Fourth Life (toad) Mechanics (Patreon)

Again, sorry this isn't a chapter, there will be one later!

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There has been significant curiosity regarding HOW the system of this life functions.  Additionally, due to the feedback of readers - Patron and free reader alike - the system has changed somewhat from my original image of it.

This life's world - by its nature - requires a harder and more concrete system than her past lives.  Where a world has real numbers for levels and experience gain, that math must be consistent across all similar situations.

Skill grind and Stat gain are an integral tropes in monster evolution stories, as is leveling and evolution.  As all of these rely on the math behind them, you could say that having a system that is logical both mathematically and in the world is the key foundation of this type of story.

Which isn't to say that this HAS to be explained explicitly.  So long as the consistency is obvious in itself, the exact rules and formulae are not important to the average reader.  A particularly intelligence driven protagonist might derive them as part of the story, but otherwise the dry mathematics are mostly fine staying out of the story text.

Cadence, as a reasonably intelligent but not particularly driven protagonist (who is also wrestling with monstrous instincts at the same time) will not be exploring the math of this life in any depth.  However, as i have said above, a lot of people are interested in the exact system and so I will go into it here.

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NOTE: BALANCING THIS IS KINDA HARD AND THE EXACT NUMBERS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.  That said, the general ideas and concepts will all remain true throughout this arc.

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=CATEGORIES OF BEINGS=

First, and most importantly, all beings in this world are divided into four categories: SAPIENTS, MONSTERS, DEMIHUMANS, and ANIMALS.

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SAPIENTS are Humans, Elves, and Dwarves as well as any crossbreed between them.  Sapients are able to learn a large amount of Classes, (10 for Humans, 8 for Elves and Dwarves, 9 for Half-Elves or Half-Dwarves) but can not Evolve and do not passively gain Experience.

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MONSTERS are magical entities that cover a wide range of creatures.  Fundamentally, monsters are either mana mutated animals or creatures that were originally created from mana itself.  However, monsters have the particular quality of breeding true; which is to say if a normal squirrel mutated into a Blood Squirrel via mana exposure, the children of that Blood Squirrel would also be Blood Squirrels.

Practically, the most important feature of monsters is their ability to Evolve.  Monsters do not grow and develop naturally, an Infant Blood Squirrel - if somehow prevented from gaining experience - would remain an Infant until its natural death.  Rather, after acquiring experience (which they obtain passively in addition to through combat) and reaching Level milestones, they immediately Evolve into the next stage of their development.  This process also gives them access to powerful new racial abilities and massively increased Stats.

Monsters may Evolve into other species as well.  Depending on their species, Stats, and acquired Skills a monster may be able to Evolve into many other Species.  However, they can only Evolve a certain "distance" from their current species.

The Boreal Toad and the Kalif Toad are very closely related, so a Hatchling Boreal Toad could Evolve into a Young Kalif Toad because the "distance" is small enough that the Hatchling retains enough energy after the change to become a Young stage instead of a Hatchling.  However, changing from a Boreal Toad into a Witch's Newt is a further "distance" as a species and so the Evolution would be "horizontal" and the Hatchling toad would end up as a Hatchling newt.

Intelligent monsters are able to choose what species they Evolve into, but non-intelligent monsters are unable to choose.  When a non-intelligent monster reaches the threshold to Evolve they will seek out a safe place and then will Evolve into the species they have most acted like.

So a Hatchling Boreal Toad who endured a drought and survived might Evolve into a Young Kalif Toad even though the Boreal Toad was unable to choose for itself.

Aside from their ability to Evolve, the other thing to note about monsters is that they cannot gain Classes.  However, if they Evolve into a Demihuman they may take a Class and Evolve back into a monster while keeping that Class.  A monster that does this will keep their Classes but lose the abilities to remove, change, or consolidate them.

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DEMIHUMANS have the qualities of both Sapients and monsters and can be a considerably diverse bunch.

