A Dark High Fantasy RPG

I've been reading the Walking Mind blog recently and absolutely love the ideas presented there: http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/category/4e/

I definitely am thinking in a similar way about big Talents rather than little feats, "adrenaline" generating mechanics within combat, Druid magic power as being bound to the land (his M:tG green mana is in line with what I'm thinking), and tiered/upgradable spells & rituals.

Maybe the Novice/Joyrneyman/Master divide (or however many categories that breaks down to) could be applied across the board to skills, fighting styles, spells & rituals, and other aspects of them game.

I've been honing the skill system and finally it's shaping up into something I am happy with. I based it on the premise that I want characters who are better at things to often just succeed outright, and also to encourage players to use their creativit to leverage a situation to their advantage.

A skill check is d20 + you skill rank bonus + whatever ability modifier is appropriate

Skill rank bonuses are Untrained (+0), Trained (+4), Expert (+5), and Master (+6).

Here is the Table of Difficulty vs. Skill Rank:


It may look complicated but the premise is really simple: When you attempt a task of equal Diffiuclty to your Skill Rank, you must make a skill check (always DC 15, it's a flat math game as far as skills, attacks, and defenses go). If you attempt an easier task you automatically succeed. If you attempt a task one Difficulty rank higher, you fail unless you have an advantage (in which case you make a check). You automatically fail tasks two Difficulty ranks higher.

I talked about upshots previously (added benefits that occur on a roll exceeding the DC by 5+), those apply here. Also, a character who would get an auto-success but wants to roll in the hope of gaining a an upshot is free to take that risk.

And that's it in a nutshell

EDIT: So, what the odds of success on skill checks (and remember some are auto-success or auto-failure) work out to, with an ability modifier of +0, is:

• Untrained: 30%
• Trained: 50%
• Expert: 55%
• Master: 60%

And those odds with an ability modifier of +4:

• Untrained: 50%
• Trained: 70%
• Expert: 75%
• Master: 80%

Quickleaf said:

Skill rank bonuses are Untrained (+0), Trained (+4), Expert (+5), and Master (+6).

Here is the Table of Difficulty vs. Skill Rank:

Click to expand...

Looks good, but you can eliminate that table. It will slow down gameplay. You already have the infrastructure you need:


Add DC bonus to 10 (using Forry's d20, right?). The performer adds skill to d20. Beat the DC, beat the task. If the DC bonus is greater than the skill bonus, the performer requires advantage. If DC bonus is one less, equal, or one greater, roll. Anything less - auto success.

That saves you a table. But if I were you, I'd tinker with the actual bonuses a bit more.

[MENTION=6685730]DMMike[/MENTION]
Thanks for the comment Yeah, the table is just meant to be training wheels, a quick way to help understand a concept until the players get basic idea. I wouldn't expect it to be actually consulted in play more than a few times during session #1.

The paragraph right after the table describes the system entirely actually.

And the problems with the way you've redone it is that:

(a) There are supposed to be impossible tasks that you just can't do. This is not 3e / core d20 with infinitely ascending DCs. There is no check possible for an attempt to jump 200'. "Impossible" is meant to be a reflection of that, with the caveat that under extreme unusual circumstances, a GM can make such a check possible to a Master-ranked character if it makes sense in the narrative. For example, say the epic level heroes are on the Plane of Elemental Air fighting on whirling floating rock islands; then a PC with Master-rank Athletics or Acrobatics might be able to "leap" (more like "fall" or "ride the winds") 200' down to another rock islands provided they can gain advantage is some sort, e.g. like the spellcaster using Gust of Wind to propel them or Calm Winds on the intervening distance to make the impossible possible.

(b) By returning to a numbered DC scale you've allowed any character to make any check. Part of what the ranked system is meant to do is restrict that in order to preserve character niche and game-world logic (Nobody Sneaks Better Than the Ranger/Rogue, for example), to have a built-in way for handling "pile-on skill attempts", and to encourage/challenge/reward players to think up ways to gain advantage (so that they even have a chance of making a check!).

I've been thinking about barbarians. Just read a great OSR Gaming blog about the OD&D Barbarian in White Dwarf and an article from Dragon called "The Real Barbarians." Good stuff!

