Creamsteak
Explorer
For this game, I will be making use of The Collected Book of Experimental Might. The book heavily modifies the Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, and Wizard. It slightly modifies the Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue. If you do not have access to the book, I would recommend against choosing any of the above classes. I have gone to some length to grab out the rules material that someone without the book would need to run any other class and repost it here. I did this so that players without the book could contribute fully to the game.
I am looking to recruit about 4 players for this game. My goal is to run a more politically oriented game than I usually do. I want to also focus much more heavily on life within a single interesting city. I would prefer players that think they can hang it out with a slower pace, but play long term. I really want to help build and develop the player's characters and the story surrounding them more with this game - so I'm looking for players that want to value their characters as more than just flashy stats.
I have more to post, but it's late and this is a start.
Background
This game takes place in the Militocracy of Zathas.
[sblock]Geography
Most of the known world is on the continent of Sumar, a huge span of land that encompasses a wide variety of territories. Sumar is surrounded by oceans on all sides, seperating it from the other continents of the world.
Within Sumar, the Empire of Marduk rules over everything between the Golden Gulf in the east and the Dragonspine mountains to the west. On its southern borders the neighboring kingdom of Aliahan is seperated from Marduk by a vaste desert. To the north, the Dragonspine mountains cust the territory in half, with the easternmost half being known as the Dragonmurk - a swampland holy to the Black Dragon. To the north east, past the Dragonmurk, is a wild land full of untamed wilderness and ancient ruins. That territory is now known as the Wild Lands of Zathas.
The Expedition of Zathas
Over two hundred years ago, Emperor Marduk ordered an expedition into the lands beyond the Dragonmurk. Because the land route was impassable, the emperor had a great fleet constructed and plotted a route by sea. He sent his most loyal disciple, the Arch-General Zathas to lead this expedition.
The expedition soon met hard times as their landing did not go smoothly. A horrible storm destroyed most of their fleet, and the scattered remnants did not all make it to shore. When Zathas finally secured the beach, he found that the native population (drow, giants, lizardfolk, and Kua-Toa) were particularly unfriendly.
Zathas and his army were left to fend for themselves in this distant land. They conquered these wild lands and scratched out a meager existence for their people. When their provisions wouldn't last, they began to settle the land. Eventually, Zathas was able to secure a city for his people, the Militocracy of Zathas.
To this day, this small fortress settlement near the northern shore is the primary home of the people that remain from Zathas expedition, as well as occational visitors from Marduk. Even two-hundred years later, much of the wilds have not yet been explored, and the indigenous tribes still make war with the people of Zathas.
Government
The Militocracy is unique in that it is a city-state entirely under military control. It is technically subject to the laws of the Emperor of Marduk, but a thousand miles of ocean voyage seperate the two, and further the interest of Marduk in the expedition have waned heavily over the years.
Some feel that the militocracy should become an independant state, or at the least an official city of the empire, so that the military rule can be lifted and people can start to live here as they would in any other place. The people here are largely independant from the main land, and subsist almost entirely on the fruits of their own labor. It is because of this that many of the governments rules seem dated or nonsensical to the people here.
The Militocracy is ruled by a Governor-General, the great-great-grandson of Arch-General Zathas. It is not a hereditary position, though three of Zathas descendants have all earned the highest rank within the city-state in turn. A council of lesser generals serves to inform the Governor General, and a chain of command follows out from there. A handful of non-military persons exist within the city, nobles and merchants descended from families on the main land.[/sblock]
Character Creation
Characters should be created for a 2nd level game.
[sblock]Ability Scores
28 point buy (slightly modified).
8 = 0 points
9 = 1 points
10 = 2 points
11 = 3 points
12 = 4 points
13 = 5 points
14 = 6 points
15 = 7 points
16 = 9 points
17 = 11 points
18 = 14 points
Races
By approval. I'll look at each race outside of the PHB on a case by case basis. No limits to what you can ask for though.
Classes
Player's Handbook, Runeblade from the Book of Experimental Might, Expanded Psionic Handbook, Book of Nine Swords.
Hit Points
All characters start with bonus hit points equal to their Constitution score. Maximum hit points at 1st level. Average + 0.5 per level thereafter.
Move Silently and Hide
In these rules, Move Silently and Hide are combined into one skill, called Sneak.
Background Skills
Characters start out with an extra 3 ranks of any single Knowledge, Craft, or Profession skill, or 2 ranks of any two such skills, if desired. These extra allocations work with the character’s background to help flesh out the PC.
