Support System

This page covers Support Levels and Bonuses, as well as the fourteen Elements and Affinities.

Support Levels

When two or more characters work together as a team, they build support betwixt themselves. Support levels progress from E to S, with E being strangers, D acquaintances, C a respected teammate, B a trusted friend, A a close friend, and S one who is considered family.

Whenever two or more characters solve a puzzle, win a battle, or complete a story arc, each character gains 1 support point tied to each other. Getting from E to S is a long hard road, but when the characters work together a lot, they will succeed at achieving an S Level. The following table depicts the number of support points needed to ascend to the corresponding rank:

As mentioned before, it takes a lot of time to build up to an S Level, and as evidenced by the table the lower levels are much easier to reach than the S Level. Thus, support is not built very quickly.

Support is primarily for player characters, but sometimes non-player characters may have built support between themselves; if so, this will start out at a certain level, and will not change throughout the course of the game. This is because non-player characters should not be involved in enough battles for the support level to increase: if the Maestro wishes to design a story arc that involves one or more NPCs all the way through, then an exception can be made, and non-player characters could be allowed to build more support, or the players could be allowed to build support with one or more NPCs.

If a boss battle involves more than one boss character, then these characters may have a support level built between them, but this is not required.

Support Bonuses

When two characters who have support built between them enter a battle, the characters receive Stat Increases at the battle's onset; there is no further effect later in to the battle. The stats that are increased and the exact numbers are determined by the two characters' Affinities: each of the fourteen Elements in Arpeggio doubles as an Affinity. Support bonuses are only applied to the two characters who have built support, but if one character has built support with multiple characters (who are all in the battle), then all of those support bonuses are activated for that character. On the other hand, that character's own support bonus is only activated once in regard to him- or herself. So, for example,

Bob has a Fire Affinity, Fred has an Earth Affinity, and Jim has a NatureEarth Affinity. Bob has built support with both Fred and Jim, but Fred and Jim have not built support with each other. When the three battle as a team, Bob will receive the stat bonuses from Fire, Earth, and Nature Affinities, but his Fire Affinity bonus will not be doubled, even though he has support with two characters. Fred will receive the Fire and Earth bonuses, while Jim will receive the Fire and Nature bonuses.

Unfortunately, if two characters have the same Affinity, they still only receive one dose of the support bonus: there is no circumstance under which it is doubled (or anything higher). However, the normal rules for Stat Increase combining do apply, meaning that, for example, if one character has an Earth Affinity and another character has a Metal Affinity, and the two have built S-level support, then they receive a Defense Power Increase of 50% for 5 turns (combining Earth's 10% for 5 turn with Metal’s 50% for 1 turn). If two characters who have support built between them enter a battle on opposing sides, then their support bonuses are activated, but become negative--so whichever stat would normally be Increased is instead Decreased by the same amount, for the same number of turns.

Elements

The elements are fairly simple to understand. To start, there are the four elements commonly found: Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water. In addition, there is also Lightning, Nature, Poison, and Ice. These are all borrowed from the Arpeggio RPG (with Soil being replaced by Earth, Thunder by Lightning, and Plant by Nature).

Adding on to that, from KV’s Totally Original* RPG, two new elements were added: Light and Dark. These new elements are also incorporated into the RPG.

Tacking on some more Elements, I have added in the following: Mind, Cosmic, Metal, and Plasma. Each element adds forth into the gameplay and increases the variety of attacks and attack types that there can be. Naturally, a variety of enemies will spring forth with similar Elemental Modifiers applied to them.

Affinity

Each player character has an affinity associated with them, which refers to a specific element that they lean mostly towards. Usually this is assigned by the Magnificent Maestro by looking at the character’s personality.

Each element has a specific set of characteristics given to it in order to help determine affinity:

Earth - steadfast, loyal, stubborn

Fire - hot-blooded, strong, determined

Wind - free-spirited, naive, anxious

Water - “goes with the flow”, calm, kind-hearted

Lightning - “jumps the gun”, quick-witted, antsy

Nature - caring, motherly, oblivious

Poison - cynical, sneaky, conniving

Ice - cold, fragile, quiet

Light - righteous, purity, unity

Darkness - evil, sinister, conspiring

Mind - worldly, knowledgable, attentive

Cosmos - solemn, majestic, “out-of-this-world”

Metal - calculating, robotic, aggressive

Plasma - free-form, unbound, all-around

Additionally, each affinity/element is represented by a Zodiac sign, except for Plasma:

Capricorn - Ice

Aquarius - Water

Pisces - Wind

Aries - Fire

Taurus - Earth

Gemini - Lightning

Cancer - Metal

Leo - Light

Virgo - Nature

Libra - Cosmos

Scorpio - Poison

Sagittarius - Mind

Ophiuchus - Darkness

The above is merely flavoring and can help determine a character's affinity more easily if need be.

Affinities help to determine the support bonuses awarded to pairs of characters and have no other effect. As with the answers to multiple-choice questions, the closest match to the character's personality should be selected, even if some aspect of the description is in direct opposition to said personality. It would be possible to give a character an attack that, for example, deals damage to the target using the Element of its own Affinity, but these kinds of abilities should be very rare.

The fourteen Affinities and their support bonuses are as follows:

Earth: Characters with the Earth Affinity will trigger a Defense increase of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 2 turns at C Level, 3 turns at B Level, 4 turns at A level, and finally 5 turns at S Level.

Fire: Characters with the Fire Affinity will trigger an Attack increase of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 20% at C Level, 30% at B Level, 40% at A Level, and finally 50% at S Level.

Wind: Characters with the Wind Affinity will trigger a Speed boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, then at 2 turns at C Level, 3 turns at B Level, 4 turns at A Level, and finally 5 turns at S Level.

Water: Characters with the Water Affinity will trigger either a Healing or SP-Recovery Boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 20% at C Level, 30% at B Level, 40% at A Level, and 50% at S Level.

Lightning: Characters with the Lightning Affinity will trigger a Speed boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 20% at C Level, 30% at B Level, 40% at A Level, and 50% at S Level.

Nature: Characters with the Nature Affinity will trigger a Healing boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 2 turns at C Level, 3 turns at B Level, 4 turns at A Level, and 5 turns at S Level.

Poison: Characters with the Poison Affinity will trigger an Attack increase of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 2 turns at C Level, 3 turns at B Level, 4 turns at A Level, and 5 turns at S Level.

Ice: Characters with the Ice Affinity will trigger an SP-Recovery Boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 2 turns at C Level, 3 turns at B Level, 4 turns at A Level, and 5 turns at S Level.

Light: Characters with the Light Affinity will trigger a Magic boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 2 turns at C Level, 3 turns at B Level, 4 turns at A Level, and 5 turns at S Level.

Darkness: Characters with the Darkness Affinity will trigger a Magic boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 20% at C Level, 30% at B Level, 40% at A Level, and 50% at S Level.

Mind: Characters with the Mind Affinity will trigger a Brain boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 20% at C Level, 30% at B Level, 40% at A Level, and 50% at S Level.

Cosmic: Characters with the Cosmic Affinity will trigger a Brain boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 2 turns at C Level, 3 turns at B Level, 4 turns at A Level, and 5 turns at S Level.

Metal: Characters with the Metal Affinity will trigger a Defense boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 20% at C Level, 30% at B Level, 40% at A Level, and 50% at S Level.

Plasma: Characters with the Plasma Affinity will trigger a random stat boost of 10% for 1 turn at D Level, 20% at C Level, 30% at B Level, 40% at A Level, and 50% at S Level.