I want to distinguish barbarians from fighters, and am also thinking about tailoring the classes toward my campaign setting (dark high fantasy, political intrigue, Renaissance era arms/armor, Celtic/Welsh undertones blended with Mediterranean culture/myths).

Like all my my classes so far, the barbarian has 3 core features: Rage, Tribal Origin, and Uncanny Awareness.

Tribal Origin ties the barbarian to a tribe from a specific geography (aquatic, mountains, steppes, wastes, woodlands); it provides a slight advantage related to that terrain, a bonus proficiency, and advantaged Survival checks and certain kinds of saves in that terrain. For example, a mountain barbarian would have immunity to altitude sickness, proficiency with climbing kits, and their saves vs. cold and Survival checks in mountains would both be advantaged.

Uncanny Awareness makes the barbarian hard to get the drop on. At heroic tier, the barbarian does not suffer disadvantaged defenses when surprised or fighting enemies they can't see. At legendary tier, the barbarian cannot be flanked and is immune to extra damage that triggers when his defenses are disadvantaged (e.g. sneak attack). At epic tier, the barbarian can't be surprised at all.

I've been thinking of reworking Rage into some kind of Barbarian Trance, reflecting that barbarians enter an altered state of some kind when going into battle (though perhaps not exclusively limited to combat) Rather than have have Rage be based on limited uses per day, I think this is a great opportunity to use a "limit break" design to distinguish the barbarian's uniqueness. A "limit break" is video game speak for a powerful ability that only becomes usable once some trigger is met, usually dishing out or taking damage. Right now I'm thinking of incorporating something like a blend of 4e's powers, Pathfinder's rage powers, and 13th Age's escalation die into rage powers that the barbarian can use only once really worked up. Something not unlike this guy's "Fury" ability (not I have not played Diablo 3 or any version, just think it sounds likes good way to model a barbarian from a game design perspective).

I know the hideous transformative "Riastradh" (I've seen various spellings) of the hero Cu Cuchlain inspired the barbarian's rage ability in 3e. What I like about broadening the concept from "being really pissed off" to "being possessed by instinctual forces" is that it opens the room for Warg-like abilities of looking thru a Beast's eyes or incredible feats of athleticism or endurance. For example, at epic levels I would see the barbarian accomplishing feats like holding their breath for 20+ minutes while fighting underwater, long jumping 30 ft+ (9 m+) wide caverns, and otherwise performing feats that match or somewhat exceed Olympic standards.

I tend to jump around in design, partly to keep everything in balance / hold the bigger picture, and partly because I get exhausted with just focusing on one thing.

So...Wizards!

A conceit of the dark high fantasy setting of Elderblade is that a Warrior, an Expert, and a Spellcaster are about evenly matched. What does that mean? They all can contribute in fun ways to every "mode" of e game, whether combat, exploration. a chase, a heist, a negotiation, an infiltration mission, whatever. They are not equal in all these areas, but neither are they horribly outmatched; a player will never be left twiddling his thumbs when outside of their class' specialty, or afraid to contribute for fear of hurting the team.

Wizards in Elderblade don't just cast "fireball." They are rigorously trained students of the Elder Tongue, part of an arcane society that operates parallel to the mundane society of kings and vassals. When a wizard casts a spell, they draw on great traditions of their forebears and master wizards of the day. A wizard casts "Melcantor's Explosive Fireball"!

Mechanically, I am reorganizing spells into Schools of Magic which involve rigorous training either at an institution or via apprenticeship. These schools include the traditional 8, but also anything you could add -mancy to the end of (e.g. oneiromancy = dream magic). Each school has a Cantrip which can be used for free (no fatigue) by anyone with proficiency in the school. Each school has 3 levels of proficiency: Trained, Expert, and Master. Casting spells is fatiguing (this is not Vancian magic), using a system similar to Blue Rose/True20 and a Fatigue Track similar to Star Wars Saga Edition...still working out exact details but probably will be a Constitution, Charisma, or Wisdom check (Player's choice, or maybe depends on school of magic) vs DC 12 to avoid fatigue. The DC may need calibration to account for casting easier or harder spells, not sure yet....