Gaining Feats
All characters gain a new feat each level rather than at every third level. All prerequisites for feats, including level-based prerequisites, remain unchanged.
I will allow feats and character options from Player's Handbook II, but not the classes. I will allow all feats from the Core Rules, The Complete Book of Experimental Might, The Book of Nine Swords and the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Other feats are by approval.
Swapping Feats
When they gain a level, characters can change a feat they have chosen previously if they have not used that feat during the preceding level. For example, if a character takes Weapon Focus (Greatsword) but finds a magical longsword she wants to use instead, she can stop using her greatsword for a level and change her feat to Weapon Focus (Longsword). In addition, she gains whatever new feats are due her for the new level.
Ranks, Rights, and Castes
Citizens within the Militocracy of Zathas are divided into a few different castes. The caste a character is a member of dictates the rights that the government of the Militocracy recognizes. By default, anyone who is born into the Militocracy adopts their parents caste. Moving between castes is difficult, often only possible by the decree of the Governor-General or the Emperor himself.
Starting characters are normally a member of the military caste with a rank of 1. What this means is that the character has no right to property, and no right of trade. Any person that is a member of the military caste is, themselves, the property of the military. The government can do with them as it pleases, and provides for their wellbeing only out of the governments self interest. Essentially, those members of this caste are no better than slaves.
Members of the military caste also have a rank. This is simply a level of authority. The vast majority of people have only a rank of 1, meaning that they have no authority over anyone else, and as such they cannot give orders to their peers. Officials with a rank of 2 can give orders to anyone with a rank of 1, they cannot give orders to anyone of their own rank, and they take orders from anyone with a higher rank. What this means is that there is a legal obligation to do as a higher ranked person orders. The only law that can interfere with an order is a higher ranked order.
Because the state of war has been going on for so long, the meaningfulness of these ranks has been diluted by the populace. Most people live their day to day lives without ever considering the current military justice. It is actually the case that most misuse of the system has been put down by higher ranking members of the military who have seen to the elimination of abuse and allow many actions to take place under their watch that are technically illegal. Similarly, a law is only as useful as it can be enforced, and many of the established figures of the military know that attempting to enforce martial law over one-hundred years into a campaign would have no chance of success. Still, when pushed, these rules have been brutally enforced in the past.
Fewer than the military caste are the civilian caste. Civilians have no right to property under martial law, and they have no right to exchange their labor for goods. As such, civilians -legally- can't support themselves. There have even been cases of members of the military caste being exiled to the civilian caste as a punishment. Most civilians end up, by one method or another, being sponsored by a member of the noble caste. A military caste member who is married into a noble caste or merchant caste family would be considered a member of the civilian caste (while their children would become members of the non-civilian caste).
The merchant caste have no right to property, but they have the special jurisdiction of being able to trade goods. This almost always requires a noble caste members sponsorship, as a trader cannot trade property or services without having some associated right of property. Traders are often the final authority on any transaction, the legal arbiters of all exchanges. It should be noted, however, that a trader has no right to own any of the goods seen in exchange. Taxes, fees, and charges are all illegal, by the law. Of course, much like any of the other castes, what is the law and what is realistic are often different.
The noble caste is the only caste with a true right of property. The military itself has a right to property, but this is shared across the entire caste. The merchant caste has the right to barter and exchange. Members of the noble caste, however, are the only ones that can claim something for himself. This caste extends all the way up to the emperor, who technically owns all property within his domain including all property claimed by the noble caste. That said, many nobles are not wealthy lords living in palaces. Over the years, the chain of nobility has become somewhat more widespread. Many members of the noble caste that exist now might be lowly farmers, simply trying to make their own way in the world, and depending on an outside merchant caste member to trade their goods every season.
There are still other extremely rare castes. Such castes include the inquisitors, the wayfarers, the archmagi, and many more. These are extremely exclusive, however, and it is not common knowledge what purpose these castes serve and how many members there are.
The following two feats can be taken to effect your character's rank or caste.
Improved Rank (General)
You have been promoted ahead of your peers.
Benefit: Your rank is one higher than normal. You are treated as having your normal rank for the purpose of promotions.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time it increases your rank an additional level.
Civilian Caste (General)
You are free from the Militocracy and not governed by their rules.
Benefit: You do not have a rank, and you are exempt from the rules that govern the Militocracy. You suffer none of the benefits or penalties associated with dealing with having a rank.
