Starting Ranks

The average gamewide protagonist Character Point total has surpassed 265 points. So, characters are now allowed to start at Master Rank B without severely stringent justification, as the game has evolved to tell a different kind of story about magical girls further into their careers. (For more information on why this happened two and a half years into the MUSH, please see: Advancement)

For previously played Feature Characters, or unplayed Features who can be assumed to have been present but in the background all this time, Master Rank B is now easy to justify. And Original Characters who want to app as experienced and extraordinary veterans can now do so easily, as well. Master Rank B now spans an immense range of concepts, from Sailor Moon to Homura Akemi and everyone in between; the apprentices have begun to catch up to, and surpass, their mentors.

But what about players who want their characters (Feature or Original) to start at the very beginning of their careers?

Here's our favored option:

Although all characters now start with enough Character Points to be Master Rank B, they don't have to spend them all. We wholeheartedly recommend spending more like 220 CP on a character's combat mode, and starting at Master Rank C. Any initially unspent points do not go away, they're just banked until the player is ready to spend them, according to the pace of the character's on-camera growth. In the meantime, they can also increase their Character Point maximum just like anyone else. Finally, they can proceed to advance to Master Rank B at any time.

Doing so on camera allows this advancement to be a special event, just like how it was for older characters; defeating a major enemy, overcoming a major challenge, gaining a major power-up, is too much fun to simply skip outright. An out-of-character timeline of about six months allows for an accelerated 'first season' arc to play itself out. The Battle Fantasia plotstaff will prioritize GMing these events on request.

For example, Nurse Angel Ririka becomes played for the first time.

She is given 379 Character Points to start with, but elects to only spend 220 of them on a Master Rank C 'Nurse Angel' henshin mode. The extra points remain banked, and that bank continues to grow as she earns more points through roleplay. Over the next six months, her battles with her enemies, Dark Joker, are ongoing, and periodically she spends more Character Points up to the Master Rank C maximum of 264. Eventually her plot reaches fever pitch, and there's a turning point when she loses someone she loves very much.

At this point, she applies for Master Rank B, and her player spends all of her banked points (up to 369, the top of B) on this huge and dramatic increase in strength. Nurse Angel massively powers up in memory of her dead friend, defeats her enemy, and joins the ranks of the more experienced magical girls with this special story, all her own, under her belt.

It's also useful to remember that a Rank B is not totally dominant over a Rank C; the actual difference, in combat, between a one-rank differential, is more narrow than one might think. A Rank C can regularly beat a Rank B with either of superior luck or superior tactics. A Rank C needs both, generally, to beat a Rank A.

For more information, please see: Ranks, Antagonist Starting Ranks