[Cspace]

In my attempts to make DarkStorm easier to understand, I'm making the layout for abilities easier to read. They are broken into more lines and are more-or-less described in English as opposed to acronyms. The only acronym I plan to use is "HP" (not "Health" as I said previously), which is arguably more standard than even its English counterpart.

I updated the Adventurer line to reflect the new style. Feel free to check it out here.

Don't worry too much about the stats there, I removed "EC" entirely and replaced it with a few new counterparts. "Affinity" and "Stamina" replaced Energy. Endurance is to Stamina as Vitality is to HP. The same relationship exists between Arcana and Affinity. "Strength" is broken into "Strength" and "Accuracy", each linked to different types of weapons. I'm still thinking about adding a third that is linked to arcane weapons. If you're wondering why I'm doing this, I'm trying to give characters innate strengths and weaknesses so everyone is not a shade of gray.

When everything falls into place and seems to conceptually work on a [very] large scale (which I believe I'm very close), I plan to start adding more trees with their abilities.

[Neraphym]

Looks good, but the summon spell costs nothing... forget something, or am I going to go into battle with a massive horde of 10000 mini avatars of myself?

[Cspace]

Looks good, but the summon spell costs nothing... forget something, or am I going to go into battle with a massive horde of 10000 mini avatars of myself?

Without an appropriate focus (replacing "Concentration" which is like a stance), a character can only control one minion at a time. I didn't intend for it to be free though, I just added a small cost to it. It costs the same as the node spell, but while the node can potentially do more damage, the avatar can travel independently (which is useful for quests or potentially other abilities).

[Neraphym]

It's not very useful for quests, Darky will just kill it off.

[Cspace]

It could help if you need to retrieve something, or have a presence in two places at once.

Besides though, it's still an early skill on par with "Standard + 10" attacks.

[Darkness]

*choke* I hate it. I shall continue with the old one FOREVER! XD No offence, though

[Cspace]

*choke* I hate it. I shall continue with the old one FOREVER! XD No offence, though

Maybe you don't realize how many acronyms and labels there would be after the class update is implemented, if we were to implement abilities on a single line.

• HP
• MP (Mind points)
• Will
• SC (Stamina cost)
• AC (Affinity cost)
• Arcana
• Endurance
• Effect
• Heal
• A confusing format for every single status effect
• Strength
• Accuracy
• Maybe something for arcane weapons
• Standard
• Element (still in concept)
• Potentially a second set of all of these for anything that is summoned. With the new format, we can also give summoned minions multiple abilities of their own, which is not feasible otherwise.

It would get rather crazy for some abilities, we're no longer just dealing with DP, EC, and Effect. The new system can be rather easy to understand if it's portrayed in a decent manner, and putting everything in the same line will really scare new (and maybe old) players away.

Besides, if an ability deviates from the norm, it would be a heck of a lot easier to describe in English than jammed into the line alongside everything else.

It doesn't mean that anyone has to use the format in their quests or profiles, and equipment should still be described in a line, but I'm trying to attract new people and using the single-line format on the skill tree will be just plain confusing.

[Cspace]

Double-post.

I refined the layout a little bit to make things easier to read. Each skill's name and description is now colored to more easily differentiate it from effects, and the descriptions are no longer bold.

By the way, the abilities can still be copied and pasted into a post. The following, except for the lines I made at the top and bottom, are directly copied and pasted as the entire skill block (bullets and everything):

---------------------------------------------
# Summon Minor Avatar: A diviner, while a follower of a greater being, may call for aid from his/her deity. An adept may summon and control a lesser avatar, often useful as a scout.

* AFFINITY COST: 5
* SUMMONS MINION: Minor Avatar of [Character's Deity]
o HP: 30
o Damage Per Attack: 5
o Affinity: 0
o Stamina: 0
o Abilities: None
---------------------------------------------

To correctly copy and paste a skill in the current single-line format, you'd actually have to do a little more work since it needs to be formatted to look right.

May take up a bit of space, but with some more advanced abilities, I don't think anyone would really want to use a single line. Try formatting something with multiple status effects (each with an immunity), with a summoned minion that has abilities and stats of its own, or other similar abilities that are inherently more complex than what we have now.

[Nuu™™]

If the new players arn't scared away by the stats, then they will almost be certainly be scared away by the GM-

*cough*

I'd prefer to call it Health than HP, 'tis better.

And you are one post away from 7000.