Post by Pie on Feb 4, 2013 18:03:57 GMT -5
Introduction
Now we get onto the important part: How does one get stronger? As alluded to before, you just need to write more! However, not all types of writing will make your character strong as fast as others. The types of thread you can make all receive different amounts of EXP, based on how hard they are for your character. The experience you receive is on a per-paragraph basis. As a reminder, a paragraph consists of a minimum of 100 words. In general you should aim for 115+ per paragraph. 100 is the bare minimum. The following table details how much experience you receive per paragraph based on difficulty.
The important question now is what makes a thread be a given difficulty. Easy threads are socials, jobs below your own level, or fighting a mage who is at least two classes lower than you is considered an easy thread. Jobs at your level, or fights against mages at your level, or within a level in either direction are considered medium difficulty. Hard threads are limited to jobs beyond your current level, or fighting mages at least two classes above you. In order to receive experience from a thread, you must actually complete the thread. If you ditch a job partway through, you get no reward. The same applies to combat. If you just stop posting, you won't receive any EXP. You can, however, write an IC post where you are choosing to stop combat, or abandon a job. You will have to deal with the social repercussions of any such action, and your EXP will be downgraded to Easy, regardless of the difficulty of the job or combat. On the other hand, if you are the victor in a player vs player thread, then you can receive some bonus experience. If you are the winner in a non-death enabled thread, you will receive 25% more exp. If you are the winner in a death-enabled thread, but you do not actually kill the other character, you will receive 50% more exp. If you fully kill another character in a death-enabled thread, you will receive double the exp.
Training threads depend entirely on the difficulty of the training involved. Something like lifting weights will only earn easy-level experience. In fact, most training will earn you nothing but easy-level EXP. In order to get medium-difficulty training, you'll have to step it up a notch. This might involve crazy things like a Dragon-Slayer trying to spar with an equal-class mage while motion sick constantly. Medium-difficulty training also requires someone to train with, or someone who is training you. It cannot be done alone. Basically, there needs to be some kind of condition that makes your life suck. Hard-class training is almost impossible to achieve. This would entail training that is nearly suicidal, such as repetitively stabbing yourself in order to become tougher, or receiving training from an elder dragon. Keep in mind that all training must make sense in character. You can't randomly start stabbing yourself just because it might get you strong quickly. Before attempting any training, you should PM an admin to confirm the difficulty level of your idea.
The strength of mages varies greatly across the many classes. E-Class is not actually available to mages, and is reserved for normal humans and NPCs. E-Class individuals are as strong and smart as an average human if their points are spread out well, but they usually don't have any magical abilities. D-Class is where the first mages start to emerge. A D-class individual is usually slightly more athletic or smarter than the average human, and they can perform some very limited magical feats. C-Class is where everything starts to feel like an anime. If a C-class mage spreads their points out evenly, they will be in just a bit worse shape than a professional athlete, smarter than most normal humans, and are able to utilize some decent magic.
At B-Class, it is indisputable that your character is strong. They will be able to dispatch multiple D-rank mages at a single time, and can probably fight off a small swarm of E-class opponents. If a B-class mage is built perfectly balanced, they will be at an olympic level of fitness, be bordering on genius level intelligence, and will be able to unleash magic strong enough to outright scare a human that has not experienced magic before. A-class mages are yet more powerfuil, and have generally exceeded the limits that most humans have. They are stronger, faster, smarter, and more powerful than a non-mage could ever hope to be. The spells utilized by A-class mages can send out destruction on a scale large enough to destroy villages and towns after long enough.
S-Class mages simply are not comparable to others. An S-class mage can defeat an army of normal warriors single-handed. Their body is beyond what should even be remotely possible for a human, their intelligence can see through most situations, and they have a mountain of experience to fall back on. Beyond this, they can utilize the most powerful spells of any mages. The level of magic wielded by S-class mages is strong enough to level a small village in a single spell. Attempting to fight an S-class mage without being one yourself is basically suicidal. This is the strongest that a mage can ever reach. Monsters and some non-human NPCs can reach higher levels of power than that even of the S-class mages, but it is not a level of power that a RPC can ever obtain.
