitution combines with Willpower to determine your HP.
 * 2) Dexterity: This attribute determines how quickly your character reacts. It follows the same progression as the previous attribute, with the higher your number, the more superhuman your feats become. Dexterity skills include such thing as dodging, and how well you wield a weapon against a set opponent.
 * 3) Strength: How powerful is your character, physically? The higher his strength attribute, the more walls he can punch through. Strength also determines how much damage you inflict against someone, should you score a hit against them.

The Social Realm

 * 1) Charisma: This Attribute encompasses a wide variety of activities, such as the ability to lie convincingly to someone, or the ability to sway one or many people to your way of thinking. People with high Charisma can be effective leaders, and/or they can also be effective swindlers, thieves, and con men. Everyone can fulfill any of those roles, but the higher your Charisma, the easier they become to enact.
 * 2) Honor: Everyone has a set of beliefs or creeds that they live by, even if they are wholly selfish and only pertain to one's own success. The higher your dots in Honor, however, displays a higher conviction toward that creed or way of life. Honor is mostly used in social situations, wherein a player may ask a staff member whether or not they can add their Honor dots to a roll whenever their honor codes are challenged and they need to resist them somehow. Likewise, when following one's own honor code to the letter, this bonus may apply as well.
 * 3) Appearance: Dots in this Attribute do not determine beauty, but rather intensity. Does your character have a deformity or scar of some kind? Or is he or she truly stunning to behold? The higher your dots in Appearance, the higher these descriptions begin to accentuate. 1 dot in Appearance does not determine ugliness, but rather normality. 5 dots in Appearance determine either a truly frightening character, or a truly breathtaking one.

The Mental Realm

 * 1) Computation: Computation determines how well your character determines or figures things out. This can be anything from solving a difficult puzzle, to investigating a crime scene, to reading some kind of blueprint or instruction and crafting an artifact or constructing an edifice.
 * 2) Creativity: This Attribute determines how well your character is at creating new things. Writing original spellbooks, developing a new song or dance, drafting a unique set of blueprints, concocting an epic story, etc. The higher the Creativity dots, the faster the mind races to develop such things in a much quicker pace.
 * 3) Education: Education determines a character's preparedness in any given field. A character with high Education has studied more than his or her peers, which doesn't necessarily make them smarter. They are simply more educated. A character may possess knowledge in a wide variety of subjects, such as different races, recorded history, supernatural abilities, secret lore, religions, etc.

The Soul Realm
When developing your character, you must determine what Attribute realms they excel at, and which are their lesser developed characteristics. To that end, you will have to rate your Physical, Mental, Social, and Soul realms as your Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary Attributes. Primary will possess the higher number of dots in character creation, and will probably be the greater focus of your character, especially at startup; Quaternary will be the opposite.
 * 1) Alertness: Where senses are concerned, Alertness is your friend. This attribute allows a character to detect sneak attacks, traps set, or even whether supernatural phenomena exists/existed in an area.
 * 2) Luck: Luck is self-explanatory. This attribute is unique in that it can be combined into any roll that you want, once per scene, to heighten one's chances to score more successes against someone. The higher your Luck attribute, the higher the number of dice you can throw at someone once per scene.
 * 3) Willpower: The other half of your hit points, Willpower also plays a major role in at least two other areas. For Psions, for example, possessing a high Willpower attribute is a must for them to use their powers. Likewise, every creature possesses an innate buffer field against supernatural abilities, which combine with Willpower to manifest defenses against psionic, magical, and innate powers.

