Beyond Mythralis Rules

[Salaris]

This is the rules system for Shades of Ruin. We no longer use the normal Live Effects rules.

Edit 8-16-10: Rules file is up-to-date for 8-16-10.

Differences from the Live Effects Rules:
-There is a storyline section included in the document

-Our bluebook is included in the document

-Different advancement system. PCs start with 200 Experience Points and gain 15/day. PCs also gain Ruin Points for attending other games. Ruin Points can be converted to Experience Points, up to a certain cap per year. This prevents PCs from gaining more points from attending outside games than they can possibly gain in our own campaign.

-Ruin Points can also be spent on other stuff, such as random item rolls, boons, etc.

-New Dominion Sorcery (magic & divine) and Essence Sorcery (psionics) trees. These are very different from normal magic in Live Effects. Healing and resurrection will be more difficult and costly.

-New advanced combat maneuver disciplines and advanced sorcery specialization paths

-Addition of the "Fate Deck", based on the "Death Deck" concept from Dying Kingdoms. When a PC dies, he or she draws a card from a special game-specific deck. This card will have a permanent impact on the character. Permanent character death is possible in this way.

-Minor rules balance tweaks, most notably adding stacking restrictions on "buff" effects (such as +armor bonuses)

Overall, the intent is to allow characters to reward specializing your character. Characters will likely be more powerful in one specific aspect in this system, but lack some of the versatility that they might be able to get as a high point value character in the normal LE rules. This is to emphasize the importance of teamwork. It's definitely possible to play a jack of all trades, but you are unlikely to ever be as effective as a whole group by yourself.

We are also intending to make the game more dangerous by limiting healing and resurrection and adding more clearly defined, permanent consequences for character death. While the PCs in this game may have more points, we expect death and permanent injuries, curses, etc. to be more common. On the flipside, there will also be ways to gain power outside of gaining skill points and items - if you are willing to pay the appropriate price.

[Sir Rondar]

On the flipside, there will also be ways to gain power outside of gaining skill points and items - if you are willing to pay the appropriate price.

Dun, dun, duuuuuuuuuun. (Sorry, couldn't resist. XD)

[deneb3525]

A few questions:

1) what is the effect level of a combat manouver? And what happens if I increase it? IE Dual, or wall of steel or knockback 10? Does dual become tripple if I increase the effect level by one? does knockback 10 become knockback 11 or knockback 20? ect.

2)Archery Dicipline -> 3 faster shots. Does decrease your shot time? or your combat manouver time? Given that you can only shoot every 6 seconds, why bother with the 4 second manouver cooldown?

3) Any chance there could be Advanced crafting research? similer to advanced spell research?

[Salaris]

1)On Effect Levels, page 42:

Effect Levels: Some skills increase or decrease the “Effect Levels” of other abilities. For spells or abilities that deal damage or increase a statistic, increasing the effect level by 1 increases the damage of the ability by 1 point. For skills with a numeric effect with multiples of five, such as Knockdown or Knockback, a single effect level is five points. For abilities that target a single body location, such as healing, one effect level is one additional body location. Increasing the effect level of an ability with no numeric effects other than the duration increases the duration by the base duration of the spell (for example, if the duration is 5 minutes, one effect level is five minutes). For other abilities, see Plot.

For your individual examples:
-Increasing the effect level works off the base number, as does Dual. As such, the bonuses would be additive, but not multiplicative. Basically, think of Dual as adding one effect level, rather than multiplying the result.
-Wall of Steel cannot be increased in numeric effect by anything. As such, the duration is increased by 1 increment (5 minutes).
-Knockback works in increments of five. Thus, Knockback 5 would become Knockback 10, Knockback 10 would become Knockback 15, etc.


2)It decreases both. This will be clarified.

3)I'll consider it.

[Salaris]

Here's another significant update. Updates will slow down or cease after the Epilogue game, which will be our Beta test. If you have any feedback please send it before the Epilogue game.