These differences between classes are measured in terms of stat points. Every class has a different amount of stats that it can earn. The table below shows the maximum amount of stat points you can have at a given class. It also shows the EXP required to max out your SP after hitting a new class.
One of the most important things in any good roleplay is character progression. In a freeform RP, you can just arbitrarily get stronger, but that doesn't really happen in a stat-based roleplay. To that end, we use an experience system to keep track of how much time and effort you are putting into your character. The more you write, the stronger your character becomes. Some things will allow you to earn EXP faster than other things though, and that'l be covered in a bit. For now, what you need to know is why experience is necessary. Why can't we simply let characters arbitrarily get stronger? The simple answer is that this simply doesn't work in a stat-based system. If there is no limit to strength, then characters become unbeatable. If they can get stronger as fast as they want, the we would end up with nothing but S-class mages overnight. In order to avoid everyone from running around infinitely strong, we need to regulate how people get stronger to some degree.
One of the fun things to note now that we're talking about classes, is that every mage gets a signature spell. This is the thing that defines the character in the eyes of others. A mage's signature spell can be one class higher than their current class. The spell can even be on on an item, but that item will still be limited to the class of your character. For example, a D-class mage can have a D-class sword, but the signature spell rule will allow that sword to have a C-class spell. Any time you class up, you can choose to have a new signature spell. This is meant to be a way that mages can have their one cool finishing move, similar to how Gray has Iced Shell or Erza has Benisakura.
One of the fun things to note now that we're talking about classes, is that every mage gets a signature spell. This is the thing that defines the character in the eyes of others. A mage's signature spell can be one class higher than their current class. The spell can even be on on an item, but that item will still be limited to the class of your character. For example, a D-class mage can have a D-class sword, but the signature spell rule will allow that sword to have a C-class spell. Any time you class up, you can choose to have a new signature spell. This is meant to be a way that mages can have their one cool finishing move, similar to how Gray has Iced Shell or Erza has Benisakura.
Types of Threads: Earning EXP
Now we get onto the important part: How does one get stronger? As alluded to before, you just need to write more! However, not all types of writing will make your character strong as fast as others. The types of thread you can make all receive different amounts of EXP, based on how hard they are for your character. The experience you receive is on a per-paragraph basis. As a reminder, a paragraph consists of a minimum of 100 words. In general you should aim for 115+ per paragraph. 100 is the bare minimum. The following table details how much experience you receive per paragraph based on difficulty.
| Difficulty | EXP per Paragraph |
| Hard | 75 |
| Medium | 50 |
| Easy | 25 |
Training threads depend entirely on the difficulty of the training involved. Something like lifting weights will only earn easy-level experience. In fact, most training will earn you nothing but easy-level EXP. In order to get medium-difficulty training, you'll have to step it up a notch. This might involve crazy things like a Dragon-Slayer trying to spar with an equal-class mage while motion sick constantly. Medium-difficulty training also requires someone to train with, or someone who is training you. It cannot be done alone. Basically, there needs to be some kind of condition that makes your life suck. Hard-class training is almost impossible to achieve. This would entail training that is nearly suicidal, such as repetitively stabbing yourself in order to become tougher, or receiving training from an elder dragon. Keep in mind that all training must make sense in character. You can't randomly start stabbing yourself just because it might get you strong quickly. Before attempting any training, you should PM an admin to confirm the difficulty level of your idea.
Classes: How Strong is Each?
The strength of mages varies greatly across the many classes. E-Class is not actually available to mages, and is reserved for normal humans and NPCs. E-Class individuals are as strong and smart as an average human if their points are spread out well, but they usually don't have any magical abilities. D-Class is where the first mages start to emerge. A D-class individual is usually slightly more athletic or smarter than the average human, and they can perform some very limited magical feats. C-Class is where everything starts to feel like an anime. If a C-class mage spreads their points out evenly, they will be in just a bit worse shape than a professional athlete, smarter than most normal humans, and are able to utilize some decent magic.
