Structure And Chaos

Flagstone: Structure and Chaos

In Flagstone there is no binary divide between good and evil, these being things that can differ greatly based on perspective, intent, and method. Instead, characters choose an alignment based on the concept of structure and chaos. A character that chooses structure is a Prepared Wielder, and one that chooses chaos is a Spontaneous Wielder. Despite the nomenclature, this does not mean that every Prepared Wielder is super orderly, rigid, and unable to adapt, nor does it mean that a Spontaneous Wielder is a ball of random chaos. Rather, it is an indication of their primary mode of thinking, acting, and behaving. In Flagstone, this decision has major implications for how a character grows, develops and acts throughout the entire game.

Prepared Wielders

A prepared wielder studies, trains, memorizes, practices and refines. They tend to prefer routines and prior planning over fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants tactics. Prepared wielders can be anything from the soldier that drills with their squad daily to the wizard that spends their time pouring over ancient manuscripts and refining arcane formulae in order to master devastating magics. They might be bards who have spent long hours practicing and memorizing songs to entertain their audiences or the diligent engineer that creates blueprints to perfection before ever setting the piece. Regardless of their profession or tendencies, it is their devotion to perfection by repetition and practice that truly sets them apart.

Prepared Wielders:

Create templates, in various forms, such as books or scrolls, which they use to refine and memorize their abilities and spells.

May have any number of templates in their spellbook or other ability manual.

Are limited in the number of abilities that can be memorized at one time.

Must be meditate or prepare for one hour in order to change which abilities are memorized.

Use Research to improve their templates.

May fail at researching or upgrading templates.

Will not fail at utilizing a memorized ability unless acted upon by a status or outside force.

When prepared wielders ascend a Loadout, their templates do not ascend with it. New templates that are created use the rating of the loadout.

Spontaneous Wielders

Spontaneous wielders, on the other hand, tend to study broadly, apply maximal effort, and employ on-the-fly ingenuity to master their arts. Rather than refine a particular spell to it's maximum efficiency and strength, they rely on a deep, and often intuitive, understanding of their craft to reach snap decisions and then act with utter conviction. They often have a deep seated understanding that no plan survives the first engagement and learn early that flexibility is every bit as important as prior planning. While no less devoted to their crafts than their prepared counterparts, they are more inclined to take risks realizing that the reward is greater as fortune favors the bold.

Spontaneous wielders do not use templates. Instead, they get to specify some parameters of what they want to do, and then there is a chance that they will succeed. Their chance of success and their control over their powers grows with their time and experience as illustrated by their Loadout rating. Spontaneous wielders tend to build upon their previous successes, but rather than focus on creating templates, as their prepared counterparts do, they focus on mastering mana by mastering themselves. As a consequence of this, spontaneous wielders tend to pack more of a punch, but land hits less often.

Despite the fact they don't practice prescriptive wielding, they do learn and grow through their own personal experience. For more details, see: Character Loadouts and Feature Skills.

Spontaneous Wielders:

Indicate what they want an ability to do.

For Spontaneous Wielders, their attempt to perform the ability is combined with their attack CR when making an opposed CR against a target.

When making an opposed CR, Spontaneous wielders roll their range die. If the result is higher than their modified range rank(base range + range bonuses), it is added to their CR roll for the purposes of determining a hit.