Manual of Mican (v1)

Greetings! 

So, the game does have a tutorial at the start but I figured I should also make a separate manual. So I've attached a PDF of the relevant info (with some artwork), I may update it as needed but for now it should be a good place to start!

I'll also copy the text of the manual here for this devlog:

Welcome to Mican!

To best enjoy your journey please read the following adventuring tips:

Basic controls:

WASD: Freely move in four directions

Mouse movement: Freely look, unless in a menu

Left click: Interact with an interactable object (door, chest, etc), or select an enemy to target.

Right click (hold): Examine an enemy's statistics and traits

Space bar: Jump! Some abilities can enhance your jump height

C/ESC: Toggle the character menu, exiting any other menus 

Q: Toggle the quick spell menu

Alt: Toggle between the first and second action bars

1-7 keys: Use the ability associated with the chosen number on the ability bar

Tab: Switch between active characters. When in battle switches between valid enemy targets.

R: When possible, allows your party to rest and fully recover health. Resting does not cure Death/Vaporization. Resting will remove all temporary bonuses or penalties.

M: Toggle mini-map

MP

MP works differently in Mican. You naturally have 0 MP, with a maximum MP threshold determined by your Intelligence. As you use magical abilities or are damaged by magical enemies your body will channel more and more magical energy and thus your MP will increase. If it exceeds the max threshold you will take heavy damage based on the amount exceeded. That way you can always use spells, but you may not be able to survive channeling all of that energy!

Skills

Your skills determine how proficient you are. A novice in Sword with 1 point in the skill will do much less damage than a Grandmaster in Sword with 10 points, even using the same weapon!

Your skill rank also determines what abilities you can learn. You can gain ranks by training up your skills at the training hall once you put in enough skill points after leveling up. 4 points are needed to train to expert, 7 to master, 10 to grandmaster and 12 to legend.

Equipment

Never go into battle naked! Your equipment will be the difference between life and death.

Your armor value lists all of the physical and magical armor bonuses which reduces all incoming damage by a certain percentage. Resistances reduce all incoming damage of a certain type, more effectively than armor. For example, 10 points of fire resistance will lower incoming fire damage more than 10 points of armor.

Also be on the lookout for rare and powerful artifacts, whose names appear in red!

Character creation

Your characters' personal details will be filled out when you start the game. You can freely choose your name, class, pronoun, backstory and two bonus skills.

Your character's class determines their starting skills and statistics, but you have a number of points to add to their stats as you see fit. Vitality is a good place to start!

Any character class can learn any skill and use any and all equipment. The class merely affects your starting stats, skills, and the single class exclusive ability, which will be described now:

Class Special Abilities

Archer: Rocket Arrow- the archer fires an arrow with an attached rocket that does enhanced damage to the target and extra fire damage to anybody near the target- including the player characters!

Barbarian: Chowdown- the barbarian executes a vicious melee attack trying to eat the target. If the target is eaten the barbarian will regain some HP

Guardian: Prepare Armor- outside of combat the guardian will enhance the party's currently equipped armor, giving them bonus armor value for the next encounter only

Jester: Crack Wise- the jester makes a joke. The universe makes strange things happen when bad jokes are told…

Knight: Prepare Weapons- outside of combat the knight will sharpen and enhance the party's equipped weapons, giving them bonus damage for the next encounter only

Lancer: Defensive Jab- the lancer enters a defensive stance but also attacks a melee target with the spear, doing half of their normal damage.

Medic: Triage- the medic heals a single character to full HP, but puts them to sleep in the process.

Monk: Meditation- the monk meditates intently, recovering all of their HP and purging their MP buildup. This move has a very long recovery time.

Ninja: Smokescreen - the ninja throws a smoke bomb, attempting to blind nearby enemies. The ninja then hides, becoming less likely to be targeted by enemies for a short while.

Paladin: Inner Radiance - the paladin unleashes a portion of their spirit, damaging themselves but also doing energy damage to all nearby enemies and double damage to undead.

Ranger: Bear trap- the Ranger sets a trap on the ground which damages and immobilizes the first enemy who steps on it.

Rogue: Charming Smile- the rogue flashes a charming smile at nearby enemies, with a chance to confuse them into fighting each other.

Spellsword: Enchant Weapon- the spellsword enchants the currently equipped weapon of a single ally to do extra damage of a random type for a short time

Sorcerer: Magic Missile - the sorcerer conjures a number of missiles which then seek out random enemies currently in battle. The sorcerer's level determines the amount of missiles conjures

Monster traits

Monsters all have a number of innate traits, and many can have other possible traits randomly. 

Traits can greatly affect how an enemy behaves and performs in combat. For instance, an inspirational monster can choose to raise the attack power of all nearby monsters rather than attack. 

A voracious monster can try to eat a nearby monster to gain HP and attack power. 

An unstable enemy has a chance of transforming into another random enemy of similar level when attacked. 

There are over 70 traits in all, and their descriptions can be found in the bestiary after defeating a monster with the trait in question.