At B-Class, it is indisputable that your character is strong. They will be able to dispatch multiple D-rank mages at a single time, and can probably fight off a small swarm of E-class opponents. If a B-class mage is built perfectly balanced, they will be at an olympic level of fitness, be bordering on genius level intelligence, and will be able to unleash magic strong enough to outright scare a human that has not experienced magic before. A-class mages are yet more powerfuil, and have generally exceeded the limits that most humans have. They are stronger, faster, smarter, and more powerful than a non-mage could ever hope to be. The spells utilized by A-class mages can send out destruction on a scale large enough to destroy villages and towns after long enough.
S-Class mages simply are not comparable to others. An S-class mage can defeat an army of normal warriors single-handed. Their body is beyond what should even be remotely possible for a human, their intelligence can see through most situations, and they have a mountain of experience to fall back on. Beyond this, they can utilize the most powerful spells of any mages. The level of magic wielded by S-class mages is strong enough to level a small village in a single spell. Attempting to fight an S-class mage without being one yourself is basically suicidal. This is the strongest that a mage can ever reach. Monsters and some non-human NPCs can reach higher levels of power than that even of the S-class mages, but it is not a level of power that a RPC can ever obtain.
These differences between classes are measured in terms of stat points. Every class has a different amount of stats that it can earn. The table below shows the maximum amount of stat points you can have at a given class. It also shows the EXP required to max out your SP after hitting a new class.
| Class | SP Cap | EXP Until Max SP For This Class | Total EXP Required | Paragraphs of Medium Difficulty Required Total |
| S | 500 | 25,000 | 45,000 | 900 |
| A | 250 | 11,000 | 20,000 | 400 |
| B | 140 | 6,000 | 9,000 | 180 |
| C | 80 | 3,000 | 3,000 | 60 |
| D | 50 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| E | 30 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
If you spend long enough staring at that chart, you'll probably figure out how EXP and SP go together, but it'll be simpler to just let you in on the secret. For every 100 EXP you earn, you earn 1 SP. This SP can be collected once a thread is completed. Upon completing a thread, simply PM an Admin or a Grading Mod to have your thread graded, and EXP/SP awarded. Once you reach the EXP/SP cap of a given level, you cannot become stronger until you class up. That process will be explained shortly, but first we need to answer the question of what happens to your excess EXP you earn. This EXP will still be earned, but you will gain no benefits from it until you successfully class up. You can only gain SP upto the cap of your current class, and you cannot get stronger spells or items. Upon classing up, any EXP that didn't have SP granted because of having too much EXP saved up will all be granted SP. All EXP earned when you are capped at S-class will be converted into Jewels at a ratio of 1 EXP: 1,000 Jewels.
Classing Up
In order to actually advance to the next class, you need to meet three requirements. First, you need to have actually have reached the SP cap for the class you are already at. Secondly, you must have completed a minimum of one job at the current class or higher. You cannot double-dip jobs. If you complete a C-class job at D-class, that will only count for your D-class completion requirement. However, if you do both a B-class and a C-class while you are C-class mage, then you can save that B-class job for your next requirement. The final requirement is that you must pass the test for your new class. This test is determined by your guild.
If you are an independent mage, you are required to report to the Rune Knights to receive a test for your class up. Upon completing the test, you will receive an official Certificate of Magical Proficiency, bearing the class you have achieved. The low-class tests offered by the Rune Knights are all fairly straightforward MPF tests. You must register a score of at least 10 on the MPF to pass the C-Class test, and you must hit at least 40 to pass the B-class test. The MPF provides a number equal to the damage potential of your spell. The A-class test is a simple one-on-one duel between two aspiring B-class wizards. The winner advanced to A-class, and the loser may advance in some cases. The S-class test offered by the Rune Knights is far harder. You must challenge an S-class Rune Knight to a one-on-one duel. The only hope you really have is finding one that is weak to your element.