Below you will find the rest of the Attribute list; these do not fall within the four realms and their rules are a little different:
 * Karma: Karma is a combination of one's Luck and one's Willpower over the world. Combatants roll Karma against each other to determine who holds Initiative in a battle. Likewise, should opponents end up rolling equal numbers of successes when attacking/defending against each other, Karma rolls will determine who is victorious.
 * Hit Points: Your HP is determined by a combination of your Willpower and your Constitution dots. Once your hit points reach zero, you're incapacitated/dead.
 * Fuel: Certain powers, such as Arcanus and Psionics, utilize a uniquely named resource, which is kept track of in the Fuel box. For upgrade costs, Fuel is treated as an Attribute.
 * XP: This is not an Attribute, but rather where you can keep track of your experience. How to gain XP will be explained in another page.

Traits
Traits are another series of dots which a character utilizes in conjunction with something else in order to bring about an effect. Traits are usually directly linked to supernatural abilities, such as spellcraft, psionic manipulation, or innate abilities. Other Traits, such as elemental and and buffer fields, are usually used in conjunction with some supernatural power to bring about great change.

Elemental Traits
Elemental Traits are divided into six: Air, Dark, Earth, Fire, Light, and Water. According to one's Zodiac, every individual is born with a certain type of elemental affinity, or affinities. Through training and mastery, an individual can heighten his or her affinity to the elements.

Each Elemental Trait possesses strengths and weaknesses against each other. They are depicted as such: Every being in Ganemede possesses the ability to Imbue certain actions, namely offensive ones taken against someone else, with whatever elemental trait they possess. Indeed, there have been records of masters harnessing the powers of many elements to suit their needs. Elemental Traits' strengths and weaknesses come into play whenever someone rolls an effect already tied to one of the six elements, and/or if they use the Imbue bonus in battle. This is dependent on the type of elemental Affinity that each being possesses. A being's elemental Affinity is decided by the Element Trait that possesses the highest dots. In the event of a tie, that being's Affinity is decided by its Zodiac. Namely, at startup, each Zodiac possesses one Element whose dots are higher than the others, and thus that becomes your elemental Affinity; even in the event that a being possesses two tied Element Traits that do not actually correspond to their Zodiac.
 * Air: Cancels out Earth and Air. Strong against Dark and Water. Weak against Light and Fire.
 * Earth: Cancels out Air and Earth. Strong against Light and Fire. Weak against Dark and Water.
 * Dark: Cancels out Light and Dark. Strong against Earth and Water. Weak against Air and Fire.
 * Light: Cancels out Dark and Light. Strong against Air and Fire. Weak against Earth and Water.
 * Fire: Cancels out Water and Fire. Strong against Air and Dark. Weak against Earth and Light.
 * Water: Cancels out Fire and Water. Strong against Earth and Light. Weak against Air and Dark.
 * To Imbue an attack with an Element Trait, one simply divides every dot in a single element by 3, rounded down, and that number is the number of dice you can add to an attack and damage/effect roll of your choice. Example: if you possess 4 dots in Earth, you can Imbue an attack with the Earth element by adding 1 dice to your attack and subsequent damage roll, giving that attack an Earth element boost.
 * If an attack already possesses an elemental affinity of some kind (such as a Wind Spell or a Terrakinetic Innate Ability), then Imbuing it with the same element becomes easier. Instead of every 3 dots, one can Imbue an elemental attack with the same kind of Trait for every 2 dots in that field. Example: if you possess 4 dots in Earth, you can add two dice to a Terrakinesis roll and its subsequent effect/damage roll as well. One cannot Imbue an attack that is already aligned to one Element with a different Elemental trait, such as Imbuing Terrakinesis with your Air element dots.

One can Imbue any attack against any of the six elements; one can also use any type of elemental attack against any Affinity. However, for those that Cancel each other out, are Strong against others, or Weak against others, effects vary:
 * Cancel: nothing happens, one can Imbue or use any type of Elemental strike against each other with no effect.
 * Strong against: using an Element versus a target that it is strong against reduces difficulties by 1.
 * Weak against: using an Element versus a target that it is weak against increases difficulties by 1.

