ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG - a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay retroclone

Today, we look at the healing rules in ZWEIHÄNDER. Note while this does not reflect the final language in the book, but it does address specifically injury, wounds and how to recover. Specific rules for use of the Heal skill are covered under the Heal skill entry, and are not outlined here. Additionally, it has been condensed for clarity and does not include information for infection or the Critical Injury table.

Feedback and criticism welcome!


Healing Wounds
When you've been injured, you suffer from one of these four conditions. If you're not injured, you're Unharmed. You're Lightly Wounded when your Wound value is equal to 4 or above. If your Wound value is between 3 to 0, you are Seriously Wounded. If your Wound value is -1 or below, you're Critically Wounded.

Be sure to call out your wounded condition every time after you've taken tally of your Wound value after injury, but do not indicate what your Wound value currently is. This allows other players to visualize what your condition is without directly sharing the values. The only time you will indicate your current Wound value is if you've been Critically Wounded. Negative values indicate a more serious level of injury. Track your negative Wound value. The GM will tell you what the effects are of the Critical Wound, or once you are dead.

Wounded characters can only be treated successfully by the Heal skill once; the rest is up to the victim or use of magic. Critical failures on a skill test always result in harm, dealing 1 damage regardless of Toughness. Heal skill tests are always modified by a measure of circumstance, as indicated under the Heal skill listing (pg. 120) in the previous chapter. If left untreated, wounds can become infected if the GM is using the optional rules for Infection.

Lightly Wounded
Your Wound value is 4 or above, until your Unharmed. You mend 1 wound every day naturally, or your Toughness bonus if you do nothing but rest without interruption. If someone uses the Heal skill on you, you gain back a number of wounds equal to the healer's Intelligence bonus plus an additional wound on a critical success.

Seriously Wounded
Your Wound value is either 3, 2, 1 or 0. You mend 1 wound every three days naturally, or your Toughness bonus if you do nothing but rest without interruption. If someone uses the Heal skill on you, you gain back 1 wound plus an additional wound on a critical success.

Critically Wounded
Your Wound value is -1 or more. You suffer a Critical Wound from the Injuries table. You mend 1 wound every seven days naturally, or your Toughness bonus if you do nothing but rest without interruption. Critical Wounds can only be treated by someone with both the Heal skill and the Surgery talent. If someone successfully uses the Heal skill on you within one hour of being Critically Wounded, you are instantly restored to 1 Wound point plus an additional wound on a critical success. Otherwise, they mend you for 1 wound plus an additional wound on a critical success.

Let's take a look at a Starting Career at the end of Basic Tier. The Man at Arms is ready to move onward to his Intermediate Tier, and has made all of his necessary purchased such as Focus, Characteristic bumps and the four Talents.

You'll also note that the Career Traits, Racial Traits and Talents are typed up on the sheet for clarity's sake (as my handwriting is hard to read). Virtues and Vices are crossed out, as that will be a part of revision 4:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34934670/Man_At_Arms_Basic.pdf

Today, we look at Magic!

Priests, wizards, witches and hedgewise, there is a specific distinction between them through their Career Traits. Similarly, there are thematic differences. Whereas a wizard may be a battle mage, necromancer, demonologist or otherwise, clerics may be a battle priest, a simple monk, an initiate of a non-violent faith or perhaps the worshipper of a demon or grim god of winter. Whichever the case, those careers who possess either the Invocation or Piety skill may draw upon Spells.

Spells essentially function the same; the Asylum spell a cleric may have will work the same as the wizard's version. However, the way their invoked (through an act of contrition towards a god, a Faustian bargain with a demon or even harnessing the invisible ethereal) differ greatly. Wizard and clerics alike may succumb to corruption, insanity and far, far worse. Perhaps the cleric has attracted the favor of a good god (or even an evil one). Perhaps the hedgewise has suffered disfavor with a local nature spirit (and is punished in kind). Perhaps the warlock, who has struck a bargain with a demon of the underworld, gains a bonus to his rolls due to his Corruption Rating. Either way, all casters are able to draw from the same spell list. However, these same lists are "packaged" through different themes. The rules will include many different example packages, and show players how to create their own themes to match whichever direction they want to take their character.

----How Does All It Work?-----

All casters, regardless of their Starting Career, begin with a number of Magic Points equal to their Willpower bonus. This is considered a daily allotment of how many spells they may cast. Gaining back these Magic Points (MP) can be done in several different ways. Some GMs may simply require a good night's rest and prayer for clerics. Some GMs may require wizards to "remember" spells, following old school Vancian magic. Some GMs may simply let MP regenerate over a 24 hour period. Some GMs may require priests and the like to return to a place of worship or power and give an appropriate sacrifice to regain lost MP. The rules are built with this modularity in mind, and allows GMs to custom built whatever sort of magic system they prefer.

All casters, regardless of their Starting Career, must roll either an Invocation or Piety test to cast a spell. The difficulty is set by the GM, and modified in many different ways. Although some rules are codified (such as firing a Magic Bolt into ranged combat [-20% difficulty]), others are left to the province of the GM. The difficulty class can be hard in the case where a caster is on horseback or under duress, or it could be potentially easy if the caster is using a spell within a sanctuary or place of power such as standing stones, a ley line or even when "linked" together in ritual with other casters.

