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Grounded/Stats
Leveling and Stat Growth
Upon leveling, every character gains a point with which they can upgrade a particular parameter of their stats. Depending on the level, there are different kinds of stat point that are available to upgrade your stats with. It is possible to hold off upgrading particular stats, as well as being able to reset point buys so you can re-specialize should you find your choice of stats not satisfactory.
Every 5 levels, you will gain 1 of 51 Aspect Points. The three Aspects are BODY, MIND, and SPIRIT. When you receive an Aspect point, you can assign it to one of these Aspects, which increases all stats governed by that Aspect.
Every 3 levels, except those which are multiples of 5, you will gain 1 of 68 Aptitude Points. The 6 Aptitudes are STRENGTH, CONSTITUTION, INTELLIGENCE, WISDOM, DEXTERITY, AND CHARISMA. When you receive an Aptitude point, you can assign it to one of the 6 Aptitudes, which increases all stats governed by that Aptitude.
Every other level, you will gain 1 of 136 Amplitude Points. The 10 Amplitudes are DETRIMENT, ARDOR, WARD, MAR, IMPETUS, AEGIS, ALACRITY, SCHISM, CADENCE, AND BEWILDERMENT. When you receive an Amplitude point, you can assign it to one of the 10 Amplitudes, which increases that stat.
The Three Aspects each contain Two Aptitudes, which in turn have 1-2 Amplitudes within.
The Stats
BODY - One's physical capabilities, represented by the might of their swings and their natural heartiness.
- Strength
- Detriment - Bonus physical damage on attacks and abilities.
- Constitution
- Ardor - Health, which increases survivability.
- Ward - Armor, which reduces incoming physical damage.
MIND - One's mental capacity, represented by the force of their magical capabilities and their connection to the powers of magic.
- Intelligence
- Mar - Bonus magical damage on attacks and abilities.
- Wisdom
- Impetus - Resourcefulness, which decreases the amount of your class' resource pool(Mana, Fury, Ego, Cunning, etc.) you consume when using abilites.
- Aegis - Magic Resistance, which reduces incoming magical damage.
SPIRIT - One's being and nature, represented by their awareness of self and surroundings and their personality and how they carry themselves.
- Dexterity
- Alacrity - Attack speed, which increases the rate at which one attacks.
- Schism - Armor penetration, which ignores a percentage of an enemy's Ward stat.
- Charisma
- Cadence - Cooldown reduction, which increases the rate at which one can use abilities by making them refresh more often.
- Bewilderment - Magic penetration, which ignores a percentage of an enemy's Aegis stat.
Building characters through stat growth
Let's say that we've got a party of characters.
- Alan is playing a level 29 Guerilla, soon to be level 30.
- Ricky is a level 26 Warlock, heading on to 27.
- George is in the skin of a Gendarme, level 28, and will soon be at 29.
- And their friend Marcia has just started playing with a Bard, but they're powerlevelling her, so she's only level 15.
Now let's say that they were all within 20,000 experience of their next levels, and slew a mighty boss monster at the end of a randomly generated dungeon. The cut of the experience from the entirety of the dungeon between the four players is thus 20,000 experience.
Alan hits level 30, and gets an Aspect point for hitting 30, which is a multiple of 5. Though 30 is a multiple of 3 as well, he does not get an Aptitude point. He may use this Aspect point to level one of his three Aspects. Though he's playing a Guerilla, who usually focuses on dealing as much damage as possible through attacking and harassing enemies with hard Crowd Control, he decides that he wants to put his Aspect point into his Body to make his character more tanky, as well as the extra physical damage he'd get out of it. Alan assigns his point to Body, which increases his Strength and Constitution by 1, and in turn increases his damage, health, and armor, all in one neat package.
Ricky has just reached level 27, and is rewarded with an Aptitude point for hitting a multiple of 3. Ricky's warlock is a solid spellcaster that benefits from being able to debuff large amounts of enemies and then focus them down individually. To ensure that his buffs are always cost efficient and that he's not instantly chewed up and spit out in combat, he decides to use his Aptitude point to put up his Wisdom. This not only improves his resistance to magical attacks, but also reduces his mana costs slightly.
George gets to level 29 and receives just an Amplitude point. George's Gendarme is a mobile tank that likes to draw aggro and benefits from being able to take punishment, but in that fight he took a little too much damage for his own comfort, so he's leaning towards using this point to increase his Aegis stat. This point goes into his Aegis, increasing his resistance to magical attacks, but nothing else.
Marcia, the lucky duck, has just hit the motherload; Marcia has leveled from 15 all the way to 20. This only puts her at 2/3 the level of her highest level friend, but for it she gets 3 Amplitude Points, 1 Aptitude Point, and 1 Aspect point. Now, Marcia is still new to the game, so she has spent the last few levels putting faith into the game to assign her stats for her, so she hits the button and lets the game spend the points to effectively make her character better. The computer puts up her Mind to increase her magical capabilities, ups her Charisma to make her magic hit harder and cooldown faster, and then assigns the three single stat points into health to make sure that even with low defenses she isn't chewed up and spit out instantly.
All of these players are exhibiting particular playstyles, and are using the stat points they're given to help better them at their desired fields. The assignment of your stats is, at the end of the day, all up to you, but if you don't trust your judgement then there will be an auto-assign option for you that'll fill out your stats according to the default role of the class you've chosen. If you wish to explore different setups with different stats, then you'll have to customize the stat growth and builds to suit your needs.