Wizards have a core feature called Schools of Magic which grants them Trained rank in a school of their choice at 1st level. At levels 3, 5, 7, and 9, the wizard learns another school at Trained rank. At levels 13, 15, 17, and 19, a wizard learns a school at the Trained rank or advances a school already trained in to Expert rank. At levels 23, 25, 27, and 29, a wizard learns a school at the Trained rank, or advances a trained school to Expert, or an Expert school to Master. Specialties and Paragon Paths will add a couple extra schools on top of these. Right now I'm thinking when a Izard gets a proficiency rank in a school they record all school spells from that rank in their spellbook (meaning they can cast them using the fatigue rules).

As an example, here are the Abjuration school and the Fire school in abbreviated form:

Abjuration
CANTRIP: Resist Natural Hazard
TRAINED: Protection Spell (authorship contested, merges all the Protection from... spells)
TRAINED: Helena Sucumvort's Arcane Ward (merges Arcane Lock and Alarm)
TRAINED: Dietmar Ritterfeld's Marvelous Shield
EXPERT: Saher Afram al-Zulys' Field of Repulsion
EXPERT: Umqvist's Dimensional Anchor
MASTER: Grigori Pacostyev's Banishment
MASTER: Helena Sucumvort's Mind Block

Fire (Pyromancy)
CANTRIP: Extinguish / Ignite
TRAINED: Gout of Flame (authorship contested, basically Burning Hands)
TRAINED: Arric Belgadris' Flaming Sphere
EXPERT: Fierna du Tarqinia's Fireshield
EXPERT: Melcantor's Explosive Fireball
EXPERT: Arric Belgadris' Wall of Shimmering Flames
MASTER: Fierna du Tarqinia's Incendiary Cloud
MASTER: Meteor Swarm of Archmage Orvad cep Alsayeez

For example, a 13th level wizard might be designed thus: Fire (Expert), Abjuration (Trained), Anti-Magic (Trained), Enchantment (Trained), Force (Trained). There would also probably be 1-2 more based on their selection of Specialty and Legendary Path.

It is a very themed way to look at a wizard, one which requires a choice between breadth and depth. Also, it lines up nicely with Fighting Styles, Rogue Tricks, Barbarian Rage Powers, Monastic Disciplines, and other class features that mirror the progression of Schools of Magic...this makes multi- or split- classing much easier to implement.

While its fresh in my mind I wanted to share how I'm handling multi-classing and gestalt characters (in 3e parlance) or dual-classing and multi-classing (in AD&D parlance).

Both are valid options, and in Elderblade both work very similarly.

The basic idea is every character has 3 starting features regardless of how many classes they are trained as, and only 1 of these can be a core feature (*) (which are the strongest most defining elements of a class). For example:

Wizards get: Read & Detect Magic, (*) Schools of Magic, and Spellbook

Fighters get: Evaluate Combatant, Fighting Style, (*) Weapon Expertise

Regardless of whether you play a Fighter-Wizard split-class gestalt PC, or a multi-class Fighter 5 / Wizard 7 PC, this rule applies. Not only is this an easy balancing tool, but it also allows for permutations on a theme. For example, you could have several builds that might look like...

"Gish" Fighter-Wizard: Fighting Style, Evaluate Combatant, (*) Schools of Magic

This would be a PC who uses a sword artfully and can kibitz with other warriors about intricacies of different fencing styles, whose perception in combat could be described as supernatural, and who can draw upon spells as a wizard would.

"Monster Hunter" Fighter-Wizard: Read & Detect Magic, Spellbook, (*) Weapon Expertise

This PC benefits from the spellbook which grants rituals (even though he cannot cast spells) and can read and speak the Elder Tongue to decipher ancient sigils (or impress mages), but he is also a deadly warrior who gets multiple attacks and an attack/damage bonus. His rituals supplement his martial ability.

The key here is that a character will never have two (*) core features, so a player who wants to be able to cast spells (the Schools of Magic feature) must sacrifice Weapon Expertise. This makes sense for split-class PCs who start off as Fighter-Wizards, but what about PCs who start as one class and become another?

