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.




The basic thread anatomy involves your kit and the narrative. When dealing with the action, your kit holds your recorded actions and info necessary to work the system. Your kit, as with all Level 1 character kits look like this:

Actions per post: 3
Pool: x/9
Where x = Your starting charges used for rolling dice

for every character starting at Level 1, your Pool starts at 3/9. 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. It’s the honor system, guys.



Your three actions are expended every post and cannot be saved or carried over into another post. Each post has four basic actions that can be used:

• Movement,
• Ava Class Arbiters
• Bea, Cea, or Dea Class Arbiters
• Invoking Traits

In the scope of Vescrutia, much of your movement is relative, unlike in other hard systems. 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 dice and consuming your Pool.


Aside from movement (and speech), you are limited in your repeat actions per post:

1. Arbiters of the same class can be used twice
2. Individual Traits can only be Invoked once

Keep that in mind and lean into that to create a dynamic story and playstyle.

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.

When you want to create an advantage for yourself, you consume the necessary Pool cost and roll one of the following dice against your opponent or challenge:

Arbiter Dice - Rolled to confirm an attempted hit with your Bea, Cea, or Dea Cass Arbiters. Rolled as 1d20. Roll higher than your opponent, and you land your hit and calculate damage. If you roll lower, your attack fails.

• 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
  

Invoker Dice - Rolled when invoking a Trait to overcome a challenge or defend yourself. Traits Invoked cost 1 Pool and its correlating stat adds +1 for every 10 points invested in that stat.

EXCEED Limit Dice - Used in dire situations when no other options exist. To achieve EXCEED Limit, player rolls 2d20 and takes the value of the higher roll. If they win the clash, their next turn begins with 5 Pool and resolves any Effects that have been applied. On turn after their EXCEED Boost, the player begins their turn with 0 Pool and does not automatically gain Pool for that turn.

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 gameplay, some conversions have to be made:

• HP (Hit Points) = Stress * 2
• Offense = Output or Strength / 2 (Dependent on Arbiter’s physical or mystical properties. Will always be one or the other, never both)
• Defense = Toughness or Naten / 2 (Dependent on hit confirmed Arbiter’s physical or mystical properties. Will always be one or the other, never both)
• Invoker Buff = Invoked Trait’s Correlated Stat / 10 (Rounded to the nearest whole number)

An Arbiter Die can be rolled and that forces the opposing player to roll either an Arbiter Die or Trait Die to mitigate the threat. Exactly how this is handled in RP is up to the player, but once an Arbiter Die is rolled, another die must be rolled in response on the opposing player’s turn.

When an Arbiter Die has been rolled and it wins the roll against another, it does damage using the following calculations:


Initiating player’s Offense + Initiating Player’s Arbiter Cost - opposing player’s Defense = Opposing player’s HP lost


An Arbiter Die that has been rolled that loses against the opposing player’s Arbiter has two possible outcomes:


This depends on the Arbiter and the context, because not all Arbiters are suited to do damage.

An Arbiter Die that is rolled against a player can also be responded to by an Invoker Die. This roll resolves by mitigating damage completely:

The stat points you accrue throughout your adventures on Vescrutia are converted for use in your kit. Conversions are as follows:

HP (Hit Points) = Stress * 2
Offense = Output or Strength / 2 (Dependent on Arbiter’s physical or mystical properties. Will always be one or the other, never both)
Defense = Toughness or Naten / 2 (Dependent on hit confirmed Arbiter’s physical or mystical properties. Will always be one or the other, never both)
Invoker Buff = Invoked Trait’s Correlated Stat / 10 (Rounded to the nearest whole number)

An Arbiter Die can be rolled and that forces the opposing player to roll either an Arbiter Die or Trait Die to mitigate the threat. Exactly how this is handled in RP is up to the player, but once an Arbiter Die is rolled, another die must be rolled in response on the opposing player’s turn.

When an Arbiter Die has been rolled and it wins the roll against another, it does damage using the following calculations.

Initiating player’s Offense + Initiating Player’s Arbiter Cost - opposing player’s Defense = Opposing player’s HP lost

An Arbiter Die that has been rolled that loses against the opposing player’s Arbiter has two possible outcomes:

Opposing Player’s Offense + Their Arbiter Cost - initiating player’s Defense = Initiating Player’s HP lost

OR

The opposing player mitigates damage completely.

This depends on the Arbiter and the roleplay, because not all Arbiters are suited to do damage.

An Arbiter Die that is rolled against a player can also be responded to by an Invoker Die. This roll resolves by mitigating damage completely:

Initiating player’s d20 versus Opposing player’s Invoker Die + Invoker Buff