Abilities and Modifiers
Stats and formulas describe the baseline of what a character is. Abilities and modifiers describe what they can do with that baseline. An ability is an active thing — a spell, a power, a technique, a maneuver — that a character uses intentionally, usually at some cost. A modifier is a passive thing — a feat, a trait, a boon, a curse — that changes the character’s stats or behavior without being actively invoked. Most systems have both. Ishvana models them side by side because the line between them is fuzzy in practice — a racial trait might give a passive bonus and a once-per-day active ability, and you shouldn’t have to choose which bucket the trait lives in.
What an ability is
Section titled “What an ability is”Every ability has a set of properties:
| Property | What it means |
|---|---|
| Name | Display name — “Fireball,” “Shadow Step,” “Iron Will” |
| Type | Category — spell, power, feat, technique, attack, other |
| Tier | Level or rank, if the system uses one |
| Cost | Resource cost and amount — “3 mana,” “1 action,” “10 ki” |
| Upkeep | Ongoing cost per turn or round, if applicable |
| Duration | How long the effect lasts — “instant,” “1 minute,” “concentration” |
| Range | How far the ability reaches — “touch,” “60 feet,” “line of sight” |
| Cast time | How long the ability takes to activate |
| Action | Which action slot it uses — main, bonus, reaction, free |
| Tags | Freeform labels for filtering and organization |
| Prerequisites | Other abilities or stat thresholds required to acquire this ability |
| Effects | What the ability actually does, represented as a list of effect entries |
Not every system uses all of these. If your magic system doesn’t have action types, leave the action field blank. If you don’t track casting times, leave cast time blank. The fields exist so that systems that need them can express them — not so that every system has to fill every field.
What a modifier is
Section titled “What a modifier is”A modifier is a passive effect that alters a character’s stats, adds conditional bonuses, or enables special behavior. Examples:
- A ring of strength that adds +2 to Strength.
- A feat that adds +1 to all saving throws.
- A trait that grants advantage on social interactions with Karu characters.
- A cursed item that imposes -2 to Dexterity.
Modifiers are attached to a character’s stat block, not to the character directly. A character can have any number of modifiers stacking at once — magic items, feats, racial traits, spell effects, environmental conditions. The stat block’s effective values are computed by applying all modifiers in order on top of the base values.
Modifier effects come in several types:
- Stat modifier — Adjusts a specific stat by a flat amount, a multiplier, or an override. Override wins against other modifiers for the same stat.
- Pool bonus — Adjusts a resource pool’s maximum.
- DC modifier — Adjusts the difficulty of a specific check or category.
- Reroll — Grants the ability to reroll a specific type of roll.
- Narrative — A freeform effect that RulesLawyer can check against prose but that doesn’t affect the numeric stat block.
The narrative effect type is the one that matters most for soft-magic systems. You can express “this character has seen into the future and cannot be surprised” as a narrative modifier, and when RulesLawyer reads your prose, it’ll flag any scene where the character is surprised as a contradiction.
Cost types
Section titled “Cost types”Abilities usually cost something. Ishvana supports several cost representations:
- Resource cost. A numeric cost against one of the ruleset’s resource pools. “3 mana,” “10 stamina,” “1 spell slot.”
- Action cost. An action economy slot — main action, bonus action, reaction, free action.
- Time cost. A duration it takes to activate, in whatever unit the system uses. “1 minute to cast,” “10 minutes of preparation.”
- Narrative cost. A freeform cost that RulesLawyer reads as prose. “Requires a personal sacrifice,” “leaves a lasting scar.”
Most abilities combine two or more cost types. A D&D spell has a resource cost (spell slot), an action cost (action or bonus action), and a time cost (casting time). A ritual spell adds a longer time cost. A Sanderson-style magic system often has a narrative cost (“you forget a day of your life for each use”) alongside a resource cost.
Effects
Section titled “Effects”The effects list is where the ability’s actual consequence lives. Every effect entry has a type, a target, and a value or description:
- Damage.
3d6 fire damage to one target— numeric plus a type. - Healing.
1d8 + caster level to one target. - Condition.
Target is blinded for 1 minute on failed save. - Stat change.
Grants +2 to Strength for 1 minute. - Movement.
Teleport up to 60 feet. - Narrative.
Target perceives the caster as their dearest friend for the duration— pure prose, no numeric effect.
An ability can have any number of effects, and they trigger in sequence when the ability is used. The effects list is the part that RulesLawyer reads most closely when checking prose — if your Fireball is supposed to do 3d6 fire damage and your prose says a character shrugged it off unharmed, RulesLawyer will ask about it.
Prerequisites
Section titled “Prerequisites”An ability can require that a character already have certain other abilities or meet stat thresholds before they can acquire it. Requires Strength 15 and Martial Arts proficiency is a prerequisite. Requires the Fireball spell to have been learned first is a prerequisite.
Prerequisites don’t prevent a stat block from having the ability — they’re not enforced at the stat block level. What they do is feed the RulesLawyer and the ability browser, so that if you try to give a character an ability they haven’t earned, the system can flag it as a potential inconsistency. The enforcement is advisory, not hard. You’re writing fiction, not running a D&D computer game — if you want a character to temporarily have an ability they shouldn’t technically qualify for (a flashback, a magic artifact, a dream sequence), you can. The prereq check just nudges you.
Tags and filtering
Section titled “Tags and filtering”Both abilities and modifiers support freeform tags. “Fire,” “Divine,” “Ranged,” “Self-Only,” “Noble” — whatever labels make sense for your system. Tags don’t affect computation; they exist so you can filter and find abilities in the ruleset editor and on character sheets.
A large ruleset might have hundreds of abilities. Without tags, finding the right one is miserable. With tags, you can filter to “Fire spells that target a single enemy at range” in a second.
How abilities and modifiers appear on stat blocks
Section titled “How abilities and modifiers appear on stat blocks”When a character has abilities and modifiers attached, they show up on the character’s stat block in dedicated sections below the stats:
- The modifiers section lists every passive modifier currently affecting the character, with its source (where it came from) and its effect description. The stat values in the block are already the effective values with all modifiers applied, so the modifiers list is informational — it tells you why the numbers are what they are.
- The abilities section lists every active ability the character has learned. Grouped by type, filterable by tag, with cost and effect summaries visible at a glance.
Click any modifier or ability in the list to expand it to full detail. Right-click to remove, edit, or duplicate. Drag to reorder within the list.