Techniques

Techniques are player-crafted combat abilities that define how attacks and spells work. They are created in Meditation Sanctum rooms.

Technique Properties

Every technique is built from four elemental properties:

The weight of a technique is the sum of all four properties, taking the magnitude of the two that can go negative:

weight = |caloric| + kinetic + |density| + cohesion

Caloric and density are bipolar — caloric runs cold through hot, density runs diffuse through dense — so a strongly negative value is as expensive as a strongly positive one. Kinetic and cohesion only ever run upward from zero.

Weight determines damage output and mana cost.

Technique Kinds

The Crafting Cap

What you can build is capped by one stat: strength for a physical technique, intelligence for a magic one. Two separate checks, both against that same number:

• Every property, on its own: kinetic, |density| and cohesion may each go up to the cap. |caloric| is always held to intelligence, whatever the kind, and a physical technique must have caloric of exactly zero.
• The total weight, which is the binding one: |caloric| + kinetic + |density| + cohesion may not exceed the cap either.

The second is what decides a build, and it is much tighter than the first suggests. At strength 2 the sliders each reach 2, but the total still may not pass 2 — so a weight-2 technique is the ceiling, not a weight-6 one. A craft that breaks either rule is refused as too complex to grasp.

This is a different limit from neural capacity below. The cap is how good a single technique may be; capacity is how many of them you can carry.

Neural Capacity

Characters have a limit on total active technique weight based on fortitude:

NeuralCapacity = fortitude * 10

Ten points of capacity per point of fortitude.

The sum of all active techniques' weights must not exceed neural capacity.

Burden

Carrying techniques is not free. Well before the cap, a crowded head starts to cost you — the penalties are graded on the ratio of active weight to capacity. Every technique a character knows is active — see the note on the active column below — so purging is the only way to lift them.

Where they bite:

• The reflex penalty is subtracted from your reflex when the game works out whether a blow lands, so a strained character misses more. It does not change turn order — only whether the blow connects.
• The cost multiplier raises the stamina a physical technique spends and the mana a magic one does, so a crowded head runs dry sooner as well as missing more.

The trade-off is the point: one heavy technique you can swing accurately often beats three you cannot. A weight-6 technique on fortitude 2 (capacity 20) is CLEAR; add a second and you are CLUTTERED at −2; a third puts you STRAINED at −5 and paying a tenth more for everything.

A craft that would exceed capacity outright is refused, so you can never go past 100% — STRAINED is only ever the 90–100% band.

Reflex Debt

Physical attacks accumulate reflex debt based on technique properties:

reflexDebt = (density / 2) - (kinetic / 4)

• Density increases debt (heavier techniques slow you over time)
• Kinetic decreases debt (lighter techniques)
• Burden cost multiplier further amplifies debt

Reflex debt reduces effective reflex on subsequent turns, making the actor slower in action order.

Primal Techniques

Each archetype starts with a primal technique - a system-provided default:

Primal techniques cannot be purged and serve as a baseline while the player crafts custom ones.

Purging Techniques

Removing a technique costs stamina equal to the technique's weight. This prevents rapid technique swapping and makes each choice meaningful.

Damage Formulas

Physical

baseDamage = weight x (1 + strength/100)

The stat scales the technique rather than multiplying it: a percent per point. Weight is what decides the damage, and strength is a modest bonus on top — at strength 4 a weight-3 technique opens at 3.12, not 12.

A critical multiplies that by 1.5x. Crits are earned by accuracy: a hit chance above 0.95 crits on the excess above it, so a character that cannot outpace its target never crits at all.

Mitigation is then applied against the defender's resistances and stats.

Magic

baseDamage = weight x (1 + intelligence/100)
manaCost   = weight x 1.5

Magic always hits and cannot crit, and its mana cost rises with weight.

Mitigation

Both physical and magic damage are mitigated by:

• Defender fortitude and intelligence
• Monster resistances (caloric, kinetic, density, cohesion)
• Attacker intelligence and strength (for penetration)

Monsters have per-biome resistance profiles. The default resistance profile is { caloric: 0, kinetic: 1, density: 0, cohesion: 1 }.