Patch Notes:
-Decreased the requirements for the Void and Matter dominions.
-Moved the Nobility in Mythralis section. This is now under Land Management in the Titles section. Nobles, you will want to read this ASAP.
-Added descriptions for the various in-game regions.
-Tweaked a few spells.
-Added an "Quicker Training" skill to combat maneuvers. This reduces the XP requirement to purchase higher-tier combat maneuvers.
-Greatly revamped the Thief Skills section. Renamed "Rogue Arts" and split into five sub-categories. This allows for specialization in different rogue techniques and should drastically improve the ability to play a rogue character.
-Gatherers now automatically gather twice as many materials per event if they submit a writeup (10, up from 5).
-Added default material names and item quality names to the Equipment Rules and Prices section. Now, rather than calling something a "Q4 Longsword" in conversation, a character can call it a "Flawless Longsword" or a "Flawless Steel Longsword" if they prefer.
-Decreased the energy cost escalation rate for rituals. This makes higher level rituals much easier to perform.
-Added a "Green Flag" for characters who are shapechanged, under illusion effects, or camouflaged.
-Added rules for Broken Limbs and Severed Limbs. Please note that severed limbs are *much* worse in this game than in normal Live Effects rules. This is intentional; we are working on a darker, nastier game. This also makes surgeons even more valued than they normally would be.
-Please note that the "Effect Stacking" rules in this game are also more strict than in the normal Live Effects rules. This is because we have more skill trees, and thus we need to prevent effect numbers from escalating too high (or in a confusing way).
-Physically representing armor gives bonuses.

Please note that many lore skills have also been updated. If you have a deity-specific lore, chances are it probably has more information now - please e-mail plot@onlineeffects.com if you need to request updated lore documents.

[Salaris]

Updates:

-Removed the casting time increase for adding Keys to Spells
-Added a chart to show how Effect Levels work, changed the increments for offensive spells to prevent characters from being permanently crowd controlled
-Buffed the duration of non-offensive spells
-Added that Ruin Points begin accruing at the first Shades of Ruin event that you attend. Note that the Beyond the Veil Epilogue *does* count for this purpose; if you attend the Epilogue, you begin getting Ruin Points at that game.
-Increased the base duration of non-offensive spells (such as buffs, illusions, etc.) to 10 minutes
-Clarified how the Dual and Triple maneuvers work
-Tweaked the armor quality table to make it more streamlined and less confusing
-Allowed for Triple Power Attacks
-Buffed most of the Rank 5 gifts
-Added definitions for Offensive Spells and Mind-Affecting Spells to the references section
-Changed how the Augment Duration ritual works
-Clarified the description of Touch of Life
-Added more restrictions to Simulacrum
-Replaced Aendaryn's Weapon Proficiency spell with Holy Blast
-Changed Shadow Bolt in the Dark Paladin Gifts to Shadow Blast, increased damage to 3 Shadow
-Changed Rend Power to only remove positive effects. Now Void removes positive, Nature removes negatives, and Counter Sorcery (Sytira's Gift) can dispel all effects at once.
-Replaced Sytira's Rank 2 gift since it was meh
-Buffed Koranir's gifts, decreased his requirements
-Decreased pre-reqs for Karasalia, Aendaryn, and TDP's gifts as well
-Added a duration buff to path of tranquility at ranks 2 and 4 to make it a little more competitive at the lower ranks
-Rebalanced all spells, maneuvers, etc. to have 5 second casting or cooldown base instead of 6. Higher casting time spells use multiples of 5 as well (i.e. 20 seconds for Teleport, 30 for Plane Shift or Time Stop, etc.)
-A few balance changes and typo fixes

[Salaris]

New update today with some significant changes. This should be the last rules update before the prologue unless there are glaring errors.

Updates:

-Increased starting player equipment. Players start 1 with gold (+5 silver/rank in crafting skills), weapons, any armor they can equip, and 10 units of materials for each gathering skill they possess.

-New Players may now start with 4 crafting recipes and 4 spell recipes.

