Moore would have laughed himself silly when the first level 1 giant rabbit had come out of the wood if he had the material parts needed for that. But the rest of the rabbit horde had sobered him a lot. He’d seen what mere level 2 dogs could do, and the rabbit horde was very obviously geared for war. He’d heard about rabbit-unicorn crossovers in JRPGs, even though he’d never played any with these, but even if those beasts were level 1…

He’d spent subjective minutes agonizing over the interface, trying to find a good way, any way, to enhance his team’s chances. But, ultimately, there was nothing he could do. Nothing had changed much since the fight in the ruins. He had no new skill to give immediately, not enough experience stored to allow him to tweak anything, not even raise Donnall’s Dexterity, which wouldn’t help anyway. So, in the end, he’d watched the fight, powerless to change anything in the outcome.

They handled themselves well, he had to admit. Nine rhino-horned rabbits, with two slightly bigger and higher levels and no elite. Multiple enemies were going to be hard, notably without a script to time waves or whatever. And First Aid had proved its value, finally.

First Aid

Requires: Empathy 17/Dexterity 16/Level 2

Effective: 1 × Dexterity + Level (adds 19 mana)

Passive: Your wounds clot (95)% faster

Active: Neutralize bone or organ trauma, up to (19) pounds, provided it occurred less than (19) seconds ago.

Active cost: 1 mana per pound of body mass stabilized

Everyone got 1200 XP, plus the 1200XP gain in the global pool, which was a significant amount, justified by the horde of creatures. Which meant a potential decision time, as time crawled to a near-halt and he contemplated again his team’s status. Milton’s near-death was showing Moore the need for more power, as soon as possible.

On one hand, he had just enough XP now banked to push one of the team to level 4. That would unlock a new skill point, improve existing skills, all that. He just had to decide out on who.

On the other hand, he also had XP to put into stats, unlocking additional skills in different stats. More diverse skills meant more XP earned – even more if the skills could be used out of combat – and an easier time improving everything.

Information wants to be free, but experience wants to be used.

He plunged into the interface, trying to make sense of the possibilities. He was unable to physically express his frustration. Most of it was the product of a 21st-century gamer, he had to acknowledge. You took for granted wikis and guides, the distillation of a thousand minds and builds, and all the immense data paraphernalia of the Internet, ready to help you should you need it. Moore just had the basic interface and a handful of horribly clumsy search functions. He had time… but he did not feel particularly smarter than he’d used to be.

Just a help pop-up would be nice.

As usual, the clunky system design offended him. It was like some indie developer’s choice, made by a single guy in his basement without people to tell him that the players didn’t think like him. At least, it looked like he had access to the descriptors of every skill that required at most one level or one stat point over what any of the four had. Even if the combos were impossible in practice due to the stats being from different people, he could see them in advance.

Or, he remembered suddenly, any skill he had seen. The Burning Body from back in the ruins was clearly outside of the bounds with its 19 Authority requirements, since Milton was at 17 only and the highest of them. If any of the Lepus had used a skill, it wasn’t very high level or maybe it was while none of the four was looking during the confusion.

Another source of frustration was the lack of communication. It wasn’t as if he could pick a skill, and expect them to adjust immediately. It did not matter if he tried to give Welter, say, a mace skill. If he kept using those commando knives, it would probably be wasted. And the big lug would probably not even be aware that he had one such skill.

At the same time, he could try to give him a knife-based skill, and then the man could pick a halberd or a whip, or some silly exotic weapon. That was the kind of fate Moore could see befalling his team.

Can I drop a skill already allocated?

It turned out he could, just like he could switch specializations. It did cost XP as well, but he could recover the skill point to reuse. The higher the requirements on the skill, the more XP you needed to spend to remove it, but you could do it. Slam was costing a mere 500XP because it just required 16 Strength, but Intercept was 1500 because it needed 17 Agility and a Level of 2… and it looked like Vogel’s First Aid was 2000. Due to 17 Empathy, 16 Dexterity, and Level 2. He could see the formula behind it, 500XP per point above the baseline of Level 1 or 15 in a stat.

But he could reverse any of his choices. It would cost, badly, but it was possible, and he could now not-breathe more easily. He still had to be careful, in order not to waste XP, but there was no hole he could dig himself into regarding the team.

Okay, checklist. Level first. Who needs one?

Johanna Milton at level 4 got two skills, both fire-themed, specifically requiring that level to unlock. Flaming Blade was based on Dexterity and Burning Ground was a second Authority one. The first seemed to provide an extension of the Fire Handling effect on any form of bladed item, while the other was a local area of effect spell. A bit limited, barely over 3 feet of radius around her at her skill level, but more useful, perhaps, as a defensive measure than even the Burning Body. It would consume her entire store of skill points, but, well, like XP, skill points were there to be used, and more than half of the magical skills were bound to Authority anyway.

Which, of course, meant you needed to be careful with Authority since each skill cost one point more than the previous.

The next best candidate for level 4 was Peter Donnall. It gave him access to Accurate Pierce, a good offensive skill, which he lacked thus far. And one that didn’t seem linked to specific weapons despite the name, and while they all seemed to favor commando knives, he still had the problem of weapon choices.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

At least, it did fit the rogue archetype, just on the name alone.

Welter’s only level 4-required skill he could find was useless. Passes was a strength-based skill, sure, but…

Passes

Requires: Strength 17/Agility 16/Level 4

Effective: N × Strength + Level (adds stamina)

Passive: Cannot lose your grip on a weapon up to (Eff) pounds

Trigger: Bypass any defensive skill of (Eff) or less.

