Fate RPG design

[katyn]

So I'm making a homebrew RPG that will rely on Servant mechanics as they're shown. I haven't made much progress but what I'm posting here is the basic layout for determining the rank of Anti-Unit NPs. I was just wondering whether people would find it an acceptable way to faithfully represent the strength of NPs.

It's a bit long so forgive me for the length.


There are two primary components to determining the level of the ranking of an Anti-Unit Noble Phantasm, the quality of the weapon and the strength of the conceptual effect.

The quality of a Noble Phantasm can never exceed a D-rank. While this seems unusual, it does explain how Lancelot's D-rank weapons are capable of withstanding blows from Excalibur. There are 3 ranks to weapon quality, a normal weapon will have no rank, a high quality weapon will give an E rank and a weapon that has reached legendary status will have a D-rank.

The conceptual effect of a Noble Phantasm will have 3 ranks, each one adding to the previous quality of the weapon. Once again, the strength of the effect will determine how high the rank will be.

To put this in practice, let us consider Gae Dearg and Rule Breaker. Both weapons have a similar effect and are described well so it is easy to determine the basis for their ranking. Rule Breaker is noted for being only as strong as a normal dagger, thus it gets no ranking from quality. It has a powerful conceptual effect however which gives it a 3 rank boost resulting in a final C-rank.

Gae Dearg is an actual weapon that can be used in combat and gets a base D-rank. It's conceptual effect is not as strong as Rule Breaker although it is noted as being very powerful. As such, it gets a 2 rank boost which results in a final result of a B-rank.

Another example would be a comparison between Gae Bolg and Zabaniya. Gae Bolg is an instant kill weapon, albeit limited by the fact that there are ways to counter it. So it would get a base D-rank then 2 extra ranks from its ability which isn't perfect for a total B-rank. Zabaniya also gets 2 bonus ranks from its ability. However, Zabaniya is not a D-rank weapon; while it is still better than a normal weapon as it is a servant's body, it was not able to withstand Excalibur and as such is better described as an E-rank weapon. Adding together total effects, we get the result that Zabaniya is a C-rank Noble Phantasm.

Another observation of power levels can be seen between God Hand and Avalon. While they are technically two different classes of Noble Phantasms, a comparison can still be made. God Hand, a B-rank noble phantasm is capable of nullifying all B-rank and lower attacks. Extrapolating, an A-rank Noble Phantasm blocks all A-rank and lower attacks and Avalon, an EX-rank Noble Phantasm, can block EX-rank attacks. A similar effect can be seen through their regenerative abilities. God Hand can revive the user 12 times while Avalon is capable of constantly bringing back the user from the brink of death an unlimited amount of times assuming they are not completely obliterated. (This is entirely speculation)

Keep in mind that all the above are generalisations. The ranking system works on multiples of ten. As such there may be slight discrepancies on the exact strength of a Noble Phantasm. The actual cause and effects of the weapons in question may also differ. Conceptually, Zabaniya and Gae Bolg are equivalent but against Fragarach, only Gae Bolg would be effective; Zabaniya would, in theory, work against God Hand as it bypasses the armour enhancing effect but Gae Bolg would probably bounce off. Be sure to properly determine exactly how the Noble Phantasm in question works.

Both Gae Bolg and Zabaniya function on the idea that they will kill instantly but only if the target fails a status check. Maria the Ripper also kills instantly but instead requires specific circumstances to be met before it can be enacted. Although I can't find the source, I recall it as a B-rank.

Determining the actual rank of the conceptual effect is somewhat difficult. Gae Bolg and Zabaniya both appear capable of being stopped by the respective B-rank resistance required; Saber with B-rank luck dodged Gae Bolg and Zabaniya could presumably be stopped by B-rank magic resistance although I can't prove that (Lancer with C-rank died to it). As for Gae Dearg and Rule Breaker, they are measured by just how many things they can affect. So if we considered a Noble Phantasm that affected elements, 1-rank would affect 1-2 elements, 2-rank would affect 3-4 and 3-rank would affect all 5. Alternatively it could affect all 5 elements but with differing levels effectiveness.

So when designing Noble Phantasms, there are two things to consider. One is the strength or suitability of the Noble Phantasm as a weapon. The other is the strength of the conceptual effect of the weapon. Combine these and we get the full rank of the weapon. Conceptual effects come in two classes, those that are passive and primarily work on direct contact with the target and those that are activated and affect the target from a distance. The conceptual effect bonus is determined by its effectiveness out of 100% where 100% is a situation where it always works and then rank decreases as effectiveness decreases.


