Valiant Anima: The Heart of a Heroine (Magical Girl Quest)

[pdp]

[X] [NAME] Valentine Belleau
[X] [TALENT] Your outstanding work doing outreach and funding drives for disaster relief (SPIRIT, the Fellowship skill).
[X] [CLUB] The Mixed Martial Arts club, where you spar and throw down with the best of your class (VIGOR, the Empathy skill).
[X] [SKILL] Writing

 

[ThaTrueRealmWalk]

Okay, so got dragged here by Kermie (hi Kermie) and had a brief look through the current votes and the character creator.

Before I vote, due to my lack of knowledge on this system but my own GM instincts kicking in, I see that there are Skills connected to our choices.

So we would get Two Strong Stats + 2 Skills to start with that use said Stat, baring-

Okay I took a bit of time in the middle of this to find THIS
RPG Writeups — Valor - The Heroic Roleplay System
Seems to be a basic rundown of how the system works and YALL ARE WE THINKING ABOUT THE SKILLS????

Edit:
Right for those who need context-

Skills and Flaws are pretty darn flexible and make up a huge part of your character. Flaws are pretty self-explanatory, but Skills cover a lot of ground, covering - in D&D terms - things like Feats, Class and Special Abilities, as well as general advantages.

As typical for a merits & flaws system, many Skills and Flaws to pick come in levels for a greater effect (which in Valor's case in pretty much always a linear boost in power). Depending on whether the Skill or Flaw in question has a slow or fast progression, the maximum level you can take is either equal to your current Season/Tier or roughly twice as high.

As there are a quite a few Skills and Flaws that passively affect a character's combat statistics or grant other combat-related benefits or drawbacks, the main way Valor does buffs and debuffs is by temporarily slapping Skills and Flaws on someone, which stacks with existing Skills/Flaws and lets you effectively double your maximum level (as the (de-)buff is of course also limited by the level progression).
This means that, for example, anything that can affect your Defense in combat is bound to involve either the Iron Defense Skill or the Feeble Flaw. There aren't a whole lot of special cases, and those are just other Skills.

Click to shrink...

So in other words, not only are we choosing what stats we will excel in, but our starting abilities. I feel like we should be taking this more into consideration with our choices

 

[Kermie]

So in other words, not only are we choosing what stats we will excel in, but our starting abilities. I feel like we should be taking this more into consideration with our choices

Click to shrink...

By this logic, I think you should consider my build then. "Good at martial arts" and "kind and naturally caring" seem like good starting points for a Magical Girl.

 

[Zetakille]

So in other words, not only are we choosing what stats we will excel in, but our starting abilities. I feel like we should be taking this more into consideration with our choices

Click to shrink...

By this logic, I think you should consider my build then. "Good at martial arts" and "kind and naturally caring" seem like good starting points for a Magical Girl.

Click to shrink...

Alternatively, good TV Monitor Sir, if you want to be risky you could consider my build, which takes the "Balanced" option.

 

[ThaTrueRealmWalk]

By this logic, I think you should consider my build then. "Good at martial arts" and "kind and naturally caring" seem like good starting points for a Magical Girl.

Click to shrink...

I think so too, but I went ahead and looked at the variant skills atta-

Alternatively, good TV Monitor Sir, if you want to be risky you could consider my build, which takes the "Balanced" option.

Click to shrink...

Ah yes right- Balanced.
[] [TALENT] A wide variety of athletic and academic honors, none exceptional on their own, but impressive taken together (BALANCED, the Logistics skill).
Logistics is the only skill here that seems to have a trade off...

Wait hold on skill variants first before I continue that train of thought

The ones Kermie chose:
[] [TALENT] Your outstanding work doing outreach and funding drives for disaster relief (SPIRIT, the Fellowship skill).
[] [CLUB] The Mixed Martial Arts club, where you spar and throw down with the best of your class (VIGOR, the Empathy skill).

And their reflected choices
[] [CLUB] The Drama club, where you and like minded friends write and put your original plays (SPIRIT, the Performance skill).
[] [TALENT] An academic scholarship for the women's football team (VIGOR, the Athletics skill).