-Streamlined point costs. Almost every skill in the game now costs a multiple of five, with a few rare exceptions, such as lore and languages.

-Drastically revamped Energy Regeneration. Players automatically regenerate 1 Energy per 2 minutes, even without the Energy Regeneration skill. The rules for meditation are much more strict now, however, you regain 2 energy/rank/minute.

-Removed the costs for purchasing basic weapon proficiencies. There is now a "Melee Weapon Proficiency" skill with a point cost of 0. This allows you to swing for damage or subdue with any single melee weapon. Dual wield, shield, projectile, thrown, unarmed, and multi-shot must still be purchased.

-Advanced Combat Training skills have had their point costs adjusted. I've made some clarifications and updates to these skills as well.

-Crafting and gathering skills are all the same skill point costs now, including Enchanting. These are slightly higher, however, gathering skills now automatically give 10 units of a resource per game instead of 5.

-Capped the number of world tags a player can gather per event at 50, regardless of skills.

-Clarified that players cannot pick up world tags before an event, however, they *can* pick up tags after an event concludes. This is to encourage players to help with clean-up and prevent loot tag litter.

-Removed the Merchant and Profession skills, but see below.

-Added a 5-level Mercantile tree. This tree gives all the previous benefits of Profession and Merchant, but with a much higher rate of income. Higher ranks also have other new benefits, such as being able to sell to merchants for an even better rate or buy a single item per event at a discount.

-Added the Cooperative Crafting skill. This allows two players with the same crafting skill to collaborate and make a better item with the same materials. This increases the card value of the result and gives the item a free 1/combat maneuver.

-Added the Cooperative Research skill. This allows two or more players with the same crafting skill to create recipes for unique items that have special properties above and beyond the benefits of the Cooperative Crafting skill.

-Added a Faster Recipe Research skill. This allows you to research more than one crafting recipe per event.

-Added a Efficient Gathering skill. This allows you to gather extra materials before the game (+1 material/rank).

-All references to "Mixology" have been changed to "Alchemy".

-Economic influence cards may now be used as a writ for 3 gold pieces.

-Upgraded the Generate Wealth skill in Land Management to scale with the value of the noble's land.

-Added a Tier 6 to the nobility chart and changed Tier 1. "Master/Mistress" is now also the title granted to characters who are married to a noble, but do not have land of their own.

-Higher tier noble ranks now also require political influence cards.

-Deleted the sample enchanting recipes, as they were out of date.

-Updated the costs of enchanting recipes for Prime Dominions and Deep Dominions.

-Added a note that healing potions are cheaper than normal recipes of their rank. They are still drastically more expensive than in the Live Effect rules.

-The "All Hit Locations" Key has been clarified. This key decreases the numeric effect of any ability it is combined with by half (thus preventing it from drastically multiplying damage output). Spells and abilities that affect All Hit Locations count as separate hits to each location, but only if the attack hits. Thus, "2 Fire, All Hit Locations" would deal a total of 10 damage - 2 to each location - if an armored target was struck. A single "Evade", however, would prevent the target from taking any damage, as the Evade ability represents the target not being hit at all.

The full rules and character building spreadsheet are attached. The spreadsheet also includes a ruin point tracking section.

As always, feel free to send feedback if you have any.

[Salaris]

Last rules update before the game:

Major Changes:
-Armor and Resilience are now mechanically identical. There are no longer separate skills that only restore one or the other; everything that works on one works on both. This means that players no longer have to track these numbers as two separate pools. Consequently, this means that Resilience now adds to your armor for the purposes of the Advanced Armor skill.
-Armor and Resilience are now regained at a rate of one point per minute with role-play, rather than all at once. Therapists may restore 1 Armor/Minute to a target. This may be performed simultaneously with restoring Energy.
-Clarified the phrasing on how armor and damage work.
-You no longer need to call "Armor" when hit with a weapon if you have armor. This is optional. Rather, you should role-play that you have been hit. This is to increase immersion and reduce the number of combat calls.
-The cost of Tradeskills and Gathering Skills has been reduced. It is now closer to the old numbers in the LE rules. This was the only change to skill point costs.
-Noble titles expanded. There are now 8 Tiers of Noble Titles.

