Vitals

A Waystone character’s vitals are a set of three meters that govern the physical condition of the character: Health, Stamina, and Magic. Health is the overall well-being of a character, used to track harm in all its forms. Stamina and Magic, however, are used to track two forms of exertion: physical and magical, respectively. Sphaeran magic (alternatively called magus or psionics) is inherently tied to metabolism, as is stamina, but since they rely on different types of metabolism they are assigned to separate scales.
Each player starts with a base of 15 Health Points (HP), 10 Stamina Points (SP), and 10 Magic Points (MP). Stamina Points are used to accomplish physical feats, while Magic Points are used to accomplish magical feats. Both of these work like inverse exhaustion points: doing a physical or magical feat costs a certain number of SP or MP, and when you run out of points in either or both meters, you can only continue doing those things if you sacrifice HP, because you are pushing your metabolism beyond normal capacity. Each vital meter is restored 1-2 points after eating, 3-5 points after healing, and fully restored after a long rest (~6 hrs).

Point Distribution

Players get 5 points in character creation to distribute to Stamina and Magic at whim, and three more each level. Depending on how they are distributed, the character could either be generalized to both magical and physical feats, leaning toward either, or specialized in either. A player’s class also grants them an extra 2 points, though these are fixed to one or both meters based on what the class entails.

Failures

EVEN A FAILURE COSTS POINTS. You may not have accomplished your goal, but you still Did The Thing and used up metabolism in doing so. This lends itself to more expedited combat and creative, non-violent solutions, though many creatures will fight to the death by sacrificing HP to continue fighting. If all players run out of points before an enemy is defeated, they may retreat for no cost.

Stamina

Stamina informs how far you can push your physical ability without hurting yourself. Each physical attack in a fight, or anything that requires a physical-based (STR or DEX) check, expends stamina. The point expense will vary, splitting stamina feats into minor and major categories.

Minor Feats

Minor feats are low-intensity things that the average person could accomplish with only a mild to moderate amount of physical training -tasks such as sprinting, swordfighting, or shooting a bow. They are fairly simple tasks and only cost 1 or 2 SP.

Major Feats

Major feats are things the average person could only accomplish with intensive physical training, such as tossing another person several feet or swinging a claymore. High intensity feats require between 3 and 5 SP --and possibly an additional STR check.

Magic

Sphaeran magic is an additive element of quantum mechanics that allows beings to alter reality in certain ways. However, the limit of set spells does not exist; most commonly magic is improvised. Due to this, magical feats are divided into two categories: micromagic and macromagic.

Micromagic

Micromagic is simple and typically utilitarian, allowing you to do something beyond the normal physical limitations of an organic being, such as augment the force of a gust of wind or alter the composition of your skin, scales, feathers, or fur to boost your durability. The effects are small and localized, only costing 1 or 2 MP to accomplish.

Macromagic

Macromagic is large-scale and elaborate, allowing you to accomplish amazing physics- defying feats such as creating a firestorm. However, this is incredibly taxing on the magician, requiring 3 to 5 MP depending on the scale and complexity of the effect. Additionally, certain macromagics will require an INT check to accomplish.

Stipulations

Magic is not all-powerful. There are certain things that simply cannot be accomplished, with or without magic, since psions (the fundamental particle of magic) are not able to modify the scalar field which grants particles mass. Changing the inherent kinetics of fundamental particles is impossible no matter what you do, as is creating mass from nothing at all. The effects of most magic, especially alchemy, are permanent unless reversed. To reverse a magical feat, the user must expend MP equal to the initial cost of the effect.