Athletics is also a good contender for a budding magical girl, and the ability to Perform could let us get away with a lot more in terms of getting into places or out of them to fight the dream monsters

And for that train of thought-
[] [TALENT] A wide variety of athletic and academic honors, none exceptional on their own, but impressive taken together (BALANCED, the Logistics skill).
Logistics, a skill that will force us to have a more balanced build with only one strong stats but... the Skill? I don't know if the skill it has can make up for that-

HOWEVER we have choose a skill of our own yes? While we can choose for this ability to be Writing or Model Building, both which can evolve into something more with time

There is nothing stopping us from choosing a skill already shown in the choices as our free be, no?

 

[griffinlw]

Seems to be a basic rundown of how the system works and YALL ARE WE THINKING ABOUT THE SKILLS????

Click to shrink...

I should preface this by saying I don't know how 1-to-1 this will be to Valor. But as someone who's played Valor (for a few months) most of Valor's skills are tuned towards combat because it is by and large a combat game. However, there is a group called "Challenge skills" which only exist to be used for skill checks (or as the game calls them, Challenges.)

I don't think logistics or performing will help us in a fight, but they'll give us new ways to solve challenges and interact with skill checks.

 

[ScorpioSting]

Logistics might help with group strategy, at least.

 

[Fabricati]

Never forget that the two qualities Moon Princess Of The Year 1994 were consistently shown to possess were a caring heart and a vicious throwing arm.

 

[Talia B]

So in other words, not only are we choosing what stats we will excel in, but our starting abilities. I feel like we should be taking this more into consideration with our choices

Click to shrink...

To a fellow valorhead, we're actually choosing starting Proficiencies using the Tools of the Trade optional rules - not Skills as in Feats/Perks, not yet.

I should preface this by saying I don't know how 1-to-1 this will be to Valor. But as someone who's played Valor (for a few months) most of Valor's skills are tuned towards combat because it is by and large a combat game. However, there is a group called "Challenge skills" which only exist to be used for skill checks (or as the game calls them, Challenges.)

I don't think logistics or performing will help us in a fight, but they'll give us new ways to solve challenges and interact with skill checks.

Click to shrink...

Exactly. Under TotT, you get three of these at character creation.

There is nothing stopping us from choosing a skill already shown in the choices as our free be, no?

Click to shrink...

Not a thing prevents you!

 

[minkhollow]

[X] [NAME] Heather Valentine
[X] [TALENT] An academic scholarship for the women's basketball team (AGILITY, the Perception skill).
[X] [CLUB] The Drama club, where you and like minded friends write and put your original plays (SPIRIT, the Performance skill).
[X] [SKILL] Writing

Yeah all right you have my attention.

 

[ThaTrueRealmWalk]

To a fellow valorhead, we're actually choosing starting Proficiencies using the Tools of the Trade optional rules - not Skills as in Feats/Perks, not yet.

Click to shrink...

I see I see- not exactly a Valorhead myself yet tho! I just rushed to find the system doc when I realized this was using a preestablished, if an abridged version, system. I'm tempted to read through this free online version of the PDF to find that optional rule, but good to know what exactly we are voting on!

I guess it would be wise not to shove to much into my head, no need to make assumptions when you may have changed it! Still I'll fish out that ruleset for others-
Actually never mind I can't find it- we'll be fineeeee we don't need a heads up

Going over the list with the knowledge though, my mind is wandering towards the choices as they lay and with this knowledge...
I can't say no to this
[X] [TALENT] Your outstanding work doing outreach and funding drives for disaster relief (SPIRIT, the Fellowship skill).
Out of every choice there, this here screams at me as something that will pay dividends later on. Be it either convincing an enemy we don't need to fight or to keep people calm... this is simply a very good choice for that- Sure it would be WONDERFUL to have perception or research- heck even Leadership would be great! But Fellowship and a boost in the stat that's all about making relations? That's magical girl 101

[X] [CLUB] The Mixed Martial Arts club, where you spar and throw down with the best of your class (VIGOR, the Empathy skill).
And as much as I want to throw in change here, especially since Spirit and Vigor don't mix to well from what I'm guessing, that Empathy skill would mix perfectly with Fellowship, probably allowing for us to be able to save people in their darkest moments- the theme behind this story is dreams bleeding into reality after all. The Survival and Strategy skills are sad to see go with this choice, but the harmonization here is too good to pass up.

