Standardizing Buffs, Debuffs, DOT's, and Status Effects

Status Effects - First, let us sub-define this separately from the other possibilities listed.  What I am looking at here is something with a duration of an hour or more.  So diseases, many toxins, stun weapons, and a large variety of potential mental/spiritual ailments.  Using DnD terms, Dominate would qualify, since it lasts days.  Command would not, since it lasts in rounds.  The idea being, anything that lasts post-combat, whether it will eventually wear off on its own or needs external healing, is going to qualify. 

Now defined, ALL Status Effects require that the target's Vitality or Focus be reduced.  Different powers will have different thresholds, with some showing partial or negative impacts at 0, a few just on successful damage at all, but most will require reduction past the individual's Negative Focus or Vitality value.  So if Bob the Barbarian has a Focus of 2 this means bringing him past -2, to -3 or less.  That is your point of success, and whatever you are attempting to do is now a success when you reach that threshold.

It is important to note that all of these types of impacts are considered non-lethal.  So back to Bob, and his Focus is down to -3/2 from repeated attempts to Psionically Paralyze, Magically Dominate, and Spiritually Posses him - he is not dead.  He's even still be conscious, although he might be helpless due to psychic collapse (DM option).  If they continue to Paralyze, Dominate, and Posses him, the effects tend to start stacking on each other.  He's Dominated and Possessed.... but the Paralysis makes these two relatively useless.  Even if he's brought down to -40/2 however, he's still alive.  And even if someone comes along and does Lethal Focus damage, they would need to do enough Lethal Focus damage to qualify for a kill to get a kill.  So plunking Bob with 1 lethal Focus bringing him to -41/2 is irrelevant; but if he takes 5 lethal Focus after reductions then he is back in the danger zone (depending on the lethality of the campaign).  This is DnD consistent despite the extra avenues of damage that are being taken into consideration.

Buffs, Debuffs, and DOTs do not require reductions in Focus or Vitality.  These are instead short duration effects that impede (or help) the target without actually impacting them directly.

ALL require a roll to hit, either physically touching them (vs Avoid) or ethereally (vs Sanity).  I still dislike the auto-hit exception for the self too, and may do a follow up post on that, but for now we will streamline for casting on others.

Durations of these iterate on the target's turn.

Flaws

No one has requested Flaws yet, but I did conceptualize them from the beginning.  Particularly as a way of dealing with odder racial preferences.  So for example, a fire giant might have Ranks in both Cold Vulnerability (Flaw) and Fire Resistance.  As long as the two had equal ranks, they could potentially start as high or low as you wanted them to.  One would increase your DR to fire; the other would increase your damage from cold.  So pretty straightforward here.

Like many DnD feats, some Flaws have odder conversion rates than others.  However, seeing as how these have a scaling bonus based upon how many ranks you put into the Flaw, this also opens up a lot more versatility.  So a character with Near-Sightedness 1 would only have 1 bonus XP, but also only a -1 on Spot checks.  But if you really wanted to have a true vulnerability you could go that route also, and still get something positive out of it besides just a flavor faux pas. 

Exhaustion Rules

Intense Activity (like combat or sprinting or casting) can be maintained for a number of minutes equal to your Con+Know.  With an average human result of 4mins, this means that we should rarely have to worry about going from rested to exhausted from typical combat situations alone.

Moderate Activity or Work can be maintained for a number of hours equal to your Con+Know.  I have frequently used the example of the Defenders assault on HeKo City as a limit-tester, as that was hours of combat bleeding into days of combat.  It was combat, technically, but it also wasn't hard combat.  An intense activity can be downgraded to moderate if the character can still maintain consistent rates of success while operating at half their attributes.  So for the HeKo City example, if Two Moons and Ra could continue their kill rates at half Str and Div, if Abby could still tank the vampires at half Con, if Tex could still dodge the vampires at half Agility, and if Ben could keep floating in his armor at half Divinity...  then this might be considered moderate activity, and as a result could be continued for hours instead of minutes.

Low or Normal Activity, i.e. not sleeping, can be maintained for a number of half-days (12 hr cycles) equal to your Con+Know.  So most folks can go a night without sleep and still function okay.  Past two days though and its going to start getting rough.

