New System Ideas

Idea 1: Revamping the Stat System

The stat system as it currently sits isn't bad, at least in my opinion, but it could see some tweaking. One of the main problems is that it doesn't express the raw capabilities of a character on paper, and it is somewhat difficult to gain power. The current four stats, however, do not require changing. They are fine as they are. That being said, I believe it necessary to add a sub-system to further give life to our characters. Furthermore, we must provide lengthy and incredibly accurate descriptions of each stat, and appropriate guidelines for our expectations. Additionally, upon a bit of perusing through the rules, I couldn't easily find a thread that explained stats properly or thuroughly.

Stats
Spirit Power: A measure of your Reiryoku pools. Individuals with a higher Spirit Power have greater attack capabilities with spirit based attacks.

Strength: A measure of your raw physical power. Individuals with higher strength are able to strike harder with their fists, swords, sometimes even their heads.

Defense: While not a stat in and of itself, your defensive power is equal to the higher of Strength of Spirit Power.
An individual with high strength could be thought of like Superman, flexing their muscles and/or simply shrugging off even the most deadly of blows. An individual with spirit power would focus their potent energies into a thin shield over their skin, absorbing the impact of blows against them. Neither is particularly more effective than the other without further techniques.

Speed: A measure of how dexterous and quick your character is.

Senses: A measure of how quickly and accurately a character is able to respond to outside stimuli. Energy sense, hearing, sight... They all fall under this. The caveat is there are certain skills that can help with having a low senses stat, like Battle Analysis

Skills
Skills have a rating between 1 and 4.
Rating 1: A novice, someone recently initiated.
Rating 2: Journeyman, someone with a fair bit of experience, could be considered a professional.
Rating 3: A master of this skill, one of the best of the best.
Rating 4: THE best. Generally only one character on the board will have a skill at this rating. They can always be challenged for their rating. It also implies a great deal of focus in that skill, it simply wouldn't be worth it for most characters to be that proficient. Exceptions to the former include the most powerful of entities. (Squad Zero, Captain Commander, King of the Quincy, High-lord Bount, President of the Humans, Primera/Segunda Espada, etc. )

I've taken the liberty of writing up descriptions for what I will call the 'mental' branch of skills. Just so you get an idea of what they'll generally be like.

Memory: How well can your character remember and recall things? Whether they be details in a recent or old battle, this skill is what allows your character not only to recall events of their life or bits of information they have amassed across their lifetime, but it allows them to do it quickly and with greater accuracy. Points in this skill would also allow someone to more quickly recover from abilities that tamper with memory and the mind.

Analysis: This skill is used for analysis of events, history, circumstance, and even certain aspects of combat. Depending on the points in this, your character would be able to either moderately or quickly and accurately analyze things that they see. Should your character see a repeating pattern, this skill would allow them to recognize and decipher it quickly. The same would apply to puzzles, ciphers, etc. Motives and people can also be quite well analyzed by this skill, and even weaknesses to the opponent in a combat situation. This is used for analyzing of text, of event, or of information and data. With a 1, one is not bad at it, but could be better. A typical high school student would have a 1. A 2 means someone has gotten far better at it, someone reaching adulthood. A 3 is mastery, and someone who is a strategist for the army or something of the like would have a 3. Sherlock Holmes is someone with a rating 4 in this skill.

Fearlessness: This skill essentially determines your ability to resist fear. At rating 1, your character can completely ignore everyday scares, jump scares from a movie being an excellent example. At rating 2, even the fear of death has lost its edge, only true harbingers of death can cause such characters pause. At a rating 3, the character can totally ignore any and all fear, including their own deep ones. An individual with a rating four in fearlessness stands as a shining beacon, their very presence and courage diminishes the effect of any fear causing effects.