As for the Hobby choice, I think I want to choose differently here.
[X] [SKILL] Research
Research is, by and large, a wonderful skill to have. Studying magic, learning about enemies, passing college exams? It's really useful and would help us not get stuck when we try to push the boundaries of magic and make new techniques... hopefully.

However, as I thought about it- One: Kermie you've accidentally built-up a good frame work for making Raye, and Two: the current popular build has some interesting things we could do.

For instance, with Model Kit Building, that may extend to, when we get the chance, equipment building. With us having a Vigor and Spirit as our starting stats in this scenario, the idea come to mind that we could make that work by including tech/equipment that takes advantage of our high Spirit to power themselves just from us as he get our hands dirty.

Honestly akin the a character idea I shared in Project Prometheus, someone who is hella stronk and relies on weapons to changer up how they approach a situation. Sure it makes it so they would have less mastery in abilities they use but that's made up for by the large range of skills they can deploy.

Thoughts for the next part of character creation I suppose

 

[Nerdorama]

[X] [TALENT] A wide variety of athletic and academic honors, none exceptional on their own, but impressive taken together (BALANCED, the Logistics skill)
[X] [CLUB] The go team, where you advance your skill in the pure strategy of the game against your peers (MIND, the Strategy skill)
[X] [SKILL] Model Kit Building

I'm gonna be real, the only reason I'm not voting VIG/SPR is because that's Deedee's spec in Talia's other quest and I like variety.

 

[AweStriker]

I see I see- not exactly a Valorhead myself yet tho! I just rushed to find the system doc when I realized this was using a preestablished, if an abridged version, system. I'm tempted to read through this free online version of the PDF to find that optional rule, but good to know what exactly we are voting on!

Click to shrink...

You won't find it there - "Tools of the Trade" is an expansion that's in early access.

Spirit and Vigor don't mix to well from what I'm guessing

Click to shrink...

Not true! As long as a Valor build has two high stats, it can work out. But then, this is coming from someone who's almost only played Strength/X builds for party balance reasons.

[X] [NAME] Heather Valentine
[X] [TALENT] An academic scholarship for the women's basketball team (AGILITY, the Perception skill).
[X] [CLUB] The go team, where you advance your skill in the pure strategy of the game against your peers (MIND, the Strategy skill).
[X] [SKILL] Writing

I know realistically the impact I'll have on the vote is little to none, but reading French makes my brain throw input mismatch errors. I'm also up for having her not be using the same two main stats as Deedee from Talia's other Valorquest.
AGI/MND is the "tactical superiority" statline, in particular, and I'm kind of interested to see what happens to a main character in a Persona-inspired quest that isn't socials-focused.

 

[ThaTrueRealmWalk]

I'm really tempted to change my vote now, I don't want to toss in another character with the same build in this QM's other work

It would be treading familiar ground and while we of course will have changes from that character, it's still familiar ground.

Anyone else have thoughts on treading familiar ground? Oh and for the folks here who know Valor much more, maybe suggesting what each stat line is considered would help to change up some votes? Having more knowledge can be convincing after all!

ou won't find it there - "Tools of the Trade" is an expansion that's in early access.

Click to shrink...

Ah thank you-

Not true! As long as a Valor build has two high stats, it can work out. But then, this is coming from someone who's only played Strength/X builds for party balance reasons.

Click to shrink...

Well if that's true, I wonder if there are any builds we can make here that won't work. Warning would be good too!

 

[Talia B]

Well if that's true, I wonder if there are any builds we can make here that won't work. Warning would be good too!

Click to shrink...

All builds can work: some builds have glaring weaknesses.

