Techniques
Player-made attacks, spells and passives, created in a Meditation Sanctum. Formulas: Reference: Combat and Reference: Derived values.
Finding a Meditation Sanctum
A room found in every biome. Standing in one opens its window; with Open room windows on entering off, its room button does. See Controls.
Creating a technique
Kind
| Kind | Damage stat | Hit roll | Mana cost | Reflex debt | Crits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Physical | Strength | Yes, can miss | None | Yes | Yes |
| Magic | Intelligence | No, always hits | weight * 1.5 |
No | No |
| Passive | — | Never swung | Reserves ceil(total active passive weight * 1.5) |
No | — |
Passive
| While active | |
|---|---|
| Mana | Maximum drops by ceil(total active passive weight * 1.5), in and out of a fight. Switching on pulls current mana down to it; resting fills only up to it |
| Resistance | Each axis resists on that axis, sign(p) * 0.025 * abs(p) / (1 + 0.025 * abs(p)) for p points (10 → 0.2, 40 → 0.5), added to equipment's under the same 0.1 floor and 0.9 cap |
| Kinetic, cohesion | Take less of their own damage |
| Caloric, density | Work as a socketed shard: hot resists cold but takes more from heat; dense resists diffuse but takes more from dense blows |
| Limits | No stat cap; neural capacity and mana only. A craft or Turn on that would reserve more than your maximum mana is refused |
| Fights | Changes apply from the next fight you enter |
Properties
| Property | Range | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Caloric | -cap to cap. Magic and passive; locked at 0 for physical | Heat and cold damage |
| Kinetic | 0 to cap | Reduces reflex debt; +0.4% hit chance a point |
| Density | -cap to cap | Dense raises reflex debt and costs 0.4% hit chance a point; diffuse the reverse |
| Cohesion | 0 to cap | Damage only: no effect on hit chance or reflex debt; met by the target's cohesion resistance |
Caloric runs cold through hot and density diffuse through dense; a negative value costs what its positive mirror costs.
The cap
Strength for a physical technique, Intelligence for a magic one; passives have
none. Bare stat: gear does not raise it. It limits each property (|caloric|,
kinetic, |density|, cohesion) and the total
weight, which binds first: at Strength 2, Kinetic 2 or Kinetic 1 with Density 1.
A craft breaking either is refused. A magnitude tracker shows the total against
the cap.
The cap limits how good one technique is; neural capacity limits how many you carry. A passive's sliders reach whatever capacity you have left.
Name and submission
A name is required and appears in the battle log. Meditate on Technique creates it: Technique memorized.
Weight
weight = |caloric| + kinetic + |density| + cohesion
Raises damage, magic mana cost, passive mana reserved and neural capacity used. The sanctum shows the draft's mana per cast, mana reserved or reflex debt per strike before you craft.
Strength or Intelligence adds 1% damage a point; Reflex multiplies a strike by
1 + reflex * 0.08 and a spell by 1 + reflex * 0.04. A technique spread over
several affinities meets the average of the target's resistances to them; one
concentrated in one affinity meets that resistance alone. See
Combat.
Neural capacity
neural capacity = fortitude * 10
Active technique weight may not exceed it; a craft that would is refused. At capacity, turn a passive off (Turn off in a Sanctum) or purge a technique; Turn on brings a passive back if there is room.
Burden
| Active weight / capacity | Status | Reflex | Debt and mana costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 50% | CLEAR |
None | None |
| Above 50%, up to 90% | CLUTTERED |
-2 | None |
| Above 90% | STRAINED |
-5 | x1.1 |
| Penalty | Applies to |
|---|---|
| Reflex | Whether your physical blow lands and whether it glances, turn order and escape; not damage |
| Cost | Reflex debt a physical technique adds, mana a magic one spends. Physical techniques spend no stamina |
No notice when a threshold is crossed; the weight total shows on the technique
list. At capacity 20, three weight-6 techniques are 90%: still CLUTTERED.
Starting techniques
Each character begins with two weight-3 techniques that do not count against neural capacity, so everyone starts at zero used. See Primal techniques.
Reflex debt
Physical techniques only.
debt change = (density / 2) - (kinetic / 4)
Dense builds debt and delays your turn; kinetic and diffuse density pay it down. It never decays on its own, and STRAINED scales each change by 1.1, up or down. Each technique button shows the change, and its tooltip the debt before and after.
Changing a technique
A technique cannot be changed once made, its name included. A heavier version means crafting it and purging the old one, which needs capacity for both meanwhile.
Purging
Delete beside a technique costs stamina equal to its weight. Primal techniques cannot be purged.
Primal techniques
| Primal technique | Kind | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Desperate Strike | Physical | 3 |
| Raw Spark | Magic | 3 |
Every character starts with both, labelled PRIMAL SYSTEM. They are held only while you own no strike or spell: crafting one removes them, crafting a passive leaves them, and losing your last strike or spell brings them back.
Resting
Rest here in a Meditation Sanctum.
| Vital | Rate |
|---|---|
| HP | 2 per second |
| Mana | 2 per second |
| Stamina | 0.5 per second |
Hunger and thirst recover too, more slowly. Resting stops once everything is full, on an encounter, on leaving the sanctum, or on death. See Reference: Recovery.