Once you are past the point of exhaustion, you take Disadvantage on all d20 rolls.
Disadvantage means that whenever you would roll a d20, instead you roll two of them.  The better result is ignored and the lower result occurs.
There is no scaling Con and Knowledge rolls.  These have already been taken into consideration in the rather generous thresholds before this happens.
The rate of recovering occurs proportionally to the cause of the exhaustion.  So it only takes a couple minutes to recover from sprinting exhaustion, but it might take a couple days to recover from your no-sleep binge.  Exact circumstances can adjust these.
As always, skills can be taken to do better than normal at these things.

How long can you function while exhausted before collapsing completely?
Until you roll a 1 on a d20, regardless of task.  Once this happens your body and/or mind gives out completely and you collapse.  You can continue to struggle back to usefulness on your turn, which will be roll based, but which will quickly reach a point of unsustainability if pressed.

Standardizing Area of Effect Spells
I'm actually a bit surprised this hasn't come up as much as it could yet; although perhaps my surprise is unwarranted.  Our Multi-Targeting Stances have one clear and superior benefit that AOEs do NOT have: they only hit the targets that you select.  Your AOE Healing Aura is Not healing enemies; Your AOE Fireball is Not burning allies or even neutral third parties.  So in a way, this is the distinguishing factor behind what is an AOE and what is not.  Even Ra's juggling of 9 redirected fireballs is still only hitting friendlies when he rolls a 1.  Whereas AOEs by definition hit ALL potential targets within their area.

That established, let's look at defining Area.  DnD gives a clusterfuck of AOE options - cones, cylinders, spheres, lines, and sometimes even a series of cubes that can be ordered/stacked/put-in-series-in-any-way-you-want.  Some of these options, despite given full and equal attention in the "how spells work" section, are only actually used in one or two spells.  For that reason, let's start with the two most common AOEs: Cones and Spheres.
Cones are the most basic concept of an AOE.  The magic starts at a single point, emanating from the caster, and expands outward in a general direction.
Spheres can be slightly more complicated only because they do not always emanate from the caster.  They also expand outward, but in all directions rather than a general direction.
By Default, we are going to assume that all AOEs emanate starting from the caster.  If a player wants the emanation point to be elsewhere, they can take a separate skill to do this. 
AOE Targeting - AOE's can emanate from a different location than the caster, chosen at up to 10'/Rank away from the caster.

Back to Cones V Spheres. 
Since Cones are our most fundamental concept of the AOE, we will consider this the standard that metrics apply to.  So 4 Ranks in Cone of Cold => a 40' Cone doing 1d4+Div damage to everything in its range.  We could even apply the Ranks to the arc if we want; 4 Ranks = 40degree arc.  Personally however, I find this to be too tedious unless you are playing on a grid, and I would be much more lenient to the player hitting whatever is generally in front of them.
Spheres are impacting a larger area than Cones.  Therefore, the range of a Sphere AOE is going to be half that of a Cone.  5' radius/Rank.  The other metrics would be identical.  Unlike a Cone, I would also assume a Sphere to be hitting the center of the Sphere (aka the caster) as well, to remain consistent with most established examples.

AOE Shaping is another relevant skill to consider.  This has been established in this system for Korbos and is actually based on a DnD Archmage ability.  This is the skill that will allow you to make cylinders, cubes, or whatever special-snowflake-rhombicosidodecahedron that you have the Ranks to achieve.  1 Exception/Rank.  An "exception" can be as small as a single target or as large as a full plane.

That should cover all options for an "Instantaneous" spell, i.e. fireballs and healing.  The territory becomes a bit more convoluted for spells with durations, especially when source material games are internally inconsistent in this regard. 
We will standardize over top of their error with two examples: Blinding Sandstorm and Obscuring Sandstorm.  Both are extremely similar conceptually: A bunch of sand swirls around, giving penalties to hit for any attack that uses sight.  Rather than being internally inconsistent however, we will define both possibilities individually.
a) Blinding Sandstorm is a Debuff.  It impacts those that are in an area at the time that it was cast, and the effects linger regardless of where that person moves (sand is still stuck in their eyes) for its duration.
b) Obscuring Sandstorm is an environmental effect.  It remains where it was cast on the environment for its duration, and only impacts those that are within that area at any given moment.