As for why the ranking matters, the strength of a Servant will be determined by a point buy system so the higher the rank, the greater the cost.

I haven't actually gotten to that point yet.

Please criticize.

[aldeayeah]

D&D 3.5 spell descriptions are a the best match for NP abilities IMO.

If such an analogy is used, Rank=spell level.

Regardless of the level, some spells are subject to spell resistance and some aren't; also some spells are subject to saving throws and some aren't; some spells hit automatically, some require an attack roll; some spells are instantaneous and others require casting time, etc...

On breakability: NPs are objects too, so they should have hardness and HP according to the material they're made of, with the enchantments giving them increased hardness and HP. On top of that, they probably should have immunity to all damage coming from mundane/lesser magic sources too.

On NP compatibility: describing this is a PITA, but one possibility is to create predefined descriptors. For example, both Fragarach and Gae Bolg could have a [Fate Manipulation] descriptor, and Fragarach's description could include a line like "Nullifies the opposing attack unless it has the [Fate Manipulation] descriptor."

This is just a bunch of ideas, but maybe you can find use to some of them.

EXAMPLE (really half-assed)

Excalibur

Base stats

+10 adamantine ghost touch Medium-sized long sword
Hardness 40: 20 (adamantine) + 20 (enchantment)
107 HP: 7 (adamantine longsword) + 100 (enchantment)
Damage: 1d8+10
Crit chance: 10%
Crit damage: x2

Spell-like abilities

Excalibur/Sword of promised victory
Evocation [Force]
Level: A++
Casting time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch (melee version) or 15,000 ft. (ranged version)
Area: 1 target (melee version), 15,000 ft.-long, 150 ft.-radius cylinder (ranged version)
Saving throw: None or Reflex half
Spell resistance: No

Deals force damage equal to the mana poured in it (minimum 100, maximum 500) to all creatures inside the spell area.
Requires the sword to be wielded with both hands.

Melee version

Touch attack, no save allowed.

Ranged version

If you aim the attack at a specific creature, you may make a ranged touch attack to strike the target.
Any creature thus struck receives no saving throw against the attack's damage.

[katyn]

Thank you for the information. It's very useful and hopefully I can apply it in the future.

But when I said I would rely on servant mechanics as they're shown, I wasn't just saying I'd rely on them in an abstract manner, I meant I will literally use them as the basis for the entire system.

I intend to recreate every single battle and event shown in Fate/Stay Night and (hopefully) Fate/Zero relying completely on the information provided by Nasu. This means using the rank system as is shown on the servants, even if it is completely stupid, as well as their class and personal skills, even if they're nebulous.

[The Geek]

You could go with a route similar to what Fire Emblem did when it comes to holy weapons: they're really powerful and usually give stat boosts. For example, a Fire Emblem style Excalibur (FE4 specifically) would have stats like this:

Might: 30
Weight: 12
Hit: 100
+10 Magic, +20 Resistance

[aldeayeah]

I intend to recreate every single battle and event shown in Fate/Stay Night and (hopefully) Fate/Zero relying completely on the information provided by Nasu. This means using the rank system as is shown on the servants, even if it is completely stupid, as well as their class and personal skills, even if they're nebulous.

Wow, good luck with that.

[Drinkie]

Hope you manage to make this and not give up on it i would like to give the game a try

[katyn]

Ok, I don't know how to change the thread title to a more general Fate RPG but here's the combat mechanics anyway.

Emphasis on mechanics. Converting into an actual RPG may take some adjustment. For now I'm using a d100 system. I want it to be a d200 (or higher) system but that could be quite awkward.

Oh and all servants have 750 hp. The number works, just roll with it for now.

Combat works as follows; Base attack determined by attackers AGI then modified by defenders AGI representing their ability to dodge, the defender gets a chance to resist damage via END and finally each attack that gets through deals damage equal to STR statistic

Values are determined as follows; STR statistic is halved, END is also halved, AGI represents two values, base attacks and ability to dodge. To get base attacks, halve the base AGI statistic and to get dodging ability quarter it. So if we take Lancer, he has 20 STR, 15 END, 25 AGI and 12.5 dodging ability.

