Light weapons (Agi): 1d6+Brawn/2 (yes, a negative Brawn becomes better). Two free parries per turn. May be dropped or break if used to parry a Heavy weapon. No bonus for using both hands. Crit bonus is +1d6.
Medium weapons (Agi/Brawn): 1d8+Brawn. One free parry per turn. Using both hands inflicts +1 damage. Crit bonus is +1d6.
Heavy weapons (Brawn): 1d10+Brawn*1.5 (yes, a negative Brawn becomes even crappier). No free parries. Using both hands inflicts +2 damage. Crit bonus is +1d4.
Edges:
Duelist (requires Light Weapons 5+): if you critically parry an attack using a specialized light weapon, you can spend a secondary action to immediately attack that foe.
Destroyer (requires Heavy Weapons 5+): you can spend a full action to perform a truly powerful attack with a specialized heavy weapon that does 1d10+Brawn*2 damage and inflicts double damage on inanimate objects. Your attack is considered one class more powerful, so medium weapons which are used to parry it may be dropped and light weapons will usually break.
Precise Strike (requires Light Weapons 5+): when using a specialized light weapon, your crit bonus is one die size larger than normal.
Paired Medium Weapons (requires Medium Weapons 5+): when using one specialized medium weapon in each hand, you receive a +1 bonus to hit with any attacks made with them.
Paired Light Weapons (requires Light Weapons 5+): when using one specialized light weapon in each hand, once per turn you can choose to add a +1 bonus to either a to-hit roll or a parry roll.
Paired Heavy Weapons (requires Heavy Weapons 5+): when using one specialized heavy weapon in each hand, you can perform one free parry per turn.
Quickdraw: you can draw a Light Weapon as a free action and a Medium or Heavy Weapon as a secondary action (normally a Light Weapon is a secondary action and a Medium or Heavy weapon is a primary action).
Okay, each round you get a Primary Action (2/3 of your concentration) a Secondary Action (1/3) and a free action (free). A "Full Action" uses up your full concentration and thus counts as both a Primary and Secondary Action combined.
Attacking is normally a Primary Action (a crappy, 1/2 damage attack can be made as a secondary action). Dodging/Parrying is a 2ndary action.
Moving: As a primary action, move your full movement rate. As a secondary, move 1/3 of it. As a free action, move a pace.
Dodge: As a primary action, dodge vs missile/hurled weapons. As a secondary, dodge vs melee at full or ranged at a penalty die. As a free, dodge vs melee with a penalty die or ranged with two penalty dice.
Parry: As a primary action, parry vs all adjacent foes. As a secondary, parry vs one foe. As a freebie, parry vs one foe IF your weapon allows free parries.
"Big Bruiser": uses heavy weapons for maximum effect. Does the most base damage (average d10+Brawn), but only gets an extra d4 per crit. No free parries, so if you get attacked you'll have to blow a Secondary Action to parry or dodge. Maybe d10+Brawn * 1.5?
"Fencer": uses light weapons for maximum accuracy. Minimal base damage (average d6+Brawn/2), but does an extra d8 per crit. Two free parries per turn.
"Flexible": uses medium weapons for maximum flexibility. Better damage than light weapons (average d8+Brawn) but not as good as heavy, does extra d6 per crit. One free parry per turn.
You can get a further bonus by using both hands (both hands adds +2 Brawn
with heavy, +1 with medium and +1 when using a light weapon).
Flexible weapons: if you attack someone and they parry/block and win by 2 or less, you still score a SL 1/2 hit. Unfortunately, the same applies to you when you try to parry. If two flexible weapons attempt to parry each other, you have to win by 4+ to avoid that SL 1/2 hit.
Hm. One problem... if dodge/parry is an opposed check, instead of a flat value, then the SL 1/2 stuff might not work... after all, it's one point easier to hit 10+Evasion than 2d10+Evasion.
Okay, this is a decent start... but I want to make sure that fighters can properly distinguish themselves from each other. These seem more like ways to make sure that the different weapons work differently.
Here's a thought for handling roll-over dice. Basically, if you try a skill check and roll a Level 1 Success (beat it by 5+) or better and then try a related task with a different skill, you can get your SL in bonus dice for the second task.
So, a revised spell summary. Concentrated spells require you to spend an action preparing and inflict 1 additional level of Fatigue on a success (note that you can spend a Hero Point to negate the Fatigue). Severed spells are permanent, but each one created permanently reduces the caster's Magic rating by a fraction.
I'm trying to drop game rule summaries into these where possible.
Spark (Lightning):
Basic: produce ball of flame, moves at your command
Concentrated: produce small explosive fireball
Severed: create permanent flame (lasts until forcibly extinguished)
Advanced: produce ball of electricity or light, moves at your command
Concentrated: small lightning bolt or blinding flash of light
Severed: create permanent shocking aura or light source
Manipulate (Levitate):
Basic: weak TK
Concentrated: strong TK shove or pull, lasts only 1 round
Severed: object floats indefinitely
Advanced: lift self and float slowly about; costs 1 extra Fatigue. Magic rating must exceed Size to use this power.
