SteelDraco
First Post
Heya all. I'm in the process of looking over the rules I'm using for my current campaign, and wanted to get other people's opinions on it. Since I generally find that the folks on these boards are helpful and agreeable, and that I usually agree with ya'll, I thought I'd post this stuff here for comment.
This is the basic rules document I use for the campaign. It's sort of an overview, going through things in the same order as the PHB. Things are explained here if they're short, and elsewhere if they're more involved.
The campaign these rules are for is a historical fantasy game set in Boston in 1763. It's a mix of Call of Cthulhu, Dark Matter, and the X-Files. PCs are investigators for a group that deals with supernatural threats to the citizens of the British Empire.
The game uses a slightly modified version of the Grim and Gritty rules, which I found were very nice for the setting I was thinking of. Magic exists, and is known to the investigators. Magic items are rare; while they were once more common, creating them is more or less a lost art. Most opponents are human, though Things intrude occasionally as well.
Comments are greatly appreciated.
1. Ability Scores
Ability scores will be largely unchanged from core d20 rules. You will have 28 points to generate characters, using the Point Buy method from the DMG.
2. Race
Unless you have a really good idea for a character, you’re a normal human. Use the stats as presented in the PHB – bonus feat at 1st level, 4 bonus skill points at 1st level, +1 skill points per level. And that’s pretty much it. You can be any nationality you want, though some face more prejudice in the British Colonies than others. The French typically won’t be looked upon with much fondness, though they might earn some points with anti-British colonists. Most of the people you’ll be interacting with are either British or colonials, though people of most European descent are fairly common in Boston.
3. Classes
I covered all the classes in a separate document. Note that I’ve eliminated the XP restrictions on multiclassing – you can mix and match classes as freely as you want to create your character the way you envision them. Note also that this means I trust all of you not to min-max your character.
4. Skills
Only minor changes have been made to the skills, mostly renames and a bit of restructuring to fit the decreased role of magic. I only added one skill, Spellcasting.
Spellcasting (controlling stat varies), Check Penalty Applies
This skill measures your ability to control whatever innate or learned supernatural powers you possess. It is rolled whenever you attempt to activate a power, as a part of the action. Each adept chooses what stat they use for spellcasting; this is the primary stat for this skill, as well as determining bonus spell points and maximum power level you can learn. Note that you can only use mental stats for this purpose.
Whenever you attempt to use an adept power, you must roll a Spellcasting skill check. The DC for this check is 10 + (2 x the level of the spell). So, for example, a 0th level spell has a DC of 10, while a 6th level spell is DC 22. A failure on this check causes a loss of half the spell points normally expended, rounded up. A natural 1 on this check raises the possibility of a critical spell failure. If you roll a natural 1, you must immediately roll another Spellcasting check against the same DC. If you succeed at this second roll, it is a normal failure. If you fail, however, you have critically failed to cast the spell. The effect of this varies depending on what you’re doing, but it’s never good.
This skill can be retried normally, though you must expend additional magical energy in order to do so.
The only other changes of note to the skill system are the renaming of two skills, and the deletion of two more. Alchemy became Chemistry, and Use Magic Device became Use Foreign Device. Animal Empathy was deleted; this is a bit too supernatural a skill for this campaign, though it can be emulated pretty easily with appropriate magic. Also, Knowledge (Arcana) was removed; Spellcraft functions as both Spellcraft and Knowledge (Arcana) for this campaign, as there’s much less of a body of knowledge on the subject than in a normal campaign.
Note also that several skills are noted as Exclusive skills. This differentiates them from normal skills, in that they’re not automatically cross-class skills for everyone who doesn’t have them as class skills. They can’t be used untrained, and you can only put skill points into them if they are specifically noted as being available to you, based on class or feat choice.
The exclusive skills for this setting are Decipher Script, Read Lips, Spellcasting, Scry, Use Foreign Device, and Spellcraft.
5. Feats
There’s another whole document that deals with this subject, so I won’t bother to explain anything here. You do get feats every three levels, as normal.
6. Equipment
There’s a separate document for this as well, but there’s one important thing that’s worth noting – your Armor Check Penalty applies to your Spellcasting skill, if you have one. This replaces Arcane Spell Failure chance, because a skill-based system can incorporate that sort of thing much neater than the normal 3e rules.
7. Combat
This is where the majority of the changes lie, as we’ll be using an alternate hit point and armor system. I’ll just go through the different stuff, step by step. In addition, we’ll be using something called Action Points, which have the same function as the Hero Points we (never) used in BitS.
1. Figuring Hit Points
Your hit points are calculated using the following formula.
HP = Con Score + Level-Based Hit Points + Other Bonus Hit Points
So, you start with your Con, then add any hit points you’ve gained from leveling (which can be found on the chart for each class in the Classes document), then add any other hit points you may have gotten (such as from the Toughness feat). And that’s it. That’s all the hit points you have. This may not seem like a lot, particularly since the amount of damage caused by weapons hasn’t decreased. And, to be honest, it’s NOT a lot. And that’s kind of the point – this is a darker, grittier setting than normal D&D. If you get into a gunfight, there’s a chance you’re going to take a bullet in the head and die where you stand. Two knife-wielding thugs are life-threatening, rather than in D&D, where they’d mostly just be annoying.
Step 2. How Not to Get Killed – Defense and Protection
What is normally just called AC in D&D is split into two different things in this system. Defense represents your ability to avoid getting hit in the first place, and Protection reduces the effect of a successful hit by putting stuff in between the thing doing the hitting and you.
Defense
Defense, as I just said, represents your ability to avoid getting hit by weapons. It’s natural dexterity, luck, skill, and magical stuff, but what you’re wearing doesn’t figure into it, at least not armor-type stuff. Your Defense is the target number that somebody has to roll on an attack roll in order to hit you with a weapon. Defense starts at 10 and increases, just like AC under normal rules. To calculate your Defense, use the following equation.
Defense = 10+(Base Defense Bonus + Dex modifier + Size Modifier - Armor Penalty + Other Bonuses)
When someone attacks you, use your Defense just like you use AC in normal D&D – that’s the number that they need to meet or exceed in order to hit you. You should note that your Defense doesn’t change between a normal attack or a touch attack; they’re the same thing using these rules.
If you’re caught flat-footed, your Defense drops considerably. You lose your Base Defense Bonus and your Dexterity modifier, as well as any Dodge or Haste bonuses you might have had.
Wearing armor reduces your ability to dodge, and thus incurs a penalty to your Defense bonus. Light armor imposes a –1 penalty, Medium, -2, and Heavy, -4. These may seem like a lot, but remember that while wearing armor, you’ll take less (sometimes a lot less) from every attack that hits.
Protection
Protection represents the ability of armor and tough skin to turn aside weapons. Whenever someone or something hits you with a damage-dealing attack, you subtract your Protection from the damage inflicted. To calculate your Protection, use the sum of your highest Armor and Natural Armor bonuses using standard D&D rules. This is your Protection, barring any sort of magical Protection you may have.
Protection = Highest Armor Bonus + Highest Natural Armor Bonus
Step 3. Getting Hurt and Getting