(Yes I know AGI is horrendously overpowered. I highly suspect there are ways in which it was balanced but I've only gotten up to working out the mechanics).

Damage is worked out simultaneously. Both parties involved then determine how much of the damage they want to devote to blocking and how much is used to attack.

To illustrate, take Lancer vs Archer in front of the church. Lancer gets 25 attacks. Archer then has an opportunity to dodge the attacks. He has a 7.5 dodging ability so he rolls a d100 to succeed. On average 23.125 attacks get through; Lets round that down to 23. Archer rolls for END, succeeding on a 15 or lower. About 19.5 attacks get through so we'll make that 20. Finally Lancer then works out his total damage by multiplying attacks by STR. So we have 20*20=400.

Archer attacks 15 times. Lancer dodges on a 12.5 or lower. About 13 attacks connect. Lancer then rolls for END, 15 or lower. Approximately 11 attacks hurt. Archer then multiplies his STR statistic for a final output of 110.

This appears a little odd as Archer was capable of fending off Lancer at the church. This is where class and personal skills come in.

Archer possesses Eye of the Mind (True). Mechanically, so long as your opponent has a higher AGI value, your attacks are doubled while their attacks are halved. I won't go through all the calculation again but the end result is that Archer can deal 220 damage while Lancer deals 200 damage. So why isn't Archer annihilating Lancer? Archer puts all his damage into defense, blocking Lancer's damage. Even if Lancer goes all out, he can't punch through to Archer because he can't overwhelm 220 damage with just 200.

I haven't looked over every class skill, only those applicable to combat. Off the top of my head, Instinct rank A and Protection from arrows halve the number of attacks from enemies relying on projectiles, Monstrous Strength rank B gives a one rank boost in STR parameter for 4 rounds of combat, and Battle Continuation means that damage inflicted on you does not reduce your effectiveness in combat; which brings me to the next part of combat.

There are quite a few modifiers to combat effectiveness. To keep things in simple, I'll look at the fight between Saber and Diarmuid when he has lost Gae Buidhe. The first thing to note is that Diarmuid no longer has Rank A+ AGI. The + sign is suppose to represent a boost to AGI only during particular conditions. Most of the time this just doesn't matter but here it does have an effect. With only one spear left, he no longer gets the boost to AGI from dual wielding so his effective AGI is now rank A.

Saber is holding back during this battle by not using her thumb. Mechanically, Saber took a hit from Gae Buidhe which she is trying to emulate. Gae Buidhe dealt 20 damage from the single hit, reduced by .25 from endurance so it dealt 15 damage. In pure numbers, this reduces her fighting effectiveness to 98%. I don't know how to represent this at present but mathematically it means Saber is just superior to Diarmuid, dealing about 20-30 more damage.

Mana is not directly tied into actual combat but does have an effect after the combat round ends. Each rank in Mana provides 312.5 units. Yes I know its odd but there it is.

Generally, each round of combat uses up 35 prana assuming it's a normal servant, Berserkers and spellcasters use more but I haven't gotten that far yet.

Assuming the damage dealt is normal, i.e. you weren't hit by Gae Buidhe or Gae Bolg, both of which prevent effective healing, you can consume mana to heal yourself. 1 unit of Mana heals for 2 units of HP; it is also possible to heal more slowly over time in which case it only uses 1 unit of mana for 4 units of HP. Saber also happens to possess armor as well, armor is repaired at 1 unit to 2 HP and Saber's armor value is about 210.

Finally a note on Parameters. Saber Alter has A++ in mana. When Rider use Mystic Eyes on her, it does not become A+. Only the base parameter of A is affected, the multipliers remain unchanged. So her end Mana value is B++.

By the way, Gilgamesh is a cheating bastard. He uses special mechanics compared to other servants. I'll cover him later.

I think thats everything. I'd go into more detail because a lot of fights in Fate/Stay Night in particular are quite complex but I have to go somewhere. Generally speaking, I can explain pretty much every battle that occurs (or at least those I can recall), some with ridiculous accuracy and others that need a little leeway in interpretation of events. Please post which battles you'd like me to go over. I made these calculations very hastily so it's quite probable that some are wrong. I'll also convert the numbers into an actual RPG system when I have the time. Some information is sourced from the Visual Novel itself, such as the mana values. Others I had to interpret based on information provided.

Feedback is appreciated.