Special: If you select this feat at 1st level, you can choose to be born into the Merchant Caste (right to barter) or the Noble Caste (right to property).[/sblock]
Playing the Game:
The following special rules should be taken into consideration.
[sblock]Hit Points
A PC’s hit points are divided into two categories: Grace and Health. The difference is mostly flavorful rather than mechanical—hit points have always been a mixture of abstract luck or skill and actual physical stamina and toughness. “Grace” and “Health” are just terms that help you distinguish between the two types more concretely. Grace hit points represent luck and skill at avoiding serious wounds, while Health represents actual physical punishment you can sustain.
Health is equal to the bonus hit points gained from Constitution + 1 per level. “Bonus hit points from Constitution” counts both the initial amount at 1st level equal to Constitution score as well as the extra hit points gained each level due to a Constitution bonus. The rest of a character’s hit points are considered Grace points.
When characters suffer hit point damage, they lose Grace points first. The only mechanical distinction to remember here is that Grace hit points heal at a rate of 1 per level per minute of rest, while Health hit points come back at a rate of 1 per level per day of rest. Magical healing works the same way for both hit point categories but always heals Grace hit points first.
Disabled, Dying, and Dead
Characters no longer necessarily die at –10 hit points, as in the Core Rules, nor do they necessarily fall unconscious when they reach –1. Instead, they become disabled if they fall to a number of hit points between 0 and their Constitution bonus (if any) expressed as a negative number; they go unconscious below that.
So a character with a Constitution bonus of +2 is disabled at 0, –1 or –2 hit points, and falls unconscious when he reaches –3 hit points. At that point he begins dying.
If the character’s hit points drop to a negative number lower than his Constitution score, the character is dead. A character also can die from taking massive damage or after suffering ability damage or drain that reduces his Constitution to 0.
A character with no Constitution bonus or one with a Constitution penalty becomes disabled at 0 hit points and is dying at –1 hit points.
Magical Healing
Characters can only receive magical healing a number of times in a given day equal to their level + their Constitution modifier, with a minimum of 2. The term “magical healing” means any application of curative magic, from a potion, to a special ability, to the disciplines described in The Books of Experimental Might.
Note that it’s incumbent upon healed characters to keep track of how many applications of magical healing they receive each day; this bookkeeping is not the healer’s responsibility.
Shielding Others
A character adjacent to another character can take damage for that person once per round. In effect, the first character gets in the way and takes a hit for the other person. The character must declare his intention to shield the other person before the attack takes place. This decision means the attack automatically hits (or, if appropriate, the save automatically fails).
This rule is incorporated to encourage the occasional bout of heroism. DMs who see it abused due to damage reduction or immunity should require the shielding character to ready an action in order to take damage for another.
Drawing an Item
Any character who can draw a weapon as a part of a move can draw anything reasonable (a wand, potion, etc.) as a part of move.
Readying/Delaying
Readying an action does not change a character’s initiative number. Instead, after taking a readied action, the character’s turn snaps back to its original position in the lineup.
Delaying still changes a character’s position in the initiative order.
Standing Up
Standing up is a move action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Taking a Breather
Breather moments give a PC a chance to gather himself—to mentally regroup, collect his thoughts, catch his breath, and take stock of the situation. Characters who use a standard action to take a breather can do one of the following:
• Heal up to their level in (Grace point) damage
• Gain a bonus to damage equal to +1 plus an additional +1 per four levels on the following round
• Gain a bonus to one attack roll equal to +1 plus an additional +1 per four levels on the following round
• Gain a +1 bonus to one spell save DC for a spell cast on the following round
• Gain a chance to make another saving throw to shake off an unwanted condition with a duration measured in rounds (as opposed to minutes, hours, days, etc. or one with a duration of Instantaneous or Permanent)
Because taking a breather is an action, conditions that prohibit actions —such as being stunned or held– prevent a character from taking a breather.
A character can take a breather only once per encounter. A character cannot take one outside of an encounter involving a round-by-round initiative count.
Identifying Magic Items
Characters can use Craft (alchemy) to identify potions at no cost: just a taste. The Difficulty Class is 15 + half spell level.
PCs can try to identify any magic item with Knowledge (arcana). The Difficulty Class is 20 + the item’s caster level.
Standard retries of both the Craft and Knowledge checks are not allowed. However, a character who devotes a full day to examining an item may take 20 on the check.