Alignment Traits
There exist three distinct Alignments in Continuum, all of which describe and may even influence how a character thinks and acts in a very broad and general sense. These do not have to be overt or even restricting or binding. Indeed, through one's actions, a character may even gain or lose Alignment points depending on the actions that he or she takes. The Alignments are described as such: Dots in Alignment can serve to enhance a player's rolls, but only outside of combat. When a character is engaging in some kind of activity wherein his or her MUN determines it follows their Alignment, they may request to add their Alignment dots toward a particular roll. This cannot be combined with Luck, and is usable only once a day.
 * Good: a character with a Good Alignment generally feels compelled to act in an altruistic manner, more than anything. This may range from helping others, to wanting to aid Ganemede, etc. The closer one comes to an Alignment of 1, the more generic a person acts towards others. As one begins to accumulate good deeds (or upgrade the Alignment trait through XP), the more a character can and probably does act in an altruistic manner.
 * Evil: in contrast, an Alignment of Evil describes a person whom acts as a detriment to others. While a character with an Alignment of 1 in Evil will usually exhibit a generic enough disposition, the higher one accumulates Evil dots, the more one is driven by self interest; this self interest, however, may come at a detriment to others or not.
 * Neutral: an alignment lying between the other two. Neutral characters usually act with self-interests in mind, but not at the detriment of others. This becomes more and more pronounced the higher one has dots in this alignment.

Buffer Traits
Every character possesses at least the bare minimum of a Buffer against each of the powers that be. A Buffer is basically a character's ability to resist magical, psionic, and innate abilities if they would rather not dodge them. Therefore, there exists a Magical Buffer, an Innate Buffer, and a Psionic Buffer. In order to use these Traits, a character rolls his or her corresponding dot combined with the Willpower Attribute. With enough successes, a character can resist any of these powers.

Magic and Arcanus Traits
Both Magic and Arcanus possess the same traits: Skill and Power. Arcanus and Magic Skill rolls combine these Traits with a corresponding spell, and their number of successes determine whether or not the spell activates. A character then rolls Mystic or Arcanus Power to determine the potency of the spell.

Psionic Traits
These work the same as with Magic and Arcanus Traits, though naturally they are called Psionic Skill and Psionic Power.

Innate Abilities
Innate Abilities work somewhat similar to the other powers. However, considering how wildly imaginative and chaotic an innate ability can be, it is always counted by some sort of weakness called a Negator. This is also treated as a Trait where dice rolls are concerned, though the Negator basically determines how much more difficult your successes are going to be, should your character encounter his Innate Ability's greatest weakness. Magic, Psionic, and Innate Abilities will be explained more in depth in their own pages for tl;dr purposes.

Innate Ability Base represents the core of an Innate Ability. You always use this roll in conjunction with a facet of the Innate Ability itself; it could be something as simple as manifesting water. If your character is a waterkinetic and wants to create some water, he simply has to roll Innate Base + Innate Property (in this case water summoning) to determine if it works and how much is summoned. The last Trait is Innate Ability Negator. Every Innate Ability has a weakness. Whenever in the presence of that Weakness, you roll your Base + Negator. Each success increases your Innate Ability rolls by 1 difficulty until the weakness is gone from your presence.

Skills
In combat terms, the skills that you invest dots in will specialize your character in that specific form. These can range from weapons skills, to thievery, to even spells. Skills are the easiest dots to upgrade, though at the same time investing in a single skill above nothing else means that your character might end up specializing in a single thing. Skills are always rolled in conjunction with either a Trait or an Attribute. Below is a list of all the skills that the room has so far. This list is always open to being edited, whether to remove a skill, or to add others.