Minor Changes:
-Updated the Rank 5 Karasalia gift. It was slightly too redundant with Rank 5 guardian before.
-Rank 5 Berserker has been slightly nerfed.
-The gold income per game of Mercantile has been significantly increased.
-Rank 4 in Path of Conflict upgraded. 2/combat spell strike was kind of meh.
-Rephrased the Rank 5 Path of Conflict ability a little to make it less confusing.

[Salaris]

Here are the last major updates for the year. There may be further revisions, but they should all be minor.

-Skill point costs for trade/gathering skills reduced.
-Ritual skill now has minor pre-requisites. Some rituals rewritten for clarity.
-New rituals of material transmutation added.
-Ritual of permanency removed.
-Added rules for how Noble Debts (now referred to as "Noble Writs") work. A noble may now write Noble Writs by decreasing the value of their land by an amount equal to the value of the Noble Writ. These are considered valid game currency.
-Added rules for metal shields and wooden weapons/armor.
-Added rules for constructing buildings using the Carpentry skill.
-Added the Prospecting skill for gathering raw gems. Raw gems can only be vendored for a fraction of their value, but they can be used in Enchanting. If used in Enchanting, all the gems are consumed. Only 50% of gems are consumed when Cut Gems are used instead. All currently existing gem items count as cut gems.
-Added specific rules for ritual research.
-Added recommended lore skills for players who choose to take each major skill tree. These lore documents will help lead to unlocking hidden skill trees that are not in the rule book.
-Tweaked the balance of the Command tree.
-Fleshed out the noble titles section a bit more.
-Removed some of the boons that were not thematically appropriate for this game.
-Clarified the cost of making items for each type of skill tree with Enchanting.
-Simplified the gem usage for Enchanting.
-Updated the Alchemy cost chart.
-Added new Alchemy and Enchanting default recipes.
-Added Armor Kits for Leatherworking and Surgery Kits for Inventing.
-Added a new Inventing recipe for creating locks.
-Updated flag colors. Blue = Non-Combatant. Orange = Flying.
-Greatly decreased the pre-requisites for Essence Sorcery.
-Greatly upgraded Telepathy and Telekinesis.
-Plate Armor is now worth 6 Armor Points, up from 5.
-Any ability that previously allowed the player to call "Resist" on damage now should be "Nullify" instead to avoid confusion, since Resist normally does not work on damage.
-Armor of Water and similar effects have been changed to nullify attacks rather than grant armor.
-Clarified that players do not know when Essence Sorcery is being used on them unless the player possesses Essence Sorcery or Lore: Essence Sorcery.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This update was made earlier, but some people may not have noticed. Energy Regeneration is much faster in Shades of Ruin. Players automatically regain 1 Energy per 2 Minutes, even while in combat. See the rules for more information.

[Salaris]

Some very minor rules updates. No character skill costs have been changed.

-Clarified a discrepancy in the energy regeneration rules. All references should now state that players without Energy Regeneration skill gain 1 point back every 2 minutes, including during combat.
-Time Stop has been significantly changed. It is no longer a "Hold" call. Rather, it is a unique call and certain spells can prevent you from being affected. In addition, I have listed specific rules for trying to loot people during a Time Stop.
-Modified the Rank 5 Art of Stealing ability, Master Thief.
-Inspire, in the Command Tree, has been moved to Rank 10 and modified. Inspired Rejuvenation moved to Rank 9. War Cry has been moved to Rank 7.
-Added the following rule: No ability can contain both damage and an effect. Abilities such as “Poison 1 Void” that have some qualities of both are considered damage, and thus, blocked by shields (and cannot be Resisted). Some NPC abilities may be an exception to this.