Both will have potentially similar but potentially different rolls, depending on spell specifics.  For example, in "Obscuring" the victim is likely to use Perception to try to see through the effect; but in "Blinding" the victim is more likely to use something like Con or Knowledge to push themselves through the effect.  These specifics are left to the individual caster's implementation and can vary quite a bit; see rules on Debuffs.

It is also worth re-iterating the concept of a base spell DC (Gauntlet) as presented in White Wolf, since it's been a while since it came up.  Reality resists change; and this is worth remembering when it comes to the environmental effects.  Even if there is no one present, there is a base DC for casting any spell to be successful.  Now, in a high magic world, the DM might just arbitrarily set this value at 1 and leave it there.  That's DM prerogative and is very world-based (or could even vary by specific areas within that world).  More common worlds would be in the 6-8 range; whereas a low magic world could easily have insane DCs of 30+. 

Another tricky factor when it comes to the environmental can occur with multiple targets too.  Let's say we got a 20' radius dropped on 3 targets, Sanities of 12, 13, and 18; in a world with a base Gauntlet of 8.  The caster rolls a 15 to hit.  No problem on 3 of the 4; but what happens for the dude with a Sanity of 18?  Quite literally, he prevents the environmental effect from manifesting in his location!  Since an environmental effect (usually) only does a Sanity check at the time of casting, he can still move into an impacted area and be effected.  But by the same token, others could move into the area where the manifestation failed and be fine. 

Example DCs:
5 - Most people can do it most of the time (using a fork, reading a comic strip)
8 - Most Trained people can do it most of the time; untrained can do it after a couple tries (driving a car, casual video games)
10 - Most Trained people can do it most of the time; untrained people struggle (amateur sports, video games for gamers)
12 - Experts can do it most of the time; trained people struggle (low level professional jobs)
15 - Most people struggle to do it consistently (college sports, advanced math)
18 - Most people struggle to do it at all (degree level professional jobs)
20 - Only trained or talented people can do it at all, experts struggle (doctorate professions)
22 - Only experts or trained and talented people can do it at all (professional sports)
25 - National level exemplary status; only the best of the best can do it consistently
30 - Olympic winners only; even the best can only do it intermittently
40 - World Record

On MultiAttack

....

So here's a generalized approach taking all of this into consideration:
1. Multi-Stance - capped by an attribute (probably Guile or Agility).  This allows multiple "things," and acts as a global cap to all skills when in use (so for this example that's potentially a lot: BAB, unarmed damage, improved crit, etc)
2. A specialized version of this skill MIGHT apply to exactly one type of attack (TWF, cards, etc) and therefore also give ranks=attacks.  These are power-level exceptions however for examples simple enough to not require the next step.  They are not the standard.  Hence TWF and Flurry of Cards (as previously used) are potentially but not necessarily acceptable depending on DM fiat for that specific campaign.
3. Rapid ____ - this becomes a follow up skill that MultiStance references.  This is your standard method of giving ranks=attacks, and is attack specific.  So you could then take Rapid Cards, Rapid Unarmed Strikes, Rapid Init-Strikes, etc.

So as some examples:
4 ranks in everything => 4 actions in any combination of Cards/UnarmedStrikes,Init-Strikes,etc
Higher ranks in Rapid___ than MultiStance => useless cause MultiStance caps all skills when in that Stance.
Other than that, Multiple Rapid___ work at their Ranks=Attacks if only 1 Rapid___ is used.  
If multiple Rapid___'s are mixed, then total actions are capped by the lowest Rank of all of the Rapid___'s in the mix.

So complicated example:
BAB6, MultiStance5, RapidUnarmedStrike4, RapidInit-Strike3
A round of all Init-Strikes is 3x +5BAB
A round of all UnarmedStrikes is 4x +5BAB
A round of mixed strikes is 3x +5BAB

Summoning
By request, how would Summoning classes work in J8.  The basic concept will be simple, and has been used to some extent by both Korbos and Mark's abandoned thopter-swarm-dude.  The core skill (or skills) will involve the creation, invocation, conjuration, and/or most methods of creating a new creature out of ______.  This includes:
A necromancer raising bodies, either on the spot or through ritual magick
A DnD summoner creating imitation creatures out of aether (this includes DnD-style druids)
A golem or clockwork creator

This does NOT include circle magic (where you are summoning a specific and actual creature already in existence) or some forms of druidic summoning (where actual existing creatures in the region respond to your call).  
So our scope is focused on creating subservient creatures out of materials and/or nothing.  Not any method of teleporting or calling pre-existing creatures to your location.

