Vescrutia: Legacy

The Vescrutia System is what we use to manage
“Wait, this is a forum RP. Why would there be any discussion of under the hood, Admins?”

Because Vescrutia takes forum based Roleplay and brings tabletop elements to life. We’ve implemented the Ves Combat System to make sure that the mechanical aspect like dice and stats can bring a more competitive edge to our expanding and growing world.

“But I don’t want to roll dice. I just came here to share my characters’ stories.”

That’s absolutely valid and you’re encouraged to do so! But in certain cases, you’re collaborating with someone and would like to let the story write itself, rather than deciding every action and moment that happens like clockwork. For those looking for a more robust and interesting way to write and collaborate, The Ves System takes the guesswork out of it.

The Vescrutia Combat System is meant to bring an added layer of honor and balance to the “Honor System” we use for our text based roleplays. The mission is to create a system that heightens the dynamic, anime inspired style of Vescrutia’s worldbuilding and collaborative roleplay and brings a more concrete layer to our stories that can be enjoyed both on the site and in a tabletop setting. It is a love letter to the artistic minds, role players, and power scalers who come together to breathe life into Vescrutia’s world. Version 1.0 of this system is just that, the initial version. It is designed to be built upon and expanded as the lore of the site grows and plugged into the stories of every character no matter the storyline or campaign.




Starting at Level 1, every character gets three actions to expend per post and a certain amount of Pool to manage during their thread:

Pool: x/9
Where x = The amount that’s built and spent in a thread.

Your kit should be notated at the beginning and end of every post if your thread is using this system, but both parties have to agree to utilize it from start to finish.




As a character, your three actions are expended every post and cannot be saved or carried over into another post. Each post has a number of actions that can be used:

• Movement
• Ava Class Arbiters which can be used twice per post
• Rolling Edge Dice for Bea, Cea, or Dea Class Arbiters which can be used once per post
• Creating a challenge to be overcome once per post
• Using Edge Boost to augment your Edge Dice

In the scope of Vescrutia, much of your movement is relative. Unless your opponent or the environment rolls a die first, you can just move out of the way because that’s how it works. We don’t use distance to measure, rather we lean into the honor system here to prevent the ever present scourge of AUTO HIT. This is intentional, as the system is in place to heighten and balance the stakes inherent within the improvisational nature of this collaborative writing style. Your movement could be dynamic, dips, dodges, jumps, leaps, flips and flops, but there is no guaranteed hit confirmation or damage done without rolling some sort of die. Instead of calculating damage between characters with every attack, we lean into our Arbiters’ Edges to change conditions on the field and change how your characters interact with one another.

Managing your Pool begins with 3/9 charges both parties begin with at the beginning of the thread. At the beginning of each player’s turn after their first post, they charge +1 Pool automatically. You can use actions during your turn to use Ava Class Arbiters and charge more. Each Ava you use costs 1 action and adds +1 to your Pool.

You can then use various Arbiters to spend your pool and try to impart your Arbiter’s Edge on the opponent or the setting. This creates advantages specific to your character design and your opponent must roll an Edge Dice in response. Managing your pool, gaining your Edge, and choosing when to do damage are key to doing honorable combat on Vescrutia.

• Bea Class Arbiters cost 1 action and consume their Pool cost, minimum 2
• Cea Class Arbiters cost 1 action and consume their Pool cost, minimum 3
• Dea Class Arbiters cost 1 action, consume their Pool cost, minimum 3, and 1 Pool per turn to maintain
  

Edge Dice - Edge dice are notated as 1d12 and rolled to gain an edge in combat and overcome obstacles placed in front of your character. Each roll is augmented by your character’s Passive, which is the individual stat correlated with the Dice or Arbiter divided by 10, rounded down. You gain your Edge in one of four ways:

• Attack Edge - Using Arbiters to deal with challenges, and doing damage to your opponents. Boosted by your character’s Output or Strength
• Defend Edge - Standing your ground and defending against the challenge. Using the fortitude of your body and spirit to withstand damage. Boosted by your character’s Durability or Naten
• Evade Edge - Avoid danger by moving out of the way quickly. Boosted by your character’s Speed
• Deflect(Parry) Edge - Take a moment with your natural ability and redirect the danger coming toward you. Boosted by your character’s Awareness or Dexterity

You characters can also use Edge Boost, spending a maximum of 2 Pool per post to add +2 to your roll for each Pool spent, but your Edge Boost consumes one of your actions so they must be used carefully, especially when rolling an Edge Dice to respond to a challenge. They consume the actions that you'd have for your next post.

When an Arbiter is cast, its Cost + Passive set the Challenge Level. The Passive is designated by the Arbiter’s Type, Offense or Defense.

So, a Bea Class a Offensive Arbiter without an Edge would set Challenge Level at 2 + that character’s Passive Output or Strength, depending on the attack’s type.

Additionally, if the Pointman creates a Challenge to be overcome, you must roll an Edge Dice to decide how to move forward in the thread. Challenge Level difficulty is decided by the Pointman based on the difficulty of achieving the best outcome in a thread, but could also apply Edges to the scene that would increase the difficulty of the challenge similarly to how they’re applied to Arbiter Edges. The greater the Diff Edge, the difference in Edge Gain and rolled Edge Dice, determines how the Edge resolves in combat.

• ≤ 3 Diff Edges are gained on environment and on opponents
• 4 - 6 Diff Edges are narrowly dodged by the opponent, but can still affect the environment
• > 6 Diff Edges Null impact, no edge is gained on the environment or the character

At level 1, you have access to all four dice, but as your character grows they become harder to access as their story develops. At level 10, and for every 10 levels gained thereafter, you must accrue 10 points in any stat to use them to respond to an Edge Gain.

So if your character is level 10 with 5 points in Durability and 15 points in Speed, they can’t use Defend Edge to respond to a challenge, but can use Evade Edge still.

Unless your character has 12 Naten, then Defend Edge is still available to them.

The stat points you accrue throughout your adventures on Vescrutia are converted for use in your kit. Make sure your understand how your character will be built and pick your stats accordingly. For resolution, some conversions have to be made:

• HP (Hit Points) = Stress * 2
• Offense = The character’s PassiveOutput or Strength / 2 (Dependent on Arbiter’s physical or mystical properties. Will always be one or the other, never both) + The base Cost of the Arbiter without Edges
• Defense = The character’s Passive Durabilityor Naten / 2 (Dependent on hit confirmed Arbiter’s physical or mystical properties. Will always be one or the other, never both) + The base Cost of the Arbiter without Edges if it was used
• Passive = Edge Dice's correlated Stat / 10 (Rounded to the lowest whole number)
• Condition = A character or the Environment can be affected by up to 4 layers, I-II-III-IV, of condition (Read more about Conditions here)

When an Edge Dice is rolled, One has to be rolled in response before the responding character can write their post. Rolling Edge Dice in response don't consume your post's actions unless you're rolling an Attack Dice or using Edge Boost to augment your roll.

When Edge Dice have been rolled and it wins the roll against another, it does damage using the following calculations:

Initiating player’s Offense - opposing player’s Defense = Opposing player’s HP lost

When a player’s HP is lost, they lose the fight and the encounter ends, putting them out of fighting commission for the rest of the thread unless other factors mitigate that.

Environmental challenges also do damage in the same way where Offense is the Challenge Level, though they have more opportunities to change Conditions.