[Ratman]

Main problem would be that Nasuverse is numbersnumbersnumbers. The intention is definitely good, but I can see people hating to roll all these dice. Which is why, as far as I understand it, you are doing this as a sort of excersise in math and RPG system creation through reverse engineering, right?

I mean, can you imagine the master keeping track of his mana produced by a rather random number of circuits every turn which is up to 100 in some cases, and adding to his mana pool which in some cases can be up to 1000 units, and then deciding whether he wants to send it to the servant, or spend some of it to keep up a spell already working, or start casting something, all the while usually spending his action on something completely different? It's like FATAL all over again, except this time, at character creation, instead of anal circumference, you roll for circuits.
And that's just one example. Other highlits include how strengthening affects the properties of items(which is going to be actually hell to count right, such as in the case of a wallscroll blocking Gae Bolg), Caster's mana hijinks, making Tsubame Gaeshi actually realistic(meaning, high lethality agains unarmored targets, which is what katanas are for after all), how do you stat a noble phantasm jet from lancelot, wording Fragarach correctly, and including in all the Nasu what-ifs into all of it.

If you like doing it, don't let me scare you away by any means, though.

[Caster]

I think an easier method would be to just start from the ground up, and borrow some aspects from Fate. Trying to figure out the system Nasu uses isn't really viable, since I doubt his system is followed particularly heavily, if at all, the majority of the time. I definitely like the idea of a Fate system, and I've seen some that get pretty close to feeling like what I'd want to run, but it's a difficult thing to achieve. It's interesting reading I suppose.

[katyn]

Main problem would be that Nasuverse is numbersnumbersnumbers. The intention is definitely good, but I can see people hating to roll all these dice. Which is why, as far as I understand it, you are doing this as a sort of excersise in math and RPG system creation through reverse engineering, right?

I mean, can you imagine the master keeping track of his mana produced by a rather random number of circuits every turn which is up to 100 in some cases, and adding to his mana pool which in some cases can be up to 1000 units, and then deciding whether he wants to send it to the servant, or spend some of it to keep up a spell already working, or start casting something, all the while usually spending his action on something completely different? It's like FATAL all over again, except this time, at character creation, instead of anal circumference, you roll for circuits.
And that's just one example. Other highlits include how strengthening affects the properties of items(which is going to be actually hell to count right, such as in the case of a wallscroll blocking Gae Bolg), Caster's mana hijinks, making Tsubame Gaeshi actually realistic(meaning, high lethality agains unarmored targets, which is what katanas are for after all), how do you stat a noble phantasm jet from lancelot, wording Fragarach correctly, and including in all the Nasu what-ifs into all of it.

If you like doing it, don't let me scare you away by any means, though.

I don't want players to roll for everything, that would a colossal train wreck. I'm going to use a point buy system instead; that means working out how much everything is actually worth in comparison to one another but that's why I'm trying to work out the mechanics etc. I'm also heavily simplifying everything, Magic circuits provide a set amount of prana a day, strength of weapons come in three classes and so forth.

Working out the mechanics of Noble Phantasms will be interesting. I have an idea in mind but stuff still needs to be worked out.

I'm not touching Berserker's jet, not yet anyway. For now, the basics so I have a functioning system are quite enough.

I think an easier method would be to just start from the ground up, and borrow some aspects from Fate. Trying to figure out the system Nasu uses isn't really viable, since I doubt his system is followed particularly heavily, if at all, the majority of the time. I definitely like the idea of a Fate system, and I've seen some that get pretty close to feeling like what I'd want to run, but it's a difficult thing to achieve. It's interesting reading I suppose.

Actually Nasu follows his system to the dot near as I can tell. Erm... Let me provide an example. Saber Alter vs Rider should do the trick.

Before we start, there are a few things to note. I'm making an assumption that Excalibur costs 900 prana to activate and Bellerophon requires 600 prana. A Noble Phantasm is 10 times as strong as a equivalent rank normal attack and END has no effect on the damage of a Noble Phantasm while armor does. Also I made an error above; Saber's armor value is 230.

Both combatants start at maximum ability. Rider restored her prana while she was in the temple so we'll assume she's near maximum capacity. Prior to the battle, Rider uses Mystic Eyes to reduce Saber's abilities by one rank. So Saber has STR:B END:B AGI:E and MANA:B++. At B++ Saber has 3750 prana.