Concentrated: superleap (straight-line flight for 1 round, basically)
Severed: caster's weight permanently reduced, can no longer use Levitate
Summon (Bind):
Basic: attract attention from living creatures or magical spirits, guides them to you
Concentrated: wider range, but only lasts a moment
Severed: spot attracts people and spirits indefinitely
Advanced: prepare an object, place or creature to host a spirit. Exact effects vary by spirit. Note that you can't control the spirit's actions
Concentrated: can try to break existing binding. Called Banishment
Severed: hosting lasts until spirit leaves or is banished
Influence (Compel):
Basic: project subtle emotions
Concentrated: hits target with brief but overwhelming emotion
Severed: permanently colors target's personality with selected emotion, but effect is weak and subtle
Advanced: issue mental commands
Concentrated: hits target with single very simple command that's harder to resist
Severed: command becomes permanent. Called a Geas.
Delve (Shape):
Basic: probe target for info about their physical state
Concentrated: delve for 1 round at 10x normal range
Severed: leaves target immune to Delve spells
Advanced: reshape target physically; costs 1 extra Fatigue
Concentrated: attempts to shatter target, inflicting damage
Severed: leaves target immune to Shape spells
Scry (Locate):
Basic: search vicinity for specific things
Concentrated: search in a given direction at 10x normal range
Severed: creates area where caster will sense it if something matching criteria enters. Called a Ward.
Advanced: locate things you are familiar with or linked to at any range
Concentrated: open link strongly enough to see/cast spells through
Severed: allows you to sense target's location whenever you want to. Called a Link.
Mislead (Illusion):
Basic: project momentary glimpses of sound or movement into target's mind as long as maintained
Concentrated: false sensation is very strong, but can only be a random noise or flash of color; vanishes immediately
Severed: target is left immune to Mislead spells
Advanced: project actual illusions of specific things into target's mind
Concentrated: illusion is very strong, but vanishes after one round
Severed: target is left immune to Illusion spells
I could see saying that certain magical arts aren't available to characters from specific areas.
e.g. - Imperial Demense (the core empire regions): Can't start with Summoning
Barbarian Lands: Can't start with Delve (a new name for Probe/Shaping).
Underworld: Can't start with Spark?
Fashor (the "Farshore"... the foreign land on the other side of the Great Lake): Can't start with ???.
So the list is:
Alternate names for Seemings: Phantasms, Mislead.
So...
Barbarian Lands: forbidden spells are Delve and Manipulate
Imperial Demense: forbidden spells are Mislead and Summoning
Fashor: forbidden spells are Influence and Summoning
Underworld: forbidden spells are Spark and Mislead
Forest Folk: forbidden spells are Spark and Summoning
Wildlands: forbidden spells are Delve and Summoning
So... what I want is for magic to be available to all... but only really practical to folks who have a high Magic rating. Furthermore, just sinking 1 point into it should be worthless below Magic +1 or so. If failures always result in 1 Fatigue, then that could do it.
A possible set of new magical arts...
Summoning: the mage attempts to draw the attention of nearby magical entities (including intelligent animals). They can try to attract everyone or slap some simple qualifications on it, like every rodent, every mouse or every spirit. If they're familiar with a particular person, they can try to attract them (of course, if they're out of range, it will fail). It can't really compel them to come, but it does get their attention and signals your presence.
Summoning doesn't actually require an Edge to learn, but most mages are unaware that it's even possible. If someone teaches you the basics in play, you'll be able to spend XP on it. Sometimes a mage in dire need casts it by accident (rolling Magic + 1d10 vs the difficulty, so unless the player blows Hero Points on it, it probably won't work) but this is rare.
Binding (Edge, Requires Summoning 5+): this Edge allows the mage to prepare some sort of host to accept a bodiless spirit. They not only attract the attention of nearby spirits (or a specific spirit, if they're familiar with it) using Summoning, they offer it a physical form to inhabit. This could be a constructed golem of some sort or a magically prepared corpse or just a physical location that you would like the spirit to inhabit. If you want it to remain in that form indefinitely without your aid, you'll need to sever your Binding.
Otherwise, when you stop concentrating the spirit has to struggle to remain corporeal and will eventually be drawn back into the spirit world. Weaker spirits will usually vanish immediately, but powerful ones may be able to remain for several minutes (these are also the ones most likely to be able to manifest on their own for brief periods without outside aid).
The difficulty with Binding, of course, is finding the right spirit. It doesn't give you any direct control over the spirit's actions, so if you want an animate servant you better find a spirit that wants to serve you.
Spirit Types: this is the tricky design issue, of course. What sort of spirits are desirable? The mice who experiment with this would try to classify them, naturally.