[Salaris]

Minor update. This only changes the Importing and Advancement section. Essentially, this clarifies that skill points moved to Shades of Ruin cannot be spent in other Live Effects chapters. In addition, the base starting value of import characters is now universally 200. This means that most imported PCs are gaining +50 more points above what they had before if they choose to move all their points to Shades of Ruin. This prevents some mathematical confusion that occurred if you chose to move less than 50 skill points in previous revisions.

[Salaris]

Another minor update:
-Fixed the inconsistencies in the flag requirements for flight. It is now an orange flag in all places.
-Clarified that "Cleave" beats "No Effect", including immunities from items. So, even if something is immune to fire, Cleave will still deal damage. Non-damaging effects will never have Cleave; it's only for damage, and it can be stopped with armor.
-Changed it so that yellow flags do not always mean something is invisible. It just means incorporeal; for the future, incorporeal NPCs will have yellow flags even if they are visible to normal players. Ghost sight is still necessary to see some incorporeal creatures, but not all of them.
-Added Armor Reinforcement Kits to Leatherworking. These permanently increase a suit of armor's point value by +1. Only one armor reinforcement kit can be used on any given suit of armor ever.
-Added Reforging to Blacksmithing. This allows blacksmiths to upgrade metal weapons and armor or change their material type.
-Clarified that Carpentry can create wooden plate, but not wooden armor of other types. Wooden plate is vulnerable to fire.
-Clarification: Players do not need to remove their armor to role-play repairing it. This applies to both normal repairs and Quick Refit.
-Updated the character spreadsheet to separate Land Management abilities, since only nobles can get them and they use different points.

There are no changes to point costs in this revision.

[Salaris]

Per player feedback, I will not be posting further major updates this year. There will continue to be small errata posts.

Errata for 4/14/10:
-All references to blessings should refer to spells or gifts instead. There are no blessings in this rules system.
-The Whisper Gift (Eratar 1) no longer has a range limitation. It is one-way, however (it does not allow for conversations).
-For abilities that grant a new ability or defense to a player, such as an extra Resist or a Nullify, these abilities are increased in Duration by Effect Level bonuses. They do not gain extra charges. This also applies to Auras.
-Abilities that enhance skills, such as giving +1 Rank to Dexterity, gain a numeric bonus (i.e. +1 goes to +2) rather than duration.

[Salaris]

Errata for 5/7/10-

-Clarified that the number of Ruin Points that can be converted to Skill Points for a year period is determined at the beginning of the calendar year.
-Modified the gold income of the Tavern structure to be per game night (0.5 gold/night/rank). This clarifies the amount of gold received for a day vs. a weekend. This also means that additional income is generated for events more than 2 nights, like the Labor Day Weekend game a while back or Wryd mansion game 2.

[Salaris]

Errata for 5/16/10-

-At the request of PCs, I have added a Rank 2 to the Tracking skill that allows detection of stealth and invisibility after 5 seconds of role-playing searching the area. This may be rebalanced at a later time if it is determined to be too powerful for the cost.
-Updated Rituals of Enhancement and Augment Duration to work on a single target within the ritual area rather than just the caster.
-Clarified Open/Close Portal.
-Clarified how Scry can be used to cast spells on someone who is being scried on.

[Salaris]

Errata for 6-20-10:

-The value of structures on a player’s land cannot exceed the land’s value. For example, if Lady Syllrae’s land is worth 150 gold, she cannot have more than a total of 150 gold in structures on her land.

Each unit of land also represents that a noble has 100 subjects. Loaning out gold on one’s land or depositing gold without gaining additional land does not impact this population statistic. Some structures, such as barracks, can increase the population number of your city. Population numbers may impact certain in-game events, such as if your city is involved in a war.

-Clarification: Roll With It and other similar abilities cannot be used to transfer damage to a body location that is already injured. This has always been the case, but the language has been clarified.

[Salaris]

Errata for 7-27-10:

New rules for character death and retirement below. Note that this is not retroactive, but does apply to players being retired and created before the next Shades of Ruin event.