All casters, regardless of their Starting Career, are subject to Corruption, Favor and Disfavor. Some corrupting effects mutate the caster, giving them an abhorrent appearance. Some corrupting effects can augment specific sorts of spells. Favor and disfavor can come about when a demon, god or otherwise grants a boon (or a bane) to the caster's roll. These effects are always resultant in the addition of any number of D10. These D10 can be used in substitution of the hundred's spot on a roll. Here's an example:

Kailin is a battle mage. He has manage to accumulate a number of Corruption points over time, which has changed his appearance. Similarly, it has given him a certain amount of favor with a god of enslavement and punishment. Kailin attempts to cast the spell Bind Foe. The GM rules that the difficulty is hard, given the situation - Kailin's surrounded by foes, his allies are dead and he's Seriously Wounded. However, Kailin is casting a spell that's favored by his god - the Bind Foe spell can tie up foes with an invisible ligature. The GM rules that even though Kailin's test is a hard Invocation test, he can add 1 Favor die.

Kailin makes his roll and comes up with 54%. His target number was 44%, so he would have failed. However, he has the opportunity to replace the hundreds spot of 50 with 1 Favor die. He rolls his favor die, and comes up with a 3, thus rendering a new roll value of 34% - he succeeds! Essentially, Kailin was given a choice between the better of the 5 and the 3

As you can see, Favor can add additional dice. But what about Disfavor? It works much in the same way, but the player must penalize their roll with an additional D10. Let's assume in the case above that Kailin was suffering 1 Disfavor. Although he rolled a 54%, he must roll an addition d10. Although the D10 came up with 3, he must choose the poorer of the rolls between 5 and 3. He still failed!

So how do casters get Corrupted over time? By rolling pairs (or triples, or qradruples in some cases). Even though a caster may have 2 Favor dice, he can still gain corruption and insanity by rolling poorly. If a caster fails a die roll and he rolls doubles, he instantly incurs a number of Corruption Points equal to the face number. Additionally, the player then rolls on the Minor Corrupting Effects tables. If you get three matches, you roll on the Major Corrupting Effects tables.

As you can see, it's inherently dangerous to utilize spells, blessings or however you wish to categorize them. Some GMs may simply ignore Corruption Points, and have players roll on the Corrupting Effects table. He may even have the player roll on the Divine Anger Effects tables instead, depending on the theme he's applied to the caster. In all cases, the GM is given the authority to adopt a modular approach, all of which can be used exclusively or inclusively together.

For a taste of the most "minor" of magic, here is an early list of 1 MP spells for your perusal. Note that this does not reflect the final product: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34934670/Spells1MP.pdf

Hello again!

ZWEIHÄNDER is coming along swiftly. I began importing all of the copy into my templates last night. And while there are some minor tweaks in process, it's getting closer to completion. I have lined up my second artist to begin illustrating the 60+ careers. With a bit of hard work and luck, I believe this will be ready for publication by late spring/early summer.

Here's a sneak peak at the Combat section - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34934670/Combat_Test.pdf


Best,
Daniel

I really like the cover art.

A question though---does "universal game system" actually mean anything?

It's kind of odd to describe it as dark fantasy (specific genre), and then as a universal system.

Libramarian said:

I really like the cover art.

A question though---does "universal game system" actually mean anything?

It's kind of odd to describe it as dark fantasy (specific genre), and then as a universal system.

Click to expand...

The "universal" approach was to make it world agnostic, much like GURPS. Meaning, you could import it into your own homebrew, the Warhammer world, an adaptation of Lankhmar or others.

It's bi-line is officially now "Grim and Perilous RPG System", which lends a bit more weight towards the dark and gritty low magic system.

Very interested in this!

Wow that combat chapter looks really good, I like the art style.

So what are your plans reference releasing it? Kickstarter, lulu just PDF???

This looks very much like something I'd be interested in. Does this play more like WFRP 1 or 2e? Guns? Crazy crit tables? Insanity rules?

mhensley said:

This looks very much like something I'd be interested in. Does this play more like WFRP 1 or 2e? Guns? Crazy crit tables? Insanity rules?

Click to expand...

It definitely has an old-school feel like 1e, but employs the fluidity of 2e's rule set. Careers are fully intact, with a number of new ones as well. Insanity, fear, corruption, fatigue, disease, nasty critical effects - the gritty nature of WFRP is there with a vast number of improvements where I felt it fell flat.

I labored for months prior to the decision to develop ZWEI on the economy in my own homebrew. Those familiar with GURPs will notice some similarities. Similarly, I recreate old and new weapons, along with several improvements to how armor is handled.

Wounds now are a cinch. Initiative is very fluid - now, someone in armor reacts a lot slower. Ranged weapons have a better feel, more realistic ranges and can grow in damage, much like how Melee weapons do.

Careers feel a bit more "tactile", meaning they all function different through their unique Career Traits and the spread of skills. Much like the atypical D&D Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and other classes pre-4E feel different, so do the 60+ Careers in ZWEI.

Skills and Talents have been completely modified and changed as well, and all for the better. Some skills have been eliminated, while others have been combined. There are even new skills in place that WFRP was missing, which feel vital to the system.