Trigger cost: 1 stamina per skill difference

Discreet

DEX 16/Lvl 1

N=2

Battler

AUT 16/Lvl 1

N=1

That was a skill that made sense if you fought enemies that were using skills, but almost certainly useless in any other context. And with a mediocre multiplier, at least for Welter. Not that Donnall would get it any time soon, with his baseline 13 Strength.

Finally, Vogel had no useable level 4 skills. Oh, there were skills he’d noticed requiring level 4 that had a non-zero multiplier for a Fixer, but things like Water Walking, Cleanse Toxins or the Silence spell all also required stats she didn’t have yet. For now, that wasn’t the right choice, obviously. When he needed a new skill point for her, sure. But not yet.

As much as he wanted to raise Milton’s magical abilities and turn her into a prodigious sorceress, he had to admit that Donnall was the priority target for a level raise, given the limited XP. Milton used her current skill well, although a bit too berzerkish for a sorceress, while the only thing Donnall had for him was dodging attacks until he could finally use his weapon to puncture his target. This skill would help him achieve that. And he had to admit again, it did fit the archetype.

Accurate Pierce

Requires: Dexterity 17/Perception 16/Level 4

Effective: N × Perception + Level (adds stamina)

Passive: Enhance your effective Dexterity by up to (Eff/10) for skill checks

Triggered: Ensure that your attacks do not miss a vulnerable point if you strike within (Eff/5) inches of one.

Trigger cost: 1 stamina per inch above 1-inch displacement.

Discreet

DEX 16/Lvl 1

N=2

Battler

STR 16/Lvl 1

N=1

Despite that, it did not make the rest of his choices easier. By now, he knew he would probably have to throttle slightly his initial plan to immediately allocate skills to every stat for maximum XP earned. Any skill that relied on a stat required 16 or greater in that one, except the weird ones like Mana Sight and Gauge Endurance. Most of those stats that were currently at 14 or even 13 would be a pain to raise, requiring not only levels for the skill points, but an additional 3 to 6k XP just to get to the bare minimum requirements. And then, the hurdle was finding a good skill to complement the build, because if the scale for XP was following a Fibonacci formula, then he wasn’t going to have dozens of skills to give them. Not without them risking their lives on a daily basis to get level 20.

One miss, and it could be that one of his vistas to reality closed.

He quickly bit the bullet on both Tom Welter and Laura Vogel. They had reasonably good Empathy and Authority, respectively, and with one additional point there, he could give them a new skill matching their specialization. Raising just one stat didn’t require him to bite again into the global pool, and he had the skill points in both cases.

Vogel got a defensive support skill first, which would ensure that enemies would be a lot less dangerous for her, by causing them to “hesitate” and attack more cautiously and slowly.

Laura Anna Vogel

Female human, 18 years, 9 months

Fixer

Level: 3 (3000 XP needed)

43/91 mana (+14 per hour)

0 unallocated skill points

XP: 299 + 449

STR: 14

AUT: 16 (2000 XP needed)

Falter (35)

AGI: 15

PER: 14

DEX: 16 (981 XP needed)

First Aid (19)

EMP: 17 (922 XP needed)

Close Wounds (37)

For Welter, he had found a skill called Optimal Strike which was a bit different than most, as it scaled somehow with the target’s levels. And not negatively, which made no sense. Moore also had no idea how Strength-based attacks differed from blunt attacks. If the two were differently labeled, there must be a difference.

Optimal Strike

Requires: Strength 17/Empathy 16/Level 3

Effective: 1 × Empathy + Level (adds stamina)

Passive: Cannot lose your grip on a weapon up to (Eff) pounds

Triggered: Focused attacks increases any strength-based damage by (5×Eff+5×TargetLevel)%

Trigger cost: +1 stamina per target level.

Worst case… Welter’s Slam attack was very, very obviously a Strength-based attack since that was its stat. Those slams would be horrific to behold now, albeit expensive.

Which left finally the build of Johanna Milton. Raising her Empathy to 16 unlocked a defensive Fog Cloud… but that one used Authority as a primary stat. And she didn’t have a second skill point for Moore to invest for that one.

Raising her Agility unlocked two skills immediately. Tremor was another area-of-effect… but again, Authority-based. Stone Throw was the one that relied on the main stat, but he still hesitated.

Stone Throw

Requires: Agility 16/Authority 16/Level 2

Effective: 1 × Agility + Level (adds mana)

Passive: (Eff)% better sight

Active: Perfectly aim a stone of (Eff) ounces up to (2×Eff) feet. The heaviest useable stone within (Eff) feet is automatically drawn to your hand.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) inches from hand.

That was looking underwhelming as a ranged attack, and with a small multiplier to boot. Yet, now that Donnall was confirmed at level 4, he could see the staple of all real wizards, Fireball, was there, albeit a slightly longer way out.

Fireball

Requires: Dexterity 17/Authority 17/Level 5

Effective: 1 × Dexterity + Level (adds mana)

Passive: Grant bodily immunity to fire, up to (300 + 10×Eff) °F

Active: Launch a ball of (Eff) cubic inches of plasma up to (5×AUT) feet

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) feet crossed.

He really wanted to give her a ranged ability, but he wasn’t about to spend XP and skill points on an underwhelming skill. Yet, it unlocked another stat, leading to potentially an increase in XP earned… assuming that she realized she could magically pick stones and throw them.

Wait, how effective are the stones?

None of the skills dealt with hit points or whatever. Which, he thought, made sense given that the world he saw through his four windows had real physics – and biology, at least until magic affected it – and health points never made sense in terms of accurate settings. As he’d seen, a single well-placed hit could potentially kill.

Once again, he wanted to hit something in frustration. No guide, no help… and no hands or anything to hit inexistent walls.

Okay, I’m banking her point and stat XP again. For now. Worst case, I’ll use it in an emergency if she looks like she needs those Stones.