From the Visual Novel, Rider must somehow be capable of subduing Saber in X number of turns while also being capable of fighting for 6X turns in total then utilizing Bellerophon before exhausting herself and needing time to rest before being capable of moving again. Saber must be capable of fighting for 6X turns, using Excalibur then somehow getting injured by the remnants of Bellerophon. To accomplish this, we need to make the assumption that Saber is not receiving prana from Sakura, whether Saber is not taking it or Sakura is not giving it or both.

Ignoring just how I got to this solution, Rider uses Monstrous Strength as soon as the battle starts. This deals on average 487.5 damage a turn. Saber for her part is only capable of defending against 78.75 damage per turn. Rider doesn't want to get injured in anyway no matter how small the odds are so she always has to devote 78.75 damage to defense. The damage she does attack with is further reduced by Saber who will put all her ability to defending. Rider ends up dealing 330 damage per turn to Saber. Saber has 750 hp plus 230 armor; The total 990 damage is just enough to beat down Saber. Unfortunately Saber is constantly healing herself and restoring her armor. As such Rider can't subdue her in 3 turns. If X=3 then Rider must be capable of fighting for 18 turns. At 35 prana a turn, that comes to 630 prana in total; add on 600 from Bellerophon and Rider uses a total of 1230 prana out of a total 1250. With only 20 prana remaining, Rider is alive but not really capable of doing much without the possibility of over extending herself and disappearing.

Saber takes a lot of damage over these 18 turns. Not really a problem for her as she has huge prana reserves so she's always at maximum fighting ability and if she does run out, she can get more from Sakura. She takes 4 turns of damage from MS Rider which in terms of prana is 330*4/2 = 660 units. The other 14 turns, she takes a reduced 232.5 per turn. Multiply by 14 turns then halve for prana cost and we have 1627.5 units used. We also need to add in prana usage for normal fighting which is 630 units. In total that comes to 2917.5. Saber then uses Excalibur which costs 900 units. That's 3817.5 in total, more than the amount she has available at 3750 units. But Saber can always convert her armor back into prana when necessary. To get the difference, which is 67.5, Saber drops 135 units of armor. So Saber is left with 95 armor. Bellerophon at 10% strength deals 100 damage so 5 units of damage get through to hit Saber. Saber doesn't disappear when she runs out of prana due to the effects of the Shadow. So if you took a baseball bat and hit Saber in the head with it, you'd get the end result of the battle in the caves.

Naturally not every battle is this simplistic. Various factors like Servant personalities and terrain effects among others all result in slightly different results.

Oh and thank you to whoever adjusted the title of the thread. You have my gratitude.

[Mcjon01]

That's not Nasu's system, though. That's your system that you brewed up to describe the fights Nasu wrote. So of course the fights will conform to it, because that's how you designed the system. Am I missing something here?

[Kelnish]

Yes. Fairy magic.

[katyn]

That's not Nasu's system, though. That's your system that you brewed up to describe the fights Nasu wrote. So of course the fights will conform to it, because that's how you designed the system. Am I missing something here?

I suppose I was presumptuous to think I could tell what Nasu's system was but I am trying to follow the information Nasu gives us as closely as possible. So this means taking the parameters as Nasu gives us then somehow making a system out of them that then makes sense in the context of the novel. I'm trying to avoid bringing in anything that isn't explicitly mentioned by Nasu but instead work out the numbers based on the information we have available.

I didn't provide enough information in the last post so I need to explain myself. My apologies.

The prana levels come from a discussion Saber had with Shirou early on in Heaven's Feel. She states she used 50 units against Lancer and 200 units against Berserker and currently has about 1000 units. Taking this literally, that means Saber started with 1250 units of prana. She has B rank prana so each rank has about 312.5 units.

Information on how much prana is used in fights is determined with almost the same information. Saber fights with Lancer but doesn't take damage until her armor is ruined. She also takes damage from Berserker on a more serious level, about 430 damage from one round of combat. Saber states that she used most of her prana repairing her armor so that needs to be taken into consideration. That same information also needs to conform to the needs of Assassin. Assassin never received any prana from Caster and was expected to survive for a 20 day period in addition to fights. Saber uses 6 prana a day to maintain materialized so a Servant in spirit form uses less than that. Assassin fights about 6 times, once against most of the servants and twice vs Saber. Finally, Rider uses a significant amount of prana during the early days of Heaven's Feel and during the fight against Archer is noted to not have sufficient prana available to activate her Noble Phantasm.

