One of the paramount concepts of Tatha is the rank system.
Every ability, and archetype works on the same sliding scale rank system. Each ability or archetype has a ‘unit cost’. This is the cost for an increase of 1 rank. When creating a character this cost is spent in karma. However, this is only valid for the 1st rank. The second rank costs 2x the unit cost. The third rank costs 4x, the fourth 8x and the final rank costs 16x. All ranks work on a power-of-two scale.
This carries over into usage: Each ability has a ‘casting cost’. This is the cost to use the ability at the rank that you have on your character sheet. However, this isn’t the only choice that you have. You can increase the effective rank of the ability for this one time by increasing the cost by a power of two for each increase. This also works in reverse: you can cast at a lower level for less cost.
To read the following tables, if you’re purchasing a skill use the first table and look at the first column for the rank you wish to purchase and the row starting with the ‘unit cost’ to find the cost. For casting cost, follow the +N or -N headers to find the difference between the rank you wish to cast and the rank you have (+ numbers for when you are casting a higher level), and then use the row starting with your ‘casting cost’.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
+0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128
3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192
4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256
5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320
6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384
7, 14, 28, 56, 112, 224, 448
8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512
9, 18, 36, 72, 144, 288, 576
10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640
15, 30, 60, 120, 240, 480, 960
20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280
25, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
30, 60, 120, 240, 480, 960, 1920
35, 70, 140, 280, 560, 1120, 2240
40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560
45, 90, 180, 360, 720, 1440, 2880
50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
-0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1
2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1
3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1
4, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1
5, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1
6, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1
7, 4, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1
8, 4, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1
9, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1
10, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1
15, 8, 4, 2, 1, 1, 1
20, 10, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1
25, 13, 7, 4, 2, 1, 1
30, 15, 8, 4, 2, 1, 1
35, 18, 9, 5, 3, 2, 1
40, 20, 10, 5, 3, 2, 1
45, 23, 12, 6, 3, 2, 1
50, 25, 13, 7, 4, 2, 1
Many abilities like ‘Jump’ (listed previously in this blog), have multiple “Variables”. When casting an ability with multiple variables, the final casting rank of the ability becomes a ‘pool’ which you can assign to the variables. For example:
Drana has Rank 4 Jump. The 3 variables to jump are Distance, Form, and Unease. This means that she can spend a total of 4 points across the 3 variables: putting 4 into Distance means the other two are Rank 0. Or she could put 1 in each – which totals 3. If she does so, she casts that jump for less than the typical cost (around half), because it’s below her rank. If she wanted to have Rank 2 in all 3 of them, she would need 6 points, 2 more than she has. She could power up her Jump for that usage for a cost of 4X the normal casting cost to do this.
With variable abilities, one can rarely ever have a full-power-in-all-variables usage. It becomes all about tradeoffs and choices. But these are what makes a game.
Also this system is geared towards normalizing the relative effort of using an ability. Due to this, Tatha does not increase spell points or any of the pooled stats every level, because this is not needed – instead, the costs go down with mastery.
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