Like Sapients, they may take Classes, however most Demihumans have very limited Class slots and Class choices.   An Adult Goblin, for example, has a mere 2 Class slots.  It is worth noting, however, that more powerful and intelligent Demihumans will also have more Class slots; half-human Dragonkin have 7 Class slots and are the Demihuman race with the most Class slots.

On the other hand, they do not naturally develop and instead Evolve like monsters do.  After obtaining experience through combat or through their natural passive experience gain like monsters can, all Demihumans of Adult stage or above are intelligent enough to be able to choose their Evolution and may Evolve into different Species.  But not all Demihuman species are that intelligent in lower Evolution stages and they will only unlock the Evolution menu when they become intelligent enough to do so.  They are also unable to choose Classes until that time, although they do still have Class slots.

While they can Evolve into other species, for various cultural and practical reasons they very rarely choose to do so.  Culturally, monsters are seen as "lesser" and "evil" by most civilized Demihumans and most see taking a monster Evolution as a sign of degeneracy, madness, and possible evil intentions.  Practically, Demihumans intelligent enough to unlock their Evolution menu usually are either far enough along their own Evolutionary path that any side Evolution would be extremely costly or - if they are young enough that that isn't an issue - lack the strength to take level with any speed in a monster body.

Other practical considerations include having to wrestle with the monsters natural instincts and the fact that the ability to see another's Character Menu is extremely rare.
There is often no way to easily identify whether a monster is an Evolved Demihuman, and because monsters are generally killed on sight unless they are tamed, an Evolved Demihuman will almost certainly be attacked by adventurers and guards if they don't play the part of a tamed beast.

Finally, the most powerful Demihumans usually have no reason to Evolve into a different species.  A Dragonkin evolving into anything but a higher stage of itself is usually an incredibly poor decision because they are already blatantly superior to pretty much everything else.

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ANIMALS are everything else.  Animals do not Evolve, do not gain Classes, do not learn Skills, do not Level, and do not gain experience in any way.

Animals tend to thrive in mana poor regions where monsters prefer not to live but are almost entirely extinct in regions with normal to high mana concentrations.

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=CLASSES, EVOLUTION, and SKILLS=

Classes, Evolution, and Skills are the three primary methods to gain power in this world.  Each of them has their own particular quirks that have to be taken a look at separately.

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CLASSES are the main route to power for Sapients and many Demihumans.  Broadly speaking, anything that can be considered a job is probably a Class.  All Classes have unlock requirements, usually involving Skills and Stats but sometimes involving social positions, social interactions, and activities that the person might have taken part in.

Classes gain experience by performing actions related to themselves.  A [Chef] gains experience in their Class by cooking and a [Swordsman] gains experience by using the sword.  The amount of experience gained by an activity is determined by the amount of effort and difficulty that activity represents.  A [Chef] making bacon and eggs all day will gain far less experience than a [Chef] preparing an 8 course feast for the [King].

When a Class Levels the person gains Stats and may gain a Class ability.  Every Class has an ability that comes with them when they are taken, and after that abilities are gained at random Levels.

Just as a person may choose their Classes, they also may choose to remove their Classes to open up a Class slot.  Class removal also removes all Stats gained from Leveling the Class as well as all Class abilities except for one ability every 50 Class Levels.  The person removing the Class will not get to choose which abilities they keep.

Classes may change in several ways.  Class Evolution is where one Class has the option to change into another, where Class Consolidation is where many Classes merge into one new Class.  Classes usually Evolve in a way that makes them more specific.  A [Cleaner] might become a [Street Cleaner] or a [Swordsman] might become a [Fencer].  Class Consolidation, on the other hand, involves multiple Classes becoming one.

So a [Farmer] and [Animal Breeder] might become a [Rancher] or a [Squire] and a [Noble] might become a [Knight].

This process is fairly straightforward with the only thing to note being that a Consolidated Class will automatically be at a Level that means the person Consolidating their Classes will not lose Stats, even if that means that they gain some Stats in the transition, and that when several Classes are consolidated their slots are opened.