Brute Skills
Skills specializing in the body. All of these rolls are either paired with Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity.
 * Armor Proficiency: This skill is a defensive maneuver in response to a physical attack. Rolling Constitution + Armor Proficiency and gaining more successes than an opponents' physical attack means the attack is successfully blocked and no damage is incurred.
 * Break: This is a specific attack meant to shatter an opponent's weapon. Roll Dex + Break to determine whether the attack hits or not, and then Strength + Break to determine how much damage you inflict to the intended equipment.
 * Dodge: The same as Armor Proficiency, this is a defensive maneuver, but paired with Dexterity instead.
 * Grapple: This skill is any form of martial or wrestling art meant to hold people in place with nothing but brute strength. Roll Grapple + Dexterity, and if your opponent can't avoid the grapple, he or she is held in place and unable to use physical actions, the strength of the technique determined by a Strength + Grapple. The opponent may break free by using a Strength + Applicable skill to see if his successes exceed yours to break free... or he or she may use other means.
 * Technique: If and when someone wishes to come up with a Brute Skill that isn't exactly part of the ensemble, a technique is thus born. Techniques may be more specialized weapons skills, or specific martial arts movements, or any other sort of skill you wish to possess without having to resort to supernatural means. Skills will, of course, be considered on a case by case basis. Do not be surprised if, for balance, it is edited before approval.
 * Unarmed Combat: Without utilizing a weapon, a character may use his bare fists to pummel enemies into submission. Roll Dex + Unarmed Combat to determine whether the attack hits or not, and then Strength to determine how much damage you inflict.
 * Weapon Block: By successfully gaining more successes in a Dex + Weapon Block blow, your character can completely block physical attacks with his weapon. Said block does not damage your weapon's durability.
 * Weapon Catch: This defensive move works just like armor proficiency or dodge does (in this case it's Dex + Weapon Catch). However, if your roll is successful, you may just end up with a throwing hammer or a throwing knife which you can now use :o
 * Weapon Proficiency: Works exactly like Unarmed Combat, yet with a weapon instead of some martial art of course.

Thief Skills
These are skills specializing in subterfuge and trickery.
 * Decoy: With this skill, a character may create or manipulate his surroundings to make an on-the-fly decoy of himself to draw enemy fire. Computation + Decoy is necessary for this to work, and the number of successes rolled equals the number of hit points a decoy can take before it's revealed as a fake. Conversely, an opponent can roll an Alertness skill to try and discern the decoy's true nature without attacking it consecutively.
 * Sleight of Hand: This skill is always rolled with Dexterity. It may be used to either hide something from someone's gaze, or to disarm an opponent by performing a quick movement to deprive them of their weapon before they can react. In order to defend against either effect, said opponent must either roll an appropriate Alertness roll, or perform a defensive move such as Dodge or Armor Proficiency to keep his weapon from being stolen.
 * Sneak Attack: The prepared thief always strikes true. Sneak Attack is performed as normal, as if you were effecting an Unarmed Combat or Weapon Proficiency roll. The only difference is that you must have successfully hidden from an opponent's senses first, before effecting the attack, and upon doing so, your opponent's difficulty to avoid the Sneak Attack is increased by 2. Using the skill Stealth, for example, is a way to hide from an opponents' senses. Upon using Sneak Attack, however, you become visible once more.
 * Stealth: As the name implies, Stealth allows a character to become one with the shadows, or camouflage themselves against a specific surface. The roll is achieved by mixing Dex + Stealth. An opponent may try to break through your Stealth attempt by rolling an applicable Alertness roll. You may remain in Stealth indefinitely, though each round that passes, the difficulty for an opponent to find you is reduced by 1.
 * Acrobatics: Somersaults, running up walls, or otherwise other great feats of acrobatic skills are made easier using this Skill. Acrobatics + Dexterity would be the roll to make.
 * Disguise: By rolling Creativity + Disguise, a character may effectively take on the appearance of someone else. One or two successes guarantees that one changes one's appearance so as to appear as another member of the same gender. Three to four successes guarantees that a man could successfully disguise himself as a woman, or vice versa. Five successes or more, and the thief is su proficient that he or she elaborates disguises that make them appear as another race. Should someone wish to use an appropriate Alertness roll to unmask an individual, their number of successes should match or exceed your own roll.
 * Lock Picking: To pick a lock, a character must successfully roll Computation plus this skill. The number of successes required would depend on the scene in question, heightening its difficulty appropriately.
 * Poison: A proper Dex + Poison roll can determine whether or not a character poisons something/somebody effectively; and whether or not others see or detect the treacherous act happening. How one administers the poison, of course, is up to the user's creativity.