New Versions of Old Skills
Concentration, Intimidate, and Tumble are modified based on the specifics detailed in the Books of Experimental Might. (In all cases, they are made to scale with level).
[/sblock]
I am looking to recruit about 4 players for this game. My goal is to run a more politically oriented game than I usually do. I want to also focus much more heavily on life within a single interesting city. I would prefer players that think they can hang it out with a slower pace, but play long term. I really want to help build and develop the player's characters and the story surrounding them more with this game - so I'm looking for players that want to value their characters as more than just flashy stats.
I have more to post, but it's late and this is a start.
Background
This game takes place in the Militocracy of Zathas.
[sblock]Geography
Most of the known world is on the continent of Sumar, a huge span of land that encompasses a wide variety of territories. Sumar is surrounded by oceans on all sides, seperating it from the other continents of the world.
Within Sumar, the Empire of Marduk rules over everything between the Golden Gulf in the east and the Dragonspine mountains to the west. On its southern borders the neighboring kingdom of Aliahan is seperated from Marduk by a vaste desert. To the north, the Dragonspine mountains cust the territory in half, with the easternmost half being known as the Dragonmurk - a swampland holy to the Black Dragon. To the north east, past the Dragonmurk, is a wild land full of untamed wilderness and ancient ruins. That territory is now known as the Wild Lands of Zathas.
The Expedition of Zathas
Over two hundred years ago, Emperor Marduk ordered an expedition into the lands beyond the Dragonmurk. Because the land route was impassable, the emperor had a great fleet constructed and plotted a route by sea. He sent his most loyal disciple, the Arch-General Zathas to lead this expedition.
The expedition soon met hard times as their landing did not go smoothly. A horrible storm destroyed most of their fleet, and the scattered remnants did not all make it to shore. When Zathas finally secured the beach, he found that the native population (drow, giants, lizardfolk, and Kua-Toa) were particularly unfriendly.
Zathas and his army were left to fend for themselves in this distant land. They conquered these wild lands and scratched out a meager existence for their people. When their provisions wouldn't last, they began to settle the land. Eventually, Zathas was able to secure a city for his people, the Militocracy of Zathas.
To this day, this small fortress settlement near the northern shore is the primary home of the people that remain from Zathas expedition, as well as occational visitors from Marduk. Even two-hundred years later, much of the wilds have not yet been explored, and the indigenous tribes still make war with the people of Zathas.
Government
The Militocracy is unique in that it is a city-state entirely under military control. It is technically subject to the laws of the Emperor of Marduk, but a thousand miles of ocean voyage seperate the two, and further the interest of Marduk in the expedition have waned heavily over the years.
Some feel that the militocracy should become an independant state, or at the least an official city of the empire, so that the military rule can be lifted and people can start to live here as they would in any other place. The people here are largely independant from the main land, and subsist almost entirely on the fruits of their own labor. It is because of this that many of the governments rules seem dated or nonsensical to the people here.
The Militocracy is ruled by a Governor-General, the great-great-grandson of Arch-General Zathas. It is not a hereditary position, though three of Zathas descendants have all earned the highest rank within the city-state in turn. A council of lesser generals serves to inform the Governor General, and a chain of command follows out from there. A handful of non-military persons exist within the city, nobles and merchants descended from families on the main land.[/sblock]
Character Creation
Characters should be created for a 2nd level game.
[sblock]Ability Scores
28 point buy (slightly modified).
8 = 0 points
9 = 1 points
10 = 2 points
11 = 3 points
12 = 4 points
13 = 5 points
14 = 6 points
15 = 7 points
16 = 9 points
17 = 11 points
18 = 14 points
Races
By approval. I'll look at each race outside of the PHB on a case by case basis. No limits to what you can ask for though.
Classes
Player's Handbook, Runeblade from the Book of Experimental Might, Expanded Psionic Handbook, Book of Nine Swords.
Hit Points
All characters start with bonus hit points equal to their Constitution score. Maximum hit points at 1st level. Average + 0.5 per level thereafter.
Move Silently and Hide
In these rules, Move Silently and Hide are combined into one skill, called Sneak.
Background Skills
Characters start out with an extra 3 ranks of any single Knowledge, Craft, or Profession skill, or 2 ranks of any two such skills, if desired. These extra allocations work with the character’s background to help flesh out the PC.
Gaining Feats
All characters gain a new feat each level rather than at every third level. All prerequisites for feats, including level-based prerequisites, remain unchanged.