I'd like to say I had an elegant way of working out the numbers but it really was just bashing my head against the wall until something happened. Everything here on out is mostly conjecture but it fits so I went with it.

Assassin uses 5 prana a day to stay in spirit form and at 35 prana a fight, he uses a total of 310 units out of 312.5. For the fight against Berserker, Saber uses 35 units in the fight, 115 units repairing her armor and 50 units to heal the rest of the damage. For the fight against Lancer, only Saber's body armor is ruined so she only has to replace that.

Briefly interrupting, there are two ways to heal, instantaneously and slowly. Instantaneously uses 1 prana to heal two points of damage while slowly uses 1 unit for 4 points of damage. If the same amount of prana was used then there's no reason for any servant to ever have downtime. The amount of prana used for instantaneous healing is never really hinted at so it's something I mostly came up with based on my own conclusions, involving game balance and what information is available.

Saber does state that a normal battle should only require 10 units of prana under best conditions. I'm inclined to ignore this because she spent most of her time in Fate/Zero killing horrors, not Servants.

Rider's prana problems need to be traced over the course of a few days. She spends three days not contracted to Sakura so during those days she needs to maintain herself, which is about 15 units of prana. She fights two rounds (I think) against True Assassin and twice against Archer so that's 140 units. She was almost killed by Archer so she used something in the area of 350 units healing herself up to fighting condition. At this point Rider still has 750 units so she should be capable of using her Noble Phantasm. The remaining difference isn't something I can really explain with direct references but Rider used additional prana in a number of small ways such as transporting her masters, beating Shirou up and whatever else Shinji wastes her time on. The remaining difference has two explanations that I haven't decided between yet. One is that Rider is already below optimal prana because she doesn't want to burden Sakura during the brief period Rider was re-contracted to her. The other is that below a certain level of prana, Servants run the risk of just disappearing because they can't maintain their presence. I'm inclined to believe the former. Bloodfort Andromeda could also have a prana cost but if it does I have no idea how much it requires.

On the subject of Noble Phantasms and prana cost, once again there isn't all that much information so I just had to guess. After using Excalibur in Fate, Saber is on incredibly low levels of prana. For the sake of simplicity, I just said 900 units is necessary for her to activate Excalibur. It made for easier calculations and it mostly fits what happened during the story. From there I assumed a constant cost to power ratio to get Bellerophon's cost of 600.

The combat system is something I just came up with that would use the parameters to achieve the end results. It isn't perfect, there's one particular fight that's kind of metagaming, but it does get pretty close.

[Ratman]

Okay. Keep in mind that Nasu is a compulsive liar and if he ever cared about numbers enough to make your job easier, which he almost definitely didn't because everything past YYH subverts powerlevels by making the realy cool powers work outside of them or havr the one guy who brags about his numbers be a total goon, yoy are still trying to derive logic out of what the fandom has conluded is to an extent nonsense, also in critical parts like Caliburn which was such utter plox that not even Kubo would pretend that it makes sense.

What I'm trying to say is, you are trying to outsmart a lot of people.
You know, there were ones who have tried to play Fate with numbers and concluded that the best way to do so was to make extensive backstories and double-spread character sheets with tons of tables and when people started actually fighting, rip those to shreds and start freeforming. Perfect Fate experience, who can bullshit harder wins.

[mAc Chaos]

For the ranks, even taking the numbers involves making assumptions we can't be sure about.

For instance, how do you know the mana is spread out evenly between ranks. It could be each rank has an increase in the amount of mana it contains in the rank as well. Exponential, etc.

[katyn]

Okay. Keep in mind that Nasu is a compulsive liar and if he ever cared about numbers enough to make your job easier, which he almost definitely didn't because everything past YYH subverts powerlevels by making the realy cool powers work outside of them or havr the one guy who brags about his numbers be a total goon, yoy are still trying to derive logic out of what the fandom has conluded is to an extent nonsense, also in critical parts like Caliburn which was such utter plox that not even Kubo would pretend that it makes sense.

What I'm trying to say is, you are trying to outsmart a lot of people.
You know, there were ones who have tried to play Fate with numbers and concluded that the best way to do so was to make extensive backstories and double-spread character sheets with tons of tables and when people started actually fighting, rip those to shreds and start freeforming. Perfect Fate experience, who can bullshit harder wins.