In the event that multiple Classes would gain experience from a single activity, the experience is split between them equally in all cases.

Demihumans, and monsters evolved from Demihumans that have Classes, split combat experience between their species Level and their Class Levels.

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EVOLUTIONS are how monsters and Demihumans development.  They obtain a passive one experience every day and gain experience from killing other creatures and Level their Species.  Upon reaching a certain Level that is dependent on their Evolution stage and also somewhat on their species, they are able to Evolve.

Any experience gained extra and above the amount required to Evolve is lost and the monster starts at 0 experience for their next Level.  Experience costs likewise increase with every Level.  Although there is some variation between species, most Species outside of Dragons or Insectile monsters have their Levels cost 10xp more per Level in their newborn and child stages, 20xp more per Level for their teen stage, and 40xp more during their adult stage.  Experience costs never reset and continue to grow with the monster.

All species that can Evolve have the ability to Evolve into the higher Evolution stage of their own species, however it is possible to unlock other options.  Each monster species has a hidden "distance" in relation from all other monsters, if a monster species is beneath a certain "distance" in relation to another monster species they are able to Evolve into that species if they have unlocked it by meeting the requirements.

Evolving to a higher stage is also a certain "distance" away which is generally below the max distance a species can Evolve.  This means that closely related species can Evolve into higher stages of each other instead of the same stage.

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SKILLS are a mixed bag.  The short version is that a Skill represents an activity like Sprinting, Digging, or Cleaning.  Like Classes, they gain Levels and experience based on effort and difficulty, but unlike Classes you can have as many Skills as you want.  Also unlike Classes, although they can give small percentage effective benefits per Level, they do not give Stats or abilities as they Level.

Skill experience is hidden, but effort, difficulty, and unfamiliarity of a task are known to be the most important factors in Leveling a Skill.  To give some examples:  [Maids] who clean the same place every day until they can do their job on autopilot will likely never go above Level 20 Cleaning and most will stay in the 10 to 12 range.  However, a [Chef] who works their way up from working as a street vendor to cooking for royalty might reach into the 50s.  On the other hand, starting from 0, taking a day Cleaning your house might bring you up to Level 3 Cleaning, while cooking nothing but bacon and eggs for the same amount of time would only raise your Cooking to Level 1.

Furthermore, every species and being has talents.  Talents are Skills that they Level much faster than normal and it is a hidden variable.  Monsters tend to have the same talents among their particular species (like toads level jumping faster) but intelligent creatures may have extra or different talents beyond their species.

Most Dwarves tend to be talented in Mining, Smithing, and Digging but it is absolutely possible for an individual dwarf to have none of those talents and instead be talented in Poetry.  Or that dwarf might be talented in Mining, Smithing, Digging, and Poetry.

Elves, Dwarves, and Demihumans all have general talents for their species, but humans have no set talents.  Each persons talents are different, and many humans consider their talents to be a sign from the gods about what profession they should work, but it is worth noting that not every human likes doing what they are talented in.

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=MONSTER EXPERIENCE=

I'll confess that I want to stop writing this right now and get to work on the next chapter, so this is a copy paste of an explanation that I gave a commenter. :p

1) you gain 10% of the total amount of experience the monster you defeated required to gain its current level. 

2) if the monster is above your level, you get 50% more experience. 

3) if it is below your level you get 50% less experience. 

4) for every evolution stage above you the monster was, you get 100% extra experience. 

5) for every evolution stage below you the monster was, you get 33% less experience. 

6) whenever you gain xp you must always gain at least 1 so. 

7) all fractions are rounded down to the nearest whole integer except when that would conflict with rule 6.

So a level 2 Hatchling Boreal Toad would have a base xp of 3 when killed but would only be worth 1xp to a level 3 that kills it because (3/2)=1.5 which is rounded down to one.