Rules

## General Information

This page will be dedicated to explaining the Viamu System Rules and it's workings.

Firstly let it be known that this system is metric based, so any reference to distance, length, weight or general units will be metric. This system is created with simplicity, intuitivity, auto-balancing and context in mind to prevent a bloated and confusing system from bogging down player creativity.

This system will not use predifined classes, abilities and levels so that characters can evolve more naturally and creatively.

Rules, Exceptions and Stats will be listed as list items like so:

* Rule
	+ Exception
* Stat

## Stats

This system uses the following stats:

* Character Name
* Race

Races can vary and do not have to be existing races.

* Hit Points (Current HP / Max HP)
* Stamina Points (Current SP / Max SP)

Stamina points are used as a limiting factor on almost every action instead of turn limits or specific ability limitations. Stamina will thus be used for instance in movement, attack actions, defence actions or any other kind of action.

* Initiative
* Defence

Initiative will be rolled at the beginning of each battle, however the story teller (ST) may assign predetermined values. The initiative stat determines which character or group will go in what order in battle.

Defence is a stat that is only used when characters get a defence modifier. Defence modifiers can be obtained through objects like armour pieces or other defensive items and effects. The Defence stat maybe subtracted from any damage inflicted upon a player.

* **Spirit, anything spiritual**
	+ Charisma, any social interaction like persuasion or intimidation
	+ Illusion, anything related with visions, seeing with the minds eye as well as creating actual illusions
	+ Divinity, a connection with the Isto (magic), the universe and nature
* **Mind, anything related to the mental being**
	+ Experience, anything that is related to knowledge wisdom and fact knowledge
	+ Determination, the will to see things through a.k.a. mental constitution
	+ Perception, an eye for details and to see reality truthfully
* **Body, anything physical**
	+ Strength, the physical power of a character as well as their physical constitution
	+ Dexterity, the precision and flexibility of movement
	+ Stealth, special awareness, speed and going unnoticed

At the start of a campaign a player gets 30 points to spend on all 9 stats in the Spirit, Mind and Body categories. A category will hold a value that is equal to all the stats in that category.

* No single stat may be 0, each stat must be at least 1.
* Each category may not be lower than 5.

## Stamina Points (SP)

A character has an expendable pool of stamina which is used to perform actions.

* A character may not expend more than 30% of its total capacity at one time (in and out of battle).
	+ Or the character risks getting temporarily winded for some amount of time.

### Regeneration

* In each turn the character will regenerate 20% of their full capacity of stamina points.
	+ Certain circumstances can temporarily change this stat
* Outside of battle the player will not have to subtract any SP if it falls within 30%.
	+ If it exceeds 30% the character may get temporarily winded and in this state characters will enter battle with 50% of their maximum stamina.

### Breakpoints

The stamina point system has several breakpoints to simulate exhaustion. The breakpoints are calculated based on a percentage of the character's total stamina capacity.

### Breakpoint 1: 50% temporarily winded

* If a character falls below 50% the character will be temporarily winded.
* Movement speed is reduced to walking or less
* Stamina regeneration is halfed (from 20% to 10%)

### Breakpoint 2: 30% temporarily exhausted

* If a character falls below 30% the character will be temporarily exhausted.
* Disadvantage rolls apply on battle related actions (Offence & Defence)

### Breakpoint 3: 20% temporarily weakened

* If a character falls below 20% the character will be temporarily weakened.
* Disadvantage rolls apply on all actions
* Stamina regeneration is reduced to a quarter (from 20% to 5%)
* Movement is now limited to only 10m distance at walking speed.
* From here a character cannot recover beyond breakpoint 1, until they rest

### Breakpoint 4: 0% Unconscious

* If a character gets reduced to 0 SP they will become unconscious
* Consciousness is regained when SP is regenerated to 20%
* At this point a character cannot recover beyond breakpoint 2, until they rest
* A player might expend HP to regain SP at a ratio of 2:1 (HP to SP)

## Hit Points

Although Hit Points are simple and straight forward there is one special effect added.

* If a character gets reduced to 0 HP the player can spend all their SP to regain 1 HP.
	+ This action cannot be performed if the character is mortally wounded, e.g. beheaded
	+ If this is done then the character will be ignored on the battlefield by enemies unless discovered to still be alive. Events still can kill characters however.

## Rolls

Rolls are generally determined in two ways using either the 9 character stats and/or the three player categories.

* Rolls in this system are done using 2D10 to create a 1 to 100 outcome.

The success of rolls is roughly divided into three categories:

* Failure, 1 to 30.
* Mixed result, 31 to 70.
* Succes, 71 to 100.

However the breakpoints between these categories may be moved around somewhat to change the difficulty of the task.

The two ways rolls are determined are luck or skill based actions. Mostly the skill based roll determination will be used over the luck based determination as most character actions are done using a character's skill.

### Luck based

* A luck based roll simply adds a stat or category value (or multiple of the value) to the roll.

### Skill based

* When a roll is skill based it first compares the stat that is going to be used to an arbitrary value.

For instance in the early game the maximum any stat can be is 8, so if a task is supposed to be early game easy, normal or hard it will be compared to a value of 3, 5 or 10 respectively.

* This comparison is then turned into a percentage

For instance a stat of 5 trying to do a hard task (10) thus yields 50%.

* This stat is then averaged out with the roll for a final result.

For instance the roll was 20, then the average between the roll (20) and the stat percentage (50) is 35% which is barely enough to get a decent result.

Of course the arbitrary value grows as the game continues. This means that as characters upgrade their stats to higher numbers in mid and late game the arbitrary values will rise with those stats. Early game tasks will retain the same arbitrary numbers of 3, 5 and 10.

The skill based roll is specifically designed to give more reliable outcomes so that extreme (and unbelievable) outcomes do not happen as frequently. And to make players become better and better at tasks and give a real sense of progression.