This still covers a lot.  The necromancer in particular might have two skill trees for this - one where they are creating complex undead abominations in their basement, and another one where they start raising fallen warriors on the battlefield.  (Because the necromancer might use both types, we are going to focus on the necromancer as our example class going forward).
The primary difference between immediate summoning/creation, and those made over the course of hours/days beforehand, is one of duration.  
Those that are created/summoned on demand are subject to normal durations - it only lasts for Rounds=Ranks of the appropriate skill.  
Those that are made in advance may last indefinitely, with the more likely limit coming in on how many the creator can control at one time and/or material costs (including time).

So now we have a "creature," and we got an idea how long it lasts.  What are its stats?  Trash.  This is an extremely basic creature with 1's or 0's in its Attributes.  It has no base skills and only rudimentary functionality.  How do we improve this creature?  Typically, through skills.  If I want to increase my summons' accuracy, that's a skill, and it does apply to all of them.  Durability, damage, etc.  All of these can be their own indicators, and therefore their own skill to improve.  This concept can apply to both instant-creatures and lab-built.  
The only exception might be based upon using someone else's design to create a lab built creature.  This still fits the same mold of skill-based design (now you just have someone else providing their skill to the process, even if they are not there physically to do so).  This could hypothetically provide anything, but is entirely dependent on what the DM makes available in game.  

This method of stacking skills to improve all of them makes it extremely difficult to build up a single summons' effectiveness, but very easy to build a moderately competent mini-army.  If you are building the equivalent of a single-summons (example a 3.5 Pali summoning its Mount), then you probably want a skill specialization in summoning that exact individual - which reverts this example closer to the idea of summoning existing people even if the Mount does not actually exist.  For this specific example, I would treat it as more equivalent to a Leadership ratio like I've been using for the Fanatical Followers (or an animal companion).  Very undefined so far but relative power of the follower is limited by Ranks; and is deliberately undefined because it could vary quite a bit from one campaign to the next.

In my head the mental layout of this is pretty straightforward.  I'm not entirely sure how well I explained it abstractly, because a lot of times the details that make the explanations make sense are more tied to how the particular individual/class in question is doing it.  For Korbos, it was all improvements in computer programming and engineering that led to him improving his droids.  For Mark's thopter-swarmer, it was improvements in his fine-tuned control over his own nano-swarm that led to the bonuses that would have improved them.  As always, feel free to post questions as thou wilt.

Animal Companion

So on one side, we could treat the animal companion very much the same as the summoner skill.  The base companion has to be super basic (like all 1's in appropriate attributes, although unlike the inanimate versions it would have mental stats).  Then skills can be added to improve the summon as described above.  This approach is very appropriate for a specific type of animal companion, example Beast Tyrant from Gloomhaven.  Since the primary character is dumping all of their skill points into making their Beast awesome, they can just do so per normal skill rules plus the additions of the extra options provided for the summoner profile.  Build and specialize as thou wilt.  These options will still remain viable for the versions below, but are more unique and individual selections for the specialist attempting to get their bear to dance on a beach ball.

The problem with this method is it doesn't translate very well into some more basic animal companions, like the ones a DnD Ranger would have.  So first, we need to take a look at the primary skill:
Animal Companion
What do ranks in this equate to?  Loyalty?  Some equivalent of Hit Dice or Challenge Rating?  Skills?  I like the idea of this being a holistic skill to some degree.  But for the base skill, we will look at the BASE awesomeness of the creature.  Cause you can't get a sparrow and a pegasus for the same ranks, right?  And this NEEDS to be holistic.  A pegasus isn't even possible in some campaigns.  In one campaign, a sparrow might be surprisingly powerful because of its flight.  In another campaign, it might be less useful than a chipmunk because it's all underground.  