Outside of the nonsense Shirou can pull off, there's a reasonable explanation for everything, even if it means we have to take into account the character personalities and desires. Caliburn and Avalon are clearly plot devices but everything else appears consistent. I probably missed something along the way.

The bullshitting is where the problem lays for me. I got tired of the endless powerlevel arguments and decided to do something about it and here we are. That's not the only reason I'm doing this, a proper Fate RPG would be awesome, but it is a contributing factor.

No disrespect is intended towards anyone.

For the ranks, even taking the numbers involves making assumptions we can't be sure about.

For instance, how do you know the mana is spread out evenly between ranks. It could be each rank has an increase in the amount of mana it contains in the rank as well. Exponential, etc.

The first assumption I have to make is that everything is completely rational and all information disclosed by Nasu makes sense. We know the parameters increase by steady increments from that chart demonstrating the respective values of the ranks. As such, I'm going to hold that to be true. The moment I start ignoring the information that is written, everything can be chucked out the window. E.g. Assuming ranks are exponential, Hercules should flatten everyone with A+ Strength.

I definitely considered this. An early problem I came across was Rider's Mystic Eyes. It made sense to me that since Saber Alter had A++ mana, it would have a greatly reduced effect on her. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find an answer to that. Eventually I just gave up and held Nasu to his word.

So far everything seems ok.

[Break]

personnaly i'd like to make something like this with the RPGmaker, (because i tried making a game with it once but stopped mid-way because the story was going nowwhere, and i like the general style of it), though i'd have to find a good way to make the sprites properly look like the characters, but still it would be pretty much fun to do something like that in-between..

[katyn]

personnaly i'd like to make something like this with the RPGmaker, (because i tried making a game with it once but stopped mid-way because the story was going nowwhere, and i like the general style of it), though i'd have to find a good way to make the sprites properly look like the characters, but still it would be pretty much fun to do something like that in-between..

An interesting idea but I have no experience with RPGmaker. I wanted this to be a pen and paper RPG but I could look into RPGmaker in my spare time.

It occurred to me that I'm just telling everyone that this totally works without providing proof that it does. So I'll put an example up whenever I can. Which is probably weekly since I'm lazy.

Let's have a look at Saber at the last few days of UBW. Saber is freed from Caster but has pretty much no prana. Add in the fight with Archer and she has something like 10 units left give or take a few. Rin establishes a contract with Saber and dumps all her available prana into Saber. This isn't quite 1000 units; Rin was reinforcing herself and I don't know how much prana that requires. For the sake of simplicity, we'll say Rin has 980 units left so Saber has in total 990.

Interestingly, Archer is still better than Saber at close combat. Mechanically, Archer deals 20 more damage than Saber which is basically the kick he gets in on Saber. Assuming Saber promptly heals, she used 45 units in the fight, 10 healing and 35 from combat.

Aside from knocking Gilgamesh's swords off course, Saber doesn't face any real action other than Assassin. She faces another battle there which consumes another 35 units or thereabouts. Saber then utilizes Excalibur which consumes 900 units. So at the end of UBW Saber has about 10 units left. Oh she also gains another 4 from her passive regeneration.

There are a few variables here that I can't account for. I don't know how much prana Saber has left after Caster, how much Rin has left, how much Saber uses to defend against Gilgamesh or how much damage Tsubame Gaeshi did to Saber's armor. Mostly, the numbers here are small enough that they can be glossed over.

[Break]

actually i meant it like "if i have some free time and you figure otu the system some more (though by simply using a rather normal round-based RPG system where we substitute both classical HP and MP for Prana, and have it be both the life-gauge and the gauge every move is cast off- this could be fairly easy for just that aspect of the fights at least), i would go and basically try making a kind of arena-thingy for the fights with the RPGmaker. (though im no expert at it, but this much i should be able to pull off xD) luckily, most resources for effects are shared between makers, so i'd just have to adjust them a little in color and small details, and try getting or making some good-looking charsets for the characters themselves, and the res should be a piece of cake.

[LunarLegend]

Make a PnP-style RPG with all the number-crunching? Look, if I wanna play GURPS, I do pa off my income taxes.

Just because you can mathematically model all of this stuff does not mean it can become a playable RPG.

If you must, make a computer game of it. Factor in all the variables like circuit count, circuit quantity, phantasm rank, etc.

Make a street-fighter style brawler like a balanced version of unlimted codes, if ye must.

but no PnP. use Dresden Files RPG if ye must