Death and Retirement: Any time a character is killed in Shades of Ruin, he or she must see Plot and pick a card from the Fate Deck. The Fate Deck is a deck of cards similar to a Tarot Deck where the character’s fate is decided. These cards could prevent the player from being possible to resurrect, give the character a permanent side effect, or even potentially give the character an unforeseen benefit.


If a character is killed and cannot be resurrected, or willingly retires, the player must create a new character if he or she wishes to continue participating as a player. New characters are created with the same Experience Point total as the previous character, up to a maximum of 400.

When a player’s character dies or retires and the point value exceeds 400, all points over 400 are lost. The player gains the ability to choose two benefits from the Advanced Character Creation table, below, as compensation for the loss of skill points.

The player’s new character also begins play with 4 crafting or spell recipes, plus 1 crafting or spell recipe researched for each game he or she has participated in, up to a maximum of 10 recipes.

Advanced Character Creation:

When a new character is being created by a player who has already lost or retired a character with 400 or more points, he or she may use the advanced character creation rules to gain certain additional benefits. Shades of Ruin Game Designers who have served on Game Design staff for at least one year may also use the Advanced Character Creation rules.

Advanced Characters begin with all normal equipment and materials, but each item or unit of material is one quality level higher. In addition, Advanced Characters start with a default of 10 gold pieces in coin, rather than the normal 1 gold piece. Advanced Characters begin with 3 influence cards of their choice.

Additionally, all Advanced Characters begin with two of the benefits from the table below at the player’s choice. Where applicable, the player may choose to purchase the same benefit twice.

Advanced Character Benefits
-The new character may begin with 50 additional gold pieces in coin or mundane items.
-The new character may begin play with a permanent Dominion Bond. See the Game Design team for more information.
-The new character may begin play with a permanent, customized magical item created by the Game Design team.
-The new character may begin with 10 additional influence cards of his or her choice.
-The new character may begin with 5 additional spell or crafting recipes.
-The new character may begin with 10 additional Experience Points.
-The new character may begin with an abnormally high rank in an established in-game organization. In the structure of most in-game organizations, this would be the equivalent of Rank 5 to 6. See the Game Design team for more information.
-The new character may inherit one Linked item from the previous character, provided that a proper in-game justification is given for this inheritance.

Inheritance: When a character is permanently killed (not retired; retired characters still exist in the game world), the inheritor(s) of their land and wealth are determined by the PC's culture. The rules presented here are applicable to human PCs that started in the cities of Aayara, Terisgard, Valeria, or any small human town. For the rules for other cities, cultures, and races, see the Shades of Ruin team.


When a PC from the culture designated above is killed, normally their lands and wealth are inherited by the PC’s eldest child, if applicable. In addition, the child inherits half of the PC’s influence cards. Note that any item tags that the player possessed are not considered part of this inheritance unless they were being stored on the player’s land through the use of character abilities.

If the character has no children, all wealth is inherited by the character’s spouse. If neither of these are applicable, but the player owned land, these lands default back to the noble to whom the PC had sworn fealty, if any, or otherwise the nearest King or Queen. If a PC writes and registers a legal will within a major city, this supercedes the default rules for inheritance.

Boons and Death or Retirement: Experience Points cannot be “cashed out” on Boons after a character’s permanent death or retirement. If a player wishes to retire his or her character, he or she may purchase Boons beforehand.

Point Loss: At times there may be events and opportunities to expend Experience Points to have certain results in a game world. This event is extremely rare and should be discussed with the designer. If the character can no longer afford existing skills at the end of the event points were lost, then sufficient skills must be removed to account for the change in Experience Points. This may not result in additions to the character’s skill set.

[FaerellG]

Sounds like Inheritance should be a game world/setting rule rather than a rulebook rule.

[saliere]

This is the Shades of Ruin forum... aren't all of these rules and errata world-specific?

[FaerellG]

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that this was a mechanical rules section rather than a setting rules.
Admittedly, the lines have been getting blurred recently.