Vigor doesn't do anything for your spells or Stamina, and is terrible at ranges other than "melee."
Agility doesn't do anything for your magic and very little for your survivability.
Spirit is great for big booms, not so much for precision or survivability.
Mind is terrible at survivability and is better at single-target effects, with few options for crowd control.
Resolve has no direct offensive options.

 

[Nerdorama]

As more system commentary why not, here's some basic ideas of how stat combinations can be played. Bear in mind, when I call out weaknesses, most of them can be mitigated through other aspects of the character, they just take some extra investment in picking Skills or designing Techniques.

VIG+AGI: Pure physical attacks by default, with a variety of ranges and potential tricks in play. Main weakness is to energy/magic damage in general, and lower Stamina than builds that include SPR or MND. The soldier with a variety of weapons.

VIG+SPR: "The Goku" as it were, or in my personal opinion, the Ryu/Ken. A very balanced build with easy access to melee physical attacks and ranged or area-of-effect energy attacks, you can have a tool for almost any situation, albeit that tool will probably be a hammer.

VIG+MND: The battlemaster, as it were - something I haven't personally played, but similar to VIG+SPR in that it's a balanced build between physical and energy, but rather than the flashy ranged attacks of SPR, you have access to a variety of ways to screw with your opponent using opposed rolls, especially at higher levels. EDIT: Wait I did play this in METEOR, I've been in too many Valor games.

VIG+RES: Do you want to be an immovable physical wall? Do you want to dish it out AND take it in a big brawl? Do you want to not affect anything more than two meters away from your character? This build's for you.

AGI+SPR: By contrast, this is possibly the most offense-focused build available, with an incredibly wide variety of options for deleting enemies at range and a glass jaw matched by few. It's actually quite good just uh, word of advice for someone who played a RWBY-themed campaign, don't make 3/4 of your party this and MND+SPR or you're going to run out of HP in a stiff breeze.

AGI+MND: Nearly as many options to be artillery as AGI+SPR, but a lot more potential for trickery and control - the ninja/rogue build. Like AGI+SPR, your main defense is just not being somewhere they can hit you.

AGI+RES: For people who think that just because you're using a fancy rapier or a gun, doesn't mean you should lack in hit points. Only Stamina.

SPR+MND: The pure "wizard" build. No investment in physical defense, but you can do basically whatever you want with energy damage or trickery, and you'll have the highest stamina by default.

SPR+RES or MND+RES: I'm just going to summarize both of these as "do you want to be a spellcaster with hit points? Pick SPR for big spells and MND for clever ones".

 

[Kermie]

Ok then, I've definitely got some things to think about now. Maybe I'll swap to balanced.

Ah well. Going to bed now. See y'all tomorrow!

 

[Fabricati]

As someone who dearly loves tank builds there's a few interesting wrinkles here, but VIG+MND is a good, balanced decision that rarely has a time when it actively falters (which is why I picked it).

And there's definitely ways to partially compensate for these weaknesses inherent in your choices, but you do end up having to spend for them. Learning when and how to spend for them is part of ~system mastery~, and this is an abridged setup, so, not sure how much they apply.

 

[GrayGriffin]

[X] [NAME] Valentine Belleau
[X] [TALENT] Your outstanding work doing outreach and funding drives for disaster relief (SPIRIT, the Fellowship skill).
[X] [CLUB] The Mixed Martial Arts club, where you spar and throw down with the best of your class (VIGOR, the Empathy skill).
[X] [SKILL] Writing

 

[Silvis]

[X] [NAME] Valentine Belleau
[X] [TALENT] Truly exceptional grades and several college-level math and science courses (MIND; the Research skill).
[X] [CLUB] The Drama club, where you and like minded friends write and put your original plays (SPIRIT, the Performance skill).
[X] [SKILL] Model Kit Building

I cast FIREBALL!

