As promised, we're going to dig into each of the playable characters today. To keep things simple for the demo, we'll just have four of them. Each will have just a few options in their toolkit: a weapon or two, a couple types of consumable items, one skill, and a few magical abilities each. This will keep things simple enough that the player isn't overwhelmed with choices, but still has enough options to adapt to different tactical situations. For right now I'm not going to crunch any numbers; we still need to get the concepts ironed out. Let's get into it:

• Slayer
  • Role: Offense
  • Resource: Souls (Each spell costs 1, regain 1 on landing the killing blow on an enemy.)
  • Weapons:
    • Straightsword: Medium speed, deals moderate laceration damage, high durability.
    • Pistol: Very fast, deals moderate penetration damage, but has to be reloaded after every shot. When firing silver bullets, the target's penetration and laceration defense is reduced temporarily.
  • Tactics:
    • Inspect: Examine an enemy to get essential information about its capabilities, tactics, and weaknesses (if any). Fast.
  • Shamanism:
    • Vengeful Roast: Deals a large burst of incineration damage to an enemy. Fast.
    • Spirit Binding: Stuns an enemy for a moderate amount of time. Fast.
  • Items:
    • Ointment (a handful): Heals an ally a bit.
    • Silver Bullets (a few): Slow, but reloads pistol.
    • Jägerbrau (just one): Deals a little damage to the user, but temporarily increases evasion, hit chance, and critical hit chance.
  • Slayer is fast and lightly-armored, has decent HP, and deals considerable damage. She relies on her ability to cripple enemies with silver bullets and shamanism in order to get the upper hand. Since in the demo the party will be facing skeletons, using her Pistol -> Straightsword combo will be important.
• Knight
  • Role: Defense
  • Resource: Favor (Doing actions in line with the Knight's Code grants favor, shirking it loses favor. Miracles don't cost anything, but require a certain amount of favor to use.)
  • Weapons:
    • Warhammer: Deals a large amount of concussion damage, but very slow.
  • Chivalry:
    • Protect: Temporarily block melee attacks made against an ally other than self and grants favor. Quick, but doesn't last long.
  • Theurgy:
    • Blessed Restoration: Heal an ally that is below 25% HP for a moderate amount. Slow, low favor required.
    • Renounce Evil: Stuns an enemy, but only affects monsters. Fast, moderate favor required.
    • Smite: Deals a moderate amount of radiation damage, but lose favor if used on a target that's not a monster. Slow, high favor required.
  • Items:
    • Bandage (several): Heals ally for a lot, but slow.
  • Knight is very durable, with high defense and HP, and serves as the party's tank. While her attacks (especially Smite) deal respectable damage, she's usually better served defending more fragile allies (e.g. Mage) instead of going on the offensive.
• Charlatan
  • Role: Support
  • Resource: Karma (Spend to grant a boon to yourself or others, use Gambit or engage in other risky behavior to gain it back. Karma can go negative, but you will gain the Bad Luck debuff until it goes back to 0 or higher. Each use of Fortune while Karma is negative will stack up more Bad Luck.)
  • Weapons:
    • Knife: Low laceration damage, but very fast and can inflict bleeding.
  • Tricks:
    • Gambit: Gain a little Karma and trigger a random effect. Some are useful, but most are not helpful or are even harmful to the user.
    • Dodge: Temporarily increase evasion chance. Quick, but only lasts until your next turn.
  • Fortune:
    • Loaded Die: Slightly increases an ally's hit chance and crit chance on their next attack. Can stack up to three times if the ally hasn't expended the effect by attacking yet. Quick, small Karma cost.
    • Four Winds: Increases ally's evasion chance briefly. Can be stacked up to four times if you're fast. Quick, but high Karma cost.
    • Red Dragon: Boosts damage on an ally's next attack, but cannot be stacked. Slow, moderate Karma cost.
  • Items:
    • Venom Cask (a few): Deals no damage, but can inflict poison on an enemy.
    • Ointment (just one): Heals an ally a bit.
  • Charlatan has low durability and damage, but relatively high hit chance and evasion. His abilities provide small but meaningful buffs to benefit his allies. They are also mostly very fast, allowing him ample opportunity to stack the deck in his team's favor in between their actions.
• Mage
  • Role: Control
  • Resource: Æther (A large pool of magic energy that is drained on every spell cast, but does not restore quickly.)
  • Weapons:
    • Quarterstaff: Deals low concussion damage. Slow.
  • Gloss:
    • Fulmination: Deals low electrocution damage, but fast.
  • Arcana:
    • Combustion: Deals moderate incineration damage to up to 3 enemies. Slow, low Æther cost.
    • Pestilence: Temporarily reduces hit chance and evasion chance of an enemy. Moderate speed, low Æther cost.
    • Abjuration: Stuns an enemy for a long time. Moderate speed, moderate Æther cost.
    • Vim: Temporarily increases an ally's hit chance and evasion chance. Fast, moderate Æther cost.
    • Vigor: Heals an ally for a large amount. Slow, high Æther cost.
    • Psychic Abyss: Temporarily reduces hit chance and evasion chance of all enemies. Slow, high Æther cost.
  • Items:
    • Healing Tincture (a couple): Heals ally slowly over time.
    • Disappearing Draught (just one): Greatly increases the user's evasion chance and reduces the chance of user being attack for a while.
  • Mage has poor physical stats across the board, but has a large selection of spells for dealing damage, debilitating enemies, and empowering allies. The slow speed of these spells and the extremely limited opportunities to recharge Æther require Mage to use them very deliberately, though.

That's it for now. Next time we'll look at enemies, and maybe start doing some actual math.