[-] Examples of Usual choices by rank

To Be Adjusted Per Campaign.  Most Fish and Reptiles can be assigned primarily by size and, if any, claws/teeth/horns

1 chipmunk, song birds, mouse, squirrel, toad
2 crow, rat, bat, hawk, monkey, owl, poisonous frog, weasel, badger
3 dog, horse, boar, cheetah, eagle, camel, cobra
4 bear, gorilla, crocodile
5 rhino, tiger
6 elephant, dire animals

Loyalty should be its own indicator to, especially since this entire post might be adaptable to Cohorts.  But this will be a separate skill.

Another separate skill would be "Tricks."  Tricks we are defining differently than Skills in that they are something that the animal would innately do.  The animal doesn't need ranks in the skills, because they are 1) intrinsic abilities of the animal's uniqueness 2) they will have a DC unique to them compared to other species (and likely far lower) and 3) the real limit here is the Trainer's ability to get them to do it on command.  So in this regard, Trainer's Ranks = number of Tricks their pet knows as appropriate to their species.  This might be capped especially, if you choose a slug as your pet.

The Trainer can still specialize using the normal skill system.  This can be done both with a skill that is or is not a potential Trick.  Example:
A bloodhound can intrinsically Bite, Bark, Move, or Track.  A lazy Trainer can just dump 4 Ranks into Tricks and be done with it.  The bloodhound can now do all of these on command.  With 2 Ranks in Tricks, the Trainer can pick two of them that it does on command, and the others it will only do if the DM thinks its natural for them to do so in any specific circumstance.  
The Trainer might be also want to specialize in Bite so that the animal has more than their Agility to-hit with.  The Trainer can choose Bite Attack as their own skill, and those ranks can increase the accuracy of the bloodhound's to-hit with their natural bite attack.  If the Trainer does this, it will remove it from their Tricks total (if any) even if its taken retroactively.  So someone can start with 3 Ranks in Tricks, and if they specialize in Bite Attack later, they free up an empty slot in their Tricks skill for something new to teach them.
The Trainer can also specialize in the bloodhound hopping through flaming hoops.  This is not something the animal would normally do, and as such cannot be taken as a Trick.  It can still be taken as a skill specialization.

Interestingly, I think that any specialization skill would continue apply to multiple Animal Companions, if any.  The Tricks one would not, because its a bond with the specific animal, and would need to be taken individually for multiple animals.
Also unlike summoning, multiple animals will require multiple Animal Companion base skills.  So the Trainer might take:
Animal Companion (my Horse Harold) 3 Ranks
Animal Companion (my Sparrow Chirpy) 1 Rank
Tricks (Harold) 2 Ranks
Tricks (Chirpy) 1 Rank
Attack Specialization 3 Ranks (both animals)
Jumping through Flaming Hoops (both animals)

Pursuant to our conversation on tiny bird stats last night, let's formalize the concept of "half rank" attributes.

So we'll say our Sparrow has Str 0.5 and Con 0.5.  Half stats never equate to any bonus to rolls of the corresponding attributes.  So the sparrow does not get +1 to Dmg (base dmg 0 unless it's beak is considered sharp enough for a base 1 natural attack), nor does it get 1 DR.  
However, these half ranks do count for calculating statistics.  So our tiny little sparrow will still have a Vitality of 1 from adding the two half attributes together.

All weapons have a Base Range and a Maximum Range based upon their identity, with the top one being five times the smaller.  A shuriken is 10'/50' and a laser sniper rifle is 1200'/6000'.  The character is at a normal bonus to strike up to the Base Range, then each multiple of that adds a stacking -1 to hit up until its Max Range.  
[Example: the shuriken would be -3 to hit at 35']

True Helpless and its progression have never been enumerated.

True Helpless is Avoid/Sanity both 1.  This most often happens when one is incapacitated due to significant Vitality/Focus damage.

We have also used the word Helpless casually for being immobile - examples timestop, sleeping, drugged.  Oftentimes Sanity would still be normal under these circumstances even if Avoid might be ruled circumstantially 1.

Unaware is the most noticeably different.  There are whole trees of sneak attack skills one could take to gain stacking advantages in these circumstances; but that's a course of study.  An unaware target is NOT inherently Avoid1.  Most often someone walking down the street is still at normal Avoid due to both alertness and unrelated random movements.  Same with Sanity in its own ways.