A dice-heavy Gamist romp

[Bankuei]

Intracontinental Burrowing Magma Torpedoes (IBMT's)

For this alone, you have joined MY personal pantheon :)
For anything Persona/Forgotten Fist did for you, you have paid it back...
I'm grabbing friends this weekend, we must try this out.

Chris

[contracycle]

The end result of this is, Max and Bones are not really independent. For any given number of total points allocated to Max and Bones, and for any given Bones to Max cost ratio, there are one or two "correct" Max levels unless the player is willing to live with a disadvantage.

They don't necessarily have to be causally related, they could arise from setting - based character origins.  there is no mechanical need to balance them off against in each other in terms of the way the system resolves.

Perhaps something like:

Power  -> The Gift, raw natural aptitude, established at start, never changes
Practice -> Experience, directly correleated to age, increases over time
Techniques -> Powers, stolen from the otherworld or other wizards

Thus, old wizards tend to be harder than young wizards; but the talented may overcome them, sometimes, and steal their powers.  Insert mechanic for raising the Gift by performing some horrid act.  Insert cosmological abstract for transfer of powers.  Insert commentary on how Experience may be identified through observation.

What I really really like about his is the location of conflict inside Arenas.  Nice idea.

[Bailywolf]

They don't necessarily have to be causally related, they could arise from setting - based character origins.  there is no mechanical need to balance them off against in each other in terms of the way the system resolves.

Perhaps something like:

(snip)

Thus, old wizards tend to be harder than young wizards; but the talented may overcome them, sometimes, and steal their powers.  Insert mechanic for raising the Gift by performing some horrid act.  Insert cosmological abstract for transfer of powers.  Insert commentary on how Experience may be identified through observation.

Nice.  I like this a lot.  I hadn't considered making boosting arena traits something you could actualy WIN by fighting someone better than you in the very Arena you wish to imporve.  Hell and damnation!  This is actually a fantastic addition.  Wizards could eat each other's souls to boost their Gift, Martial Aritsts could challange their masters to jack their Chi, they could both study and learn new Technique.

I can sidestep the mathamadness by structuring character creation and advancement... oh, I am lovin this yes I am!

Perhaps offer three 'levels' for a starting character's Arena scores with different (but non-optimal) ratios for the different scores...

Grizled (lower Bones, Higher Max and Techniques)
Talented (Modest Bones and Max...tons of Techniques)
Promising (High Bones, Lower Max and Techniques)