Brutishness: Those with this skill are the most stubborn louts to ever exist. They make up for their general lack of common sense with sheer brutality and/or pigheadedness. Through this, they are able to resist illusions, hallucinations, drugs, and similar. A rating 1 in this skill allows a user to realize that they are trapped within an illusion unless they are greatly outmatched in strength. A rating 2 user further augments their ability to power through mental effects, and their sheer stubbornness allows them occasional glimpses towards the truth. (about 1/3rd of the time). A rating 3 allows the user to see through half or more of illusions, depending on their strength. If they are weak enough, they may be completely destroyed if targeted on someone such as this. Finally, someone at rating 4 is truly the most stubborn individual on the planet. They do not care if they are an illusion, they'll play along with your silly game and cut you down when you least expect it. Their minds are nigh impossible to fool or circumvent, only the most powerful of effects can even hope to pull the wool over their eyes.

Calm Mind: Those with this skill are extremely good at calming themselves in battle. Anyone with the correct personality can be calm and level headed under pressure. This skill is for taking that to another level. This can be used to focus at inhuman levels to block out distractions and act as if alone in the middle of the ocean. At rating 1, an individual is capable of filtering out background distractions with ease, taking a test in the middle of a noisy classroom without even acknowledging the distraction as existing. A rating 2 in this ability describes an individual capable of focus under extreme pressure, or distraction. A rating 3 in this skill is a ripple in the waves. Even in the heat of battle, blood spilling all around them, fires burning, women screaming... They are able to focus on their goal with perfect clarity. An individual with a rating of 4 radiates serenity. Their very presence serves as fugue for their comrades in arms.

Willpower:  This is the willpower skill. This is a skill used to resist giving in. People who use this can at higher levels gain help from the skill to overpower illusions, drug stimulus, and overcome their aversion to pain, hardship, trauma, and fear. Note that ranks in this skill do not give you the same level of effectiveness as someone more specialized (Brutishness, Calm Mind, Fearlessness, etc). Those with this skill can do the Naruto thing, and can just scream and power on through toward their objective. Rating 1 - 3 are linear progressions, the higher the rating, the more drastic a measure this skill can be used on. Rating 4 in Willpower is virtually unheard of. This is an individual who can halt their own death through strength of will, someone who is capable of inching forward despite half their body being missing. Of functioning despite the inky blackness that pulls at the edges of their vision.

Other: For the “Other” option in the Mental category, one can create any number of skills as long as they fall under the category of “Mental” abilities, i.e. abilities that use the mind. To submit an “Other” skill, include it during preapproval, and then make a note below your skills list to explain what the skill does. These must have use outside of battle.

Weapons
Martial Arts
Brawl
Pain Tolerance
Battle Focus
Battle Analysis
Other

Damage Recovery
Mental Incantation
Stealth
Keen Senses (Anti-Stealth)
Temperature Tolerance
Poison Resistance

Crafting
Stealing
Acting
Disguise
Leadership
Other

Idea 2: Trait, Free-Roleplay System

This system was proposed by my friend Glen, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a pretty good idea. This system operates under the idea that two people of equal rank who fight would reach a stalemate in almost any situations. One rank of difference implies a win-rate of approximately 75%, with two ranks or higher being nigh insurmountable. We have tried this before, however, I do have a tweak that I believe would work.

Traits: Every rank, a character gains 1 trait point. Possessing a trait allows the character to count as one rank higher in all situations where that trait is relevant. Traits can then be further augmented with another trait point, allowing you to count as two ranks higher in situations where that trait applies, this is the maximum. (I also toyed around with the idea of requiring the 2nd rank to be an even more specialized variation of the first trait, but wasn't sure. So I'll just leave that in parenthesis. ).

The traits I had in mind were those present in the skills system above. The other category would serve as a catch-all for anything a new member thinks of, pending staff approval. It would also possess some unique characteristics.

Athleticism: How fast and elegant can you move
Reflex: How fast can you react
Brute Strength: Raw physical prowess
Potent Spirit: Raw spiritual prowess
Toughness: This is not tolerance, this is more a measure of how much it takes to actually kill you; not how much you can ignore.

Analysis
Brutishness
Calm Mind
Willpower
Memory
Fearlessness
Other

Weapons
Martial Arts
Brawl
Pain Tolerance
Battle Focus
Battle Analysis
Other

Damage Recovery
Mental Incantation
Stealth
Keen Senses (Anti-Stealth)
Temperature Tolerance
Poison Resistance

Crafting
Stealing
Acting
Disguise
Leadership
Other

This is what I have so far. Obviously subject to change if need be.