Knowledge Skills
These skills fall into the Mental realm of Attributes. They rely on Creativity, Education, or Computation to be able to be used.
 * Strategy: To prepare an offensive, one can first formulate a strategy before carrying it out. This may be done in conjunction with another character, allowing you to form a strategy with someone else, granting him or her its boons in the same post; or you can use its boons on your next post. For every 2 successes of Strategy + Computation that you roll, the intended strategic attack's difficulty is reduced by 1 on your next post. This cannot stack.
 * Study Skill: Study Skill is more or less the same as Strategy, but in reverse. And it is much more specific. To use it, your character must have observed a specific Spell, Psionic Skill, or Innate Ability Property at least once. Once that requirement is met, you may roll Computation + Study Skill. The number of successes divided by three lowers the difficulty of your defensive rolls against that specific property for the rest of the scene. This cannot stack.
 * Secret Lore: Education + Secret Lore allows a character to know of, and recall, any crucial knowledge belonging to any sort of private sect or organization. As such, a character would have to pay for many iterations of Secret Lore if they were to learn of more than one such organization, such as the Andracian Pulse, any of the elven Druid sects, the Commune, the Wraiths, etc.
 * History: Education + History works the same as Secret Lore; each iteration would represent what one knows of a specific timeline.
 * Language: Every race possesses its own innate language. Using Education + Language allows a character to understand whenever a being of a different race is using its native language. One must possess dots in different skills for each language one knows of.
 * Race: As with languages, Education + Race allows a character to specialize in knowing details about any one specific race. For each Race you wish to know of, you need to pay for more iterations of Race.
 * First Aid: First Aid represents a character's ability to provide on-site aid when dealing with combative situations, or the ability to heal an injured or sick person outside of battle. By rolling Computation + First Aid, a character may successfully administer medicine and/or treatment to an injured/sick party. In combat, First Aid is used to staunch effects such as bleeding wounds or disabled limbs, lingering pains, etc. In such an instance, the roll would have to exceed the number of successes of the offending party's effect. First Aid doesn't exactly restore hit points when in combat, but it can at least stop a wound from bleeding out.
 * Survival: Computation + Survival allows a character to live in and thrive in dangerous and oftentimes hostile environments. These environments are varied, and thus must be individually researched to be viable. Hostile environments can range from the Alyssan Steppes to the underground of a particularly large city, such as Andracia or Anczion.
 * The Further: There are those that study and try to discern, or even harness, the existence of the Further. Education + The Further can represent what a character knows of such a subject.
 * Compose: By rolling Creativity + Compose, a character may be able to write a new blueprint, recipe, song, dance, story, or anything else one can think of. Naturally, Compose is also meant to be specialize in different areas, thus for each different thing one might want to Compose, different iterations of the skill must be bought; such as Compose: Recipe, Compose: Song, etc.
 * Craft: Crafting requires Computation + Crafting to enact. Crafting is a highly inclusive endeavor, and as such requires a player to develop his or her own unique mechanics to enact. Otherwise, if one is just taking a crafting skill to develop generic items that have no actual dice roll implications, no unique mechanics are needed.
 * Investigation: By rolling Computation + Investigation, a character may make leaps and bounds in any sort of investigation, seeing clues or seeing things with a different point of view, than what others are capable of. The higher one's successes, the higher the details one can garner from any one item or location.

