Levelling

[Tseng]

Okay this is the most frequently asked question between the left and right halves of my brain: How in this system do you level, select your skills/powers, earn new materia, and most importantly does any of this require a specific admins approval?

[Alexander THE GIRL]

I got carried away and wrote this:

Leveling Up and Selecting Abilities

Every ten posts you make are equal to one AP. You may spend one AP on one ability in the job class you chose when you created your character. You are expected to track these abilities in your character profile, and you may not exchange abilities you've learned for ones you haven't. Any abilities marked "Final Ability" can't be learned until after you've learned all of the other abilities for that class.

Also note that characters don't have abilities until you write that they do in your character profile. Setzer has more AP than anyone, but actually has no abilities because he's lazy and won't take the time to pick them. Of course, pretty soon Setzer could just write "all of them" and it would be accurate.

For all intensive [sic] purposes, there is no level up system. We used to have one, but that was when we handed out AP in clusters every few months. Consider FFI's system much akin to that of Final Fantasy II's. Nobody levels up, they just slowly get stronger as they travel.

It goes without saying, but a character may not spam posts like mad to raise their AP count. If you have a something to say then that's fine, and the OOC section is for fun and all, but don't post for the sake of raising your post count. It breaks the spirit of the system.


Class Changing

Once you've gathered 12 AP, you move on to the next class in the line (Bard to Oracle to Mediator, White Mage to Alchemist to Summoner, ect), and you automatically learn all abilities for the previous class even if there are more than 12 of them.

The exceptions to the above are the Summon and Villain classes. They do not automatically master anything at 12 AP, and must buy all abilities in any given class to get the one marked "Final Ability" for that class. This is the tradeoff for their being able to choose abilities from all job classes.

For the classes with less than 12 abilities, you still need 12 AP to class change. You'll just have to save it up.


Class Mastering

Once you've finished a class line (Knight, Lancer, and Samurai for example) you may start again on on another class line. This means at 360 posts you will have mastered your class line and may start at another.

For example, Vincent has completed the line of Thief/Gunner/Ninja. He's now chosen to move on to the Monk class line. He will retain all of his abilities from his previous class line in addition to those of his new one.

Once the Mime class is hit, there's really nowhere else to go from there. In the history of Final Fantasy Infinity, nobody has hit Mime. I believe our old Squall (now our Tiamat) got the closest ever. Now Setzer is the closest.


External Magic Sources

Materia, Magicite, Para-magic, and all other external sources of magic can be gathered. Techically. However, these are for story purposes only and are reliant on a character's abilities. For example, let's say you want the materia Fire. That's all well and good if you're a Black Mage who's purchased the Fire spell, but all other classes will not be allowed access to it. Likewise, anyone wanting the Cure materia needs to already have purchased the spell Cure as an ability, which means they need to be a White Mage or have been a White Mage at some point. The purpose of this is so that FFVII characters who do not innately know magic can still use it by finding materia. There is one exception to this rule, which will be covered in a moment.

Materia may be used by anyone from any world, but someone will need to teach them how to use it.


Summons

Summons called by the Summoner class will appear as a shade: a phantom form of the actual summon. They will appear, attack, and then vanish as they do in most games. If the summon being called is currently a player (for example, me), that player may choose to appear in person in place of the shade. They may then stay and fight FFX style.

Summons may be junctioned, FFVIII style, to greatly augment a character's abilities. However, only summons present as Guardian Forces in the FFVIII world would know how this process is accomplished. Thus, while Bahamut can junction, Ramuh can not. The character a GF has junctioned to will be enhanced with whatever powers that GF had in Final Fantasy VIII. The GF may then "hide" in that person's brain, and read their memories. Overuse of junctioning will result in long-term memory loss for that character. This character does not need to be from FFVIII.

A summon is capable of creating and handing out Materia used for summoning them. Shiva, for example, can hand out Shiva summon materia to those she trusts with it. Using this is essentially the same as the Sumoner class calling a summon, except that the character need not actually be a Summoner. In short, Tifa could summon Bahamut if she had the materia even though she isn't a summoner. This does not purchase the Summoner ability for that summon.

A summon is not capable of creating magicite without killing themselves to do so.


The Nature of The World

With the shift in worlds has come a shift in the nature of magic. Attacks that cover a wide area, such as a Grenade, the spell Ultima, or Bahamut's Mega Flare, are no longer selective in who they harm. This means that asking Kuja to cast Flare Star on those enemies five feet away is a bad, bad idea. This is to keep battles from being cheaply won by using flashy exploding moves on them, and to keep summons from being overpowered as players. Well, not players, but party members.

Also, for the purposes of practical application, Life and all related spells are for waking unconscious people. You can't bring back the dead with them. Zombie, on the other hand, is an interesting question.

[Alexander THE GIRL]

The preceding post has not been approved by the head administrator, Aerith, and is subject to change if she points out anything I got wrong.