Servitors: spirits yearning to be born. They tend to "imprint" on whoever gives them a body, attempting to serve that person to the best of their ability. They can't speak or really reason, but they can understand their creator's spoken commands pretty well. A few can hear their creator's unspoken wishes, too, but these are very dangerous because they might act to fulfill urges you don't want fulfilled (like murdering someone you dislike). Servitors want to serve their "parent" but have been known to go malign when treated sufficiently badly. They have a lot of trouble understanding anyone besides their creator, since they only have a psychic link to them.
Placed in a location, a servitor spirit will still want to help its binder, but will generally be incapable of mustering more than a few soft breezes or a tiny change in temperature. It's a nice way to keep a house relatively dust-free, though.
Malign: spirits that are filled with hate and anger. They generally want to hurt and kill things and are quite violent. They usually mistake their creator for part of themselves (because the creator's aura will be in their new body) and won't harm them, but anyone else is a viable target. Malign spirits are often much harder to convince to serve you than Servitor spirits... they'll generally only serve because they believe that you're leading them towards new prey, or because they're so stupid that they think that you're part of them. Really intelligent malign spirits have been known to pretend to be other sorts until they see a good opportunity for murder. Stupid malign spirits make good guardians; they don't really have a sense of impatience, so they can be put in a spot and they'll stay there indefinitely, ignoring their creator but killing anyone else.
Placed in a location, malign spirits speed up the rate at which it decays. Collapsing parts are generally delayed until a potential victim appears in the right spot. "Cursed" locations are often inhabited by malign spirits, whether they were bound there deliberately or are manifesting on their own.
Healers: very rare. These beneficient spirits seek to soothe the pains of those around them. They can even be drawn into a living host (where they will attempt to repair any wounds), but will flee it the first time that the host suffers any real pain, so you generally need to keep the host drugged and pain-free for the duration. Unlike Shaping magic (which can only treat gross physical injuries like cuts and broken bones), healing spirits can treat things like poisons, cancers and other illnesses.
If bound into a location, they tend to promote the growth of plants and the overall health of anyone living there, but they usually flee if the area is "desecrated" with violence or extreme negative emotions.
Healers can't be bound in unliving tissues for long. They'll immediately lose interest and peel themselves away.
Observers: considered practically useless. Observer spirits just want to watch the physical world. Given a body of some sort, they simply sit there and look around. Occasionally they'll muster enough motivation to move closer to some interesting event, but for the most part they do nothing but watch. It's possible to use a Link spell so that you'll see what the observer sees, but it's usually not worth two severings to create one. Placed in a location, they'll watch whatever happens there, but won't be able to move elsewhere.
Guardians: guardian spirits are protective of their environment. Normally placid, they often turn violent if their peaceful home is disturbed. They aren't particularly smart, so it can be bad to wander near a guardian's home right after it's been disturbed by something. They act sort of like bees: if you act like you belong and don't make trouble, they ignore you, but once they're stirred up they can become dangerous to everyone in the area.
Mischeivous: these spirits delight in whimsical pranks and are generally more annoying than dangerous. Given a physical body, they'll often make brief, ineffective attacks, then pursue if the target flees and flee if they don't. If pursued, they'll lead people on a merry chase... the crueler ones will make sure that the chase leads through a desolate and dangerous area.
Hm. It might also be possible to bind spirits into items, but that allows for the creation of enchanted items... probably most spirits wouldn't stay in an item unless it really interested them. Violent spirits in a weapon, for example.
Some options for emotional ties:
Edges fulfill basically the same role as Feats in D20. They're binary Gifts/Advantages that grant new abilities and are all (at least theoretically) roughly equal in value.
Because I can't stand the arbitrary nature of many D20 Feats, I'm trying to keep the Edges to a common system.
There's also a room with older pieces that have been recovered, a museum of sorts. No one's really sure who made these... and they include a gigantic tarnished metal fork (obviously a human tool).
Hm. What do I still need before I can start assembling it all? A map would be nice. Hand-drawn, probably, with the districts labelled in an appropriately hand-writing-ish font. I should make sure I have names for all of the major provinces.
More illustrations would be good.
That comic I debated doing would be great.
Equipment list. At least this should be more interesting than normal. Drums made out of acorns with bird-skin on them.
Weapon list.
More skill Edges.
Names of major figures (don't count the guy I'm killing off in the storyline).
Lore can often be used unskilled; this is referred to as a General Knowledge Check. It's used when the GM wants to know if the character happens to know something that's relatively common knowlege, such as what lord rules a particular area. A character's background will often add substantial modifiers to Lore checks.
For example, when asking if anyone knows what lord rules a region, someone who is from that area might receive a +10 bonus, someone from an adjacent region (or who commonly travelled through that region) might receive a +5 and someone who was from an place where most people have never even heard of the area in question might suffer a -5 penalty.
Note that because Lore is a Specialized Skill, when you do get a chance to roll a General Knowledge check, you'll roll against 1/2 of your highest Lore rating, so being well-read in one area makes you more likely to be aware of other trivia.