 

[Iris-Iven-Ibis]

[X] Plan: definitely not a "marked for death" reference
[X] [NAME] Uozah
[X] [TALENT] Your outstanding work doing outreach and funding drives for disaster relief (SPIRIT, the Fellowship skill).
[X] [CLUB] The Hiking club, where you go backpacking in the wilderness on weekends (RESOLVE, the Survival skill).
[X] [SKILL] doing dangerous "non euclidean" enchantment research with your teacher and "teammates" much to their horror

The funniest part of this is that a mere idea that any character inspired by Hazou can take a hit

 

[Edgedancer]

[X] [NAME] Valentine Belleau
[] [TALENT] Your tenacity during the application process (RESOLVE, the Leadership skill).
[X] [TALENT] Your outstanding work doing outreach and funding drives for disaster relief (SPIRIT, the Fellowship skill).
[X] [CLUB] The go team, where you advance your skill in the pure strategy of the game against your peers (MIND, the Strategy skill).
[] [CLUB] The Drama club, where you and like minded friends write and put your original plays (SPIRIT, the Performance skill).
[X] [SKILL] Writing

Edit: Ah well, doesn't look like my primary vote is going to win.

Well, time to throw one more build out there. As for Res+Spi in general, well for one given the premise of fighting Inner Demons I feel like the mix of charisma and using your willpower to rally others is a good set up to help people actually stand up to their turmoil whenever the opportunity arises to compliment punching its physical representation in the face and just generally nice for making friends. In combat terms, casting big spells is fun and investing into endurance means we can just trade hits and last longer then the enemy. Right until we get allies, at which point we can use a mix of leadership and resolve rallying to help our friends keep the frontline, while we handle the nuking. It works good alone and even better with friends, which sounds great for a magical girl.

For the write in skill, honestly, I like Writing. It pair especially well with the drama club for someone that takes a hand at writing their own scripts for performances. Making a character that has good flair and then spreads it to their social circle strikes me as good fun.

 

[griffinlw]

[X] [NAME] Heather Valentine
[X] [TALENT] An academic scholarship for the women's basketball team (AGILITY, the Perception skill).
[X] [CLUB] The go team, where you advance your skill in the pure strategy of the game against your peers (MIND, the Strategy skill).
[X] [SKILL] Writing

I'm copying Awe's vote here, because I confess I like the idea of a highly technical fighter. It's not quite what you expect from the main character of a Magical Girl show. Usually, they're either the strongest or the one with the best 'special ability.'

The way I like to think of it, Vigor and Agility are the physical stats, Spirit and Mind are the mental stats, and Resolve is a bit of a special case describing willpower and your ability to heroically overcome the odds. On top of that, Vigor and Spirit are "brute force" coded while Agility and Mind are "technique" coded. While Vigor and Agility both cover most physical attacks and challenges, Vigor is likely to be overwhelming force while Agility is deftness and pinpoint strikes. Vigor brings down an axe or hurls a boulder, Agility is a stab with a knife or a shot from a bow and arrow. Spirit and Mind both cover energy attacks (whether that take the form of magic, technology, psychic abilities, etc) but Spirit is more likely to be a Kamehameha or explosive fireball, while Mind is more likely to be a laser blast bounced off a reflective surface or managing Fin Funnels to do the work for you. Resolve doesn't have an attack type, but you know exactly what it is. It's what every hero uses when they've been beaten to hell and back and somehow manage to stand up, or when a debilitating effect that should take them out of the fight is shrugged off.

Yes, I do think about Valor too much, how can you tell?

 

[SpoopyGhost]

[X] [NAME] Valentine Belleau
[X] [TALENT] Your outstanding work doing outreach and funding drives for disaster relief (SPIRIT, the Fellowship skill).
[X] [CLUB] The Hiking club, where you go backpacking in the wilderness on weekends (RESOLVE, the Survival skill).
[X] [SKILL] Model Kit Building

A wandering helper by day, an otaku by night.

 

[SeQuester]

[X] [NAME] Valentine Belleau
[X] [TALENT] An academic scholarship for the women's basketball team (AGILITY, the Perception skill).
[X] [CLUB] The go team, where you advance your skill in the pure strategy of the game against your peers (MIND, the Strategy skill).
[X] [SKILL] Writing