Social Skills

 *  'Sincerity': Charisma + 'Sincerity' allows one to convince others of whatever lies one can weave and think of. Characters may roll Alertness to pick up on whether or not someone is lying or telling the truth.
 * Intimidation: There are those that like to bully others by shows of intimidation. Rolling Charisma + Intimidation allows a character to coerce another into doing something they otherwise might not do, motivating them via fear. A character may resist Intimidation rolls by rolling Willpower. The number of successes left over after a character tries to resist represents the number or rounds a person will do something motivated by that fear. Should a character possess a particularly fearsome appearance, they may combine their Looks dots with an Intimidation roll once a day.
 * Bravery: There exist those people that aren't intimidated or seduced that easily. Bravery + Willpower directly counters against an Intimidation roll.
 * Seduction: Seduction is the other side of the coin where Intimidation is concerned. It functions the same way as Intimidation, but for those that wish to convince others without the need for threats. Its mechanics are exactly the same, including the Looks bonus; only in this instance instead of a fearsome appearance, it'd be an appealing one.
 * Singing: The power of song is not a trifling thing. Charisma + Song has the power to either entertain one or one thousand.
 * Dancing: Dancing can encompass many forms. A character may roll Dexterity OR Charisma + Dancing to determine how well he or she performs.
 * Acting: Not to be confused with mere lying, Charisma + Acting allows a character to take on a wholly new persona. This is done either to entertain others, or perhaps to indulge in some form of trickery. In which case, a proper Alertness roll can counter such a lie.

Senses Skills
Other than seeing with one's own eyes, some individuals like to develop all of their senses, or perhaps possess a sixth sense, in order to keenly take in their surroundings. All of these skills are, of course, rolled in conjunction with the Alertness Attribute.
 * Danger Sense: With a proper Alertness + Danger Sense roll, one that exceeds the number of successes of an executed Stealth roll, a character may detect where one character in stealth mode is located. Subsequently, your character will not suffer the Stealth Attack penalty. Danger Sense lasts for a number of posts; namely the number of successes that you rolled.
 * Situational Awareness: A successful roll in this area will allow a seasoned warrior to detect what is around him or her in a given radius. For example, while this does nothing for characters under Stealth, Situational Awareness can tell how many people are nearby, even if they're not within line of sight, and just hidden. Every success rolled yields a clue. For example: you roll Situational Awareness + Alertness and gain 4 successes. There are three characters hidden nearby. You can spend 3 successes to tell that three people are in the vicinity. The fourth success may be used to determine if the character is a human, or an elf. Whether they bristle with killing intent, or if they feel intense fear. There is a bit of a range of creativity with these rolls.
 * Supernatural Phenomena: Some warriors train themselves to sense the supernatural with just their physical senses; or that fabled sixth sense. Much like Situational Awareness, if used in an area, Supernatural Phenomena will start to render clues: what type of power was used, how long ago, etc. In battle, Supernatural Phenomena is used much like Danger Sense, but to defend against invisibility spells, psionic hallucinations, or anything of the like.
 * Lie Detection: Some individuals are more keen on picking up lies than others might be. Alertness + Lie Detection directly counter 'Sincerity' rolls.

Innate Ability Property
Each Innate Ability may have a Property, which is basically treated as a Skill that you roll in conjunction with your Innate Ability Base.

Arcanus Skills
Much like Innate Ability Properties, Arcanus Skills are treated like regular skills. They can be rolled in conjunction with Arcanus Skill/Power in order to determine if their effects are rendered or not. Mana Collection is another Arcanus Skill, which when combined with Arcanus Power, determines how much Fuel you reload into your artifact.

Mystic Skills
Mystic Skills are very like Arcanus Skills. Each Spell may be rolled in conjunction with Mystic Skill/and Power to determine their effects. Mana Collection is a ritual through which a mage lowers a subsequent spell's difficulty.

Psionic Skills
Barring their own inherent differences from Magic and Arcanus, Psionic Skills follow more or less the same rules.