Why does God need people to fight for him and what are they fighting? (I don't know much about the whole "Left Behind" thing.
According to most premillennialists (aka those who view the book of revelation as future) God leaves the earth to the antichrist, and anyone left behind will have to fight to resist him, or be destroyed when Christ returns for his thousand year reign. I took that idea and said the same thing, "what would be worth fighting?" In this game you are mostly set out to gather a resistance force, and try to destroy the antichrist on earth. So, the players would be surviving the rise of the antichrist, and recruiting people, then trying to destroy his armies.
Seems workable enough. Are the players fighting demons during the apocalypse?
I have written six types of demons, and several other monsters as basic encounters. Some are NPC style spies or United World Police Officers. It all takes place after the "Godly" have been taken from the earth, but there was no apocalypse as some would see it, just a world leader who takes charge of every country without conflict. (The white horse in rev. as some would say)
So each class has a different total of points? Why not give every player the same amount of points and have class determined by where the players put the points?
I didn't actually try that approach. What I did was come up with a base number needed to make an average character, then gave some class bonuses for special features they needed to be used successfully. I also gave them higher restriction in play to try and balance their power. I'm still testing generation rules to see how to improve them.
Is it player vs player, or is "allowed to be on either side" a group decision before the game begins? What are the goals in the game for evil players? Are they playing Satanists or Demons? What are the "dungeons" in the setting? Hell?
What I mean by "playing either side" is characters can be made with evil outlooks (alignments). I didn't want to restrict game play via a rules set to only good -vs- evil, with all good characters. It is open to where you can create demon characters and, as a group, take the other side (not that I would). The goal of an evil group would be to hunt down the good guys (to be simple about it). The dungeon crawl aspect lies in the fact that it is set in the modern world, and we have so many sewers, underground military bases, cave systems, and subways that you could make use of them as a GM.
I don't usually play games with levels at all these days, and I assume that the majority of people not playing D&d or PF mostly play level/class-less games.
Can you elaborate on the combat mechanics? How are wounds handled?
If attacked, each successful hit will cause damage to your body. When you reach zero, you are dead (or see chapter one character creation). Once the character is down to one damage point, they can no longer fight, and are considered knocked out. If they are healed at any point they will be able to return to a fight in one round (see The Rules of Combat later).
To calculate body damage at creation, look at your strength and reflex score costs. Take the full value of the actual level the character has (A 2 Strength is worth 4 points and a 3 Reflex is worth 8 points). Now add the values together for your base score, say a 12. Because this will be a low number at creation, all characters get a 1d8 bonus roll. So add the roll number to the base and get your Body Damage.
EXAMPLE: You have a base of 12, and roll an 8 bonus. This will give you a 20 Body Damage.
After creation, when you raise your strength and reflex, you will add only what you spent in Experience Points to your total.
EXAMPLE: You raise your 2 Strength to a 3. This will add 8 points to your Body Damage for a score of 28.
Once you reach the maximum 7 in both attributes, you will reach your maximum Body Damage score of 516 (assuming you rolled an 8 for your Body Damage Bonus). No PC or NPC can have more than this maximum score.
Weapons have a set damage. exampe: Claymore Damage Value 13. Add your strength score to a melee weapon for full damage (strength of five would give you 18 damage per successful hit)
The characters have a repel roll to use (at their option) to deflect an attack. If that roll fails, body armor can stop the character from taking damage (it has a point value ex: 24 point armor vest will absorb an 18 point blow, but will be reduced to a 6 point vest until repaired).
Bladed and blunt attacks will cause bleeding damage. This must be stopped with first-aid after a battle, or with "combat healing" skill durring battle. So a character can bleed out if they take too much damage.
I don't think it's too restrictive for a very focused game, but it's not the type of system that would sell, me, personally on the game, if it wasn't combined with a setting I was very interested in. Can you elaborate on the setting? If the game is ostensibly about Christians left on earth by God (after the apocalypse I'm assuming?), why have the option of players as evil characters? What is the endgoal of players in the setting? Are they like the priests in The Omen series devoted to hunting down the antichrist and his minions? Do any aspects of the book of Revelations come up in game? Are there going to be the Four Horsemen roaming the Earth? Do angels intervene? For that matter, since God has his heavenly host of warriors, why would he "enlist" humans to "fight" in the apocalypse (which God assumedly was the one who kicked off?) How does this setting differ from scripture and common interpretations (besides of course the Book of Revelations referring to the fall of Rome and not an actual End of the World scenario)? How does magic play into the setting, or different denominations?
They are dedicated to hunting down the antichrist and his minions. Like the matrix (good movie by the way) you would o into the world and try to free people from his grasp, as one aspect of gaming. You could always play as demon hunters, or tactical radical factions that attack nwo sites to cause kayos. I tried not to force any one style of role-play in the game rules.
Magic lives as Godly or Demonic powers. You can be spell casters of two varieties, and the forces of the antichrist have similar powers to throw right back.
In the game set-up God has abandoned the earth, leaving only a select few to fight for him. All the faithful (except some asked to stay) are gone, but we are given one last chance to save ourselves. In the end He may still destroy everything, but we get the chance to change His mind.
Sorry if that sounded preachy, I didn't know how else to put it.
Thanks for the comments so far!