Multi-classing this way is not an instantaneous change, but a gradual one in Elderblade. What this means is that as the PC levels in their new class they undergo a retraining process which allows them to gradually swap out features/talents, probably at the rate of 1 per level. In other words, switching classes is a decision of consequence. Are they forgetting their old skills? Possibly. Are they foreswearing from practicing the assassin's trade ever again? Possibly. Are they simply focusing on learning new abilities so those old abilities fall into the background of the narrative? Possibly. Does their god or patron strip away that power invested in them? Possibly. It's up to the player to decide what it means.

To demonstrate how I'm designing classes to be modular and yet retain a strong class identity, here are two examples of level advancement tables for the Wizard and the Fighter.

What you'll notice is there's a common structure:

• Schools of Magic & Fighting Styles are organized in a similar way; these are the abilities that a wizard or fighter can have Trained / Expert / Master proficiency in. Each time that the ability appears on the level advanment table, the characters gains a proficiency new rank in that ability; for schools of magic the Expert rank is restricted to legendary tier (11th+) and Master rank to epic tier (21st+). For fighting styles, I am thinking there is no such restriction...but need to get a bit deeper into my design process before I make that determination.
• Arcane Bolt (granted by most wizard specialties) advances at tiers like Weapon Expertise.
• At levels 4, 8, 14, 18, 24, and 28 all classes gain defined advanced features.

WIZARD

FIGHTER

Designing the classes this way has some advantages.

For starters it is a modular design that allows 3E multi-classing (in the fighter 5/wizard 7 "switch class" sense) to be possible alongside AD&D multi-classing (in the fighter/wizard "split class" sense).

At the same time, access to legendary/epic class talents & the advanced features (at class levels 4, 8, 14, 18, 24, and 28) give incentive to remain within a class rather than to "dip" into multiple classes.

Lastly, it makes for a common "language" while allowing for diversity within that structure. For example, we could easily imagine Assassin Schemes, Bardic Arts, Monastic Disciplines, Rogue Tricks, Rage Powers, Paladin Virtues, Ranger Favored Enemy Techniques, Divine Domains, Druidic Lodges, and Warlock/Witch Invocations being structured in a similar way to Fighting Styles and Schools of Magic (i.e. Trained / Expert / Master). This has the added benefit of making homebrew class design a bit easier...you can mix and match stuff, or you have a solid framework to work within for creating your own stuff.

Taking a step back to the big picture, I wanted to mention my literary influences for the feel and "Dark High Fantasy" setting that Elderblade is designed for.

First...



Willow has a special place in my heart. The 1988 Ron Howard film is actually kind of lighthearted but with some pretty dark magic and setting assumptions. When I think of "dark high fantasy" I don't think unremittingly dark, and Willow reminds me of that. One aspect of Willow that has worked its way into my design is the idea that you can botch a spell, just as Willow tried to turn that sorceress back into human form and ended up turning her into a raven, or trying to kill the troll with magic and turning into into the two-headed hydra-like monster. Complications (fails by 5+) and critical failures on a 1 provide some ways that GM can introduce botched magic. The idea of magic as a totally defined safe scientific energy is not the magic of Elderblade - this magic can be unpredictable and dangerous in more ways than expected.



The Chronicles of by Lloyd Alexander is a children's classic. While it might seem odd to include these books in the category of dark high fantasy, when you take a step back and consider that Anwwn and his Cauldronborn are essentially an army of undead and Taran is on his way to becoming a level 1 fighter and Eilonwy a level 1 mage, then it makes sense. The Welsh legends and connection to the Arthurian cycle are also greatly appealing to me, even many years later.



The Earthsea Cycle of Ursula K LeGuin is also a young adult book that springs to mind when I think of dark high fantasy, mainly because of its intense psychological insights and detailed cultures with their own understandings of what magic is.



The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski is a fascinating subversion of traditional fantasy, and even as it subverts Tolkien it doesn't quite walk in step with the Lieber / Howard swords & sorcery tradition, making the series a tough nut to crack. That it qualifies as dark fantasy is indisputable, given a world where young children are taken by this mysterious order and subjected to mutagenic rites that have a chance to kill them! There's something about the intensely cynical political world that appeals to me, and is something I try to capture in my own games.