I will allow feats and character options from Player's Handbook II, but not the classes. I will allow all feats from the Core Rules, The Complete Book of Experimental Might, The Book of Nine Swords and the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Other feats are by approval.
Swapping Feats
When they gain a level, characters can change a feat they have chosen previously if they have not used that feat during the preceding level. For example, if a character takes Weapon Focus (Greatsword) but finds a magical longsword she wants to use instead, she can stop using her greatsword for a level and change her feat to Weapon Focus (Longsword). In addition, she gains whatever new feats are due her for the new level.
Ranks, Rights, and Castes
Citizens within the Militocracy of Zathas are divided into a few different castes. The caste a character is a member of dictates the rights that the government of the Militocracy recognizes. By default, anyone who is born into the Militocracy adopts their parents caste. Moving between castes is difficult, often only possible by the decree of the Governor-General or the Emperor himself.
Starting characters are normally a member of the military caste with a rank of 1. What this means is that the character has no right to property, and no right of trade. Any person that is a member of the military caste is, themselves, the property of the military. The government can do with them as it pleases, and provides for their wellbeing only out of the governments self interest. Essentially, those members of this caste are no better than slaves.
Members of the military caste also have a rank. This is simply a level of authority. The vast majority of people have only a rank of 1, meaning that they have no authority over anyone else, and as such they cannot give orders to their peers. Officials with a rank of 2 can give orders to anyone with a rank of 1, they cannot give orders to anyone of their own rank, and they take orders from anyone with a higher rank. What this means is that there is a legal obligation to do as a higher ranked person orders. The only law that can interfere with an order is a higher ranked order.
Because the state of war has been going on for so long, the meaningfulness of these ranks has been diluted by the populace. Most people live their day to day lives without ever considering the current military justice. It is actually the case that most misuse of the system has been put down by higher ranking members of the military who have seen to the elimination of abuse and allow many actions to take place under their watch that are technically illegal. Similarly, a law is only as useful as it can be enforced, and many of the established figures of the military know that attempting to enforce martial law over one-hundred years into a campaign would have no chance of success. Still, when pushed, these rules have been brutally enforced in the past.
Fewer than the military caste are the civilian caste. Civilians have no right to property under martial law, and they have no right to exchange their labor for goods. As such, civilians -legally- can't support themselves. There have even been cases of members of the military caste being exiled to the civilian caste as a punishment. Most civilians end up, by one method or another, being sponsored by a member of the noble caste. A military caste member who is married into a noble caste or merchant caste family would be considered a member of the civilian caste (while their children would become members of the non-civilian caste).
The merchant caste have no right to property, but they have the special jurisdiction of being able to trade goods. This almost always requires a noble caste members sponsorship, as a trader cannot trade property or services without having some associated right of property. Traders are often the final authority on any transaction, the legal arbiters of all exchanges. It should be noted, however, that a trader has no right to own any of the goods seen in exchange. Taxes, fees, and charges are all illegal, by the law. Of course, much like any of the other castes, what is the law and what is realistic are often different.
The noble caste is the only caste with a true right of property. The military itself has a right to property, but this is shared across the entire caste. The merchant caste has the right to barter and exchange. Members of the noble caste, however, are the only ones that can claim something for himself. This caste extends all the way up to the emperor, who technically owns all property within his domain including all property claimed by the noble caste. That said, many nobles are not wealthy lords living in palaces. Over the years, the chain of nobility has become somewhat more widespread. Many members of the noble caste that exist now might be lowly farmers, simply trying to make their own way in the world, and depending on an outside merchant caste member to trade their goods every season.
There are still other extremely rare castes. Such castes include the inquisitors, the wayfarers, the archmagi, and many more. These are extremely exclusive, however, and it is not common knowledge what purpose these castes serve and how many members there are.
The following two feats can be taken to effect your character's rank or caste.
Improved Rank (General)
You have been promoted ahead of your peers.
Benefit: Your rank is one higher than normal. You are treated as having your normal rank for the purpose of promotions.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time it increases your rank an additional level.
Civilian Caste (General)
You are free from the Militocracy and not governed by their rules.
Benefit: You do not have a rank, and you are exempt from the rules that govern the Militocracy. You suffer none of the benefits or penalties associated with dealing with having a rank.
Special: If you select this feat at 1st level, you can choose to be born into the Merchant Caste (right to barter) or the Noble Caste (right to property).[/sblock]
Playing the Game:
The following special rules should be taken into consideration.