[Tseng]

Thank you for all the information Alexander, I'll keep these thoughts in mind as I go through the game. In addition, I think the post will be great for other new players (pending Aerith's approval of course) because I really had no idea what I was getting myself into

However, I am curious as to whether or not we can run our own battle sequences then and thus find gear and/or information. As I'm pretty new, I'm not too worried about knowing too much regarding plot. Basically, can I throw monsters at myself so as to get more money, weapons, and preferrably give myself something to do at times?

[Fujin]

You definitely can run your own battles and throw mobs at yourself. You won't need to worry about money - as long as you don't abuse the privilege, characters are assumed to have whatever amount of cash is necessary at the moment. As for weapons, as long as you can cook up a decent enough reason for it to be there and come into your possession (this is, of course, relative to the power of the weapon) then it's more or less yours as well.

[Tseng]

Interesting, I'll definitely keep this in mind as well. You guys have been great with help on this stuff. I'm looking forward to running with you guys

[Fujin]

And now you have your first Ability Point! Now, before you actually select an ability, it might be best to really consider if you want to stick with Bard. Since you haven't dedicated yourself to the class, it's still possible to change if you want. If not, I would recommend either Life Song or Nameless Song.

[Tseng]

Actually that is what I was considering right now, I know the end result I'm aiming for is Tseng to become a Mediator because in all honesty what else did he do in FF7? However, the Oracle class and Bard class will take a bit of tweeking to make fit. Thief sounded good but when did Tseng ever *do* anything other than lead and provide information?

If anyone has a better suggestion I'm open to it.

[Alexander THE GIRL]

You do have quite a point regarding Tseng's abilities. However, a fun little tidbit regarding abilities that I left out is that they're very flexible. For example, you might think that it's pointless for, say, Barret to take the Knight class since he uses a gun. However, as long as it's feasible, any of the abilities of a Knight could be used by a gun user. The assorted break abilities could be Barret simply aiming for those pieces of equipment. Weapon Guard could be Barret bashing attacks aside with his rather large gun. Doublehand could be Barret holding the gun steady with his other hand.

So, if you're set on him being a Bard, you could take these song and dances and make them into inspiring speeches and intimidating threats. For Oracle, perhaps Tseng could come across assorted status materia during his day-to-day life.

Or, if you've changed your mind about Mediator, I'm sure you could come up with creative ways to have Tseng capable of most anything. He might not specialize in combat, but he is a Turk. I'm sure even the worst Turk is better than your average fighter.

[Tseng]

Interesting point you've made so far though I think I'll definitely be sticking with Mediator as an end goal, and besides Oracle abilities are just too nifty to miss out on. Though with your added information, I can defintely see him going down the path of Thief or possibly Black Mage (Thief for the charm ability and cool stunts you can do using Steal as a way to describe a disarm manuever and Black Mage for the Elemental Materia).

Now this begs a question: Can I get both Dancer *and* Bard powers or am I restricted to one or the other and if I am restricted how do I go about getting the other class's abilities?

[Alexander THE GIRL]

I don't believe there's any restrictions on that class. You're free to take any abilities you like from it. The only real restrictions on taking abilities are with the Final Abilities and with the Ninja and Samurai classes.

[Aerith Gainsborough]

I think it was a gender-based distinction, really. At least, I think it was in Tactics... I haven't played that game in soooo long lol. However, I think it's easier to adapt Bard than it is for Dancer. I mean, yeah... Bard "songs" could be inspiring speeches where as Dancer... well... I'm currently entertaining an image of Tseng in some bellydancer skirts. >D

It's nice to see someone use a less common job class, that's for sure.

Hmmm... speeches... I think that's what Mediator is... In fact... upon review (I'm really tired, guys), it looks like the two classes are practically the same. Quite a dilemma, it would appear. Fat lot of good I am...

SO I'm now taking Bellydancer Tseng to the karaoke bar and calling it a night.

[Alexander THE GIRL]

So males can't get dances? I may need to do some modifications to my profile. >.>

Also, yes, the job wheel could use some adjustments. I mean, Berserker learns Counterattack, but then Monk already learns Counter and Hamado. I actually happen to know that a certain someone is interested in submitting a revised Job Wheel.

[Aerith Gainsborough]

Go for it. This thing needs some serious overhauling, to be honest... (But it's better than it was...?)

I don't know. I think it's traditional to have male bards and female dancers... but if you want to dress in drag and do the hula (W00T Lion King!), that's all right by me. I'd like to see a giant robocastle do the macarena or something.

In other words... if a gunner can be a knight, why can't a dude learn to dance?

[Alexander THE GIRL]

Aaaaaaare ya achin' (yup yup)? Foooor some bacon (yup yup)? Heeeeeeeeeeeeee's a big pig (yup yup)! You can be a big pig, too. Oi! *runs away screaming*