[sblock]Hit Points
A PC’s hit points are divided into two categories: Grace and Health. The difference is mostly flavorful rather than mechanical—hit points have always been a mixture of abstract luck or skill and actual physical stamina and toughness. “Grace” and “Health” are just terms that help you distinguish between the two types more concretely. Grace hit points represent luck and skill at avoiding serious wounds, while Health represents actual physical punishment you can sustain.
Health is equal to the bonus hit points gained from Constitution + 1 per level. “Bonus hit points from Constitution” counts both the initial amount at 1st level equal to Constitution score as well as the extra hit points gained each level due to a Constitution bonus. The rest of a character’s hit points are considered Grace points.
When characters suffer hit point damage, they lose Grace points first. The only mechanical distinction to remember here is that Grace hit points heal at a rate of 1 per level per minute of rest, while Health hit points come back at a rate of 1 per level per day of rest. Magical healing works the same way for both hit point categories but always heals Grace hit points first.
Disabled, Dying, and Dead
Characters no longer necessarily die at –10 hit points, as in the Core Rules, nor do they necessarily fall unconscious when they reach –1. Instead, they become disabled if they fall to a number of hit points between 0 and their Constitution bonus (if any) expressed as a negative number; they go unconscious below that.
So a character with a Constitution bonus of +2 is disabled at 0, –1 or –2 hit points, and falls unconscious when he reaches –3 hit points. At that point he begins dying.
If the character’s hit points drop to a negative number lower than his Constitution score, the character is dead. A character also can die from taking massive damage or after suffering ability damage or drain that reduces his Constitution to 0.
A character with no Constitution bonus or one with a Constitution penalty becomes disabled at 0 hit points and is dying at –1 hit points.
Magical Healing
Characters can only receive magical healing a number of times in a given day equal to their level + their Constitution modifier, with a minimum of 2. The term “magical healing” means any application of curative magic, from a potion, to a special ability, to the disciplines described in The Books of Experimental Might.
Note that it’s incumbent upon healed characters to keep track of how many applications of magical healing they receive each day; this bookkeeping is not the healer’s responsibility.
Shielding Others
A character adjacent to another character can take damage for that person once per round. In effect, the first character gets in the way and takes a hit for the other person. The character must declare his intention to shield the other person before the attack takes place. This decision means the attack automatically hits (or, if appropriate, the save automatically fails).
This rule is incorporated to encourage the occasional bout of heroism. DMs who see it abused due to damage reduction or immunity should require the shielding character to ready an action in order to take damage for another.
Drawing an Item
Any character who can draw a weapon as a part of a move can draw anything reasonable (a wand, potion, etc.) as a part of move.
Readying/Delaying
Readying an action does not change a character’s initiative number. Instead, after taking a readied action, the character’s turn snaps back to its original position in the lineup.
Delaying still changes a character’s position in the initiative order.
Standing Up
Standing up is a move action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Taking a Breather
Breather moments give a PC a chance to gather himself—to mentally regroup, collect his thoughts, catch his breath, and take stock of the situation. Characters who use a standard action to take a breather can do one of the following:
• Heal up to their level in (Grace point) damage
• Gain a bonus to damage equal to +1 plus an additional +1 per four levels on the following round
• Gain a bonus to one attack roll equal to +1 plus an additional +1 per four levels on the following round
• Gain a +1 bonus to one spell save DC for a spell cast on the following round
• Gain a chance to make another saving throw to shake off an unwanted condition with a duration measured in rounds (as opposed to minutes, hours, days, etc. or one with a duration of Instantaneous or Permanent)
Because taking a breather is an action, conditions that prohibit actions —such as being stunned or held– prevent a character from taking a breather.
A character can take a breather only once per encounter. A character cannot take one outside of an encounter involving a round-by-round initiative count.
Identifying Magic Items
Characters can use Craft (alchemy) to identify potions at no cost: just a taste. The Difficulty Class is 15 + half spell level.
PCs can try to identify any magic item with Knowledge (arcana). The Difficulty Class is 20 + the item’s caster level.
Standard retries of both the Craft and Knowledge checks are not allowed. However, a character who devotes a full day to examining an item may take 20 on the check.
New Versions of Old Skills
Concentration, Intimidate, and Tumble are modified based on the specifics detailed in the Books of Experimental Might. (In all cases, they are made to scale with level).
[/sblock]
(a quick FYI: I don't have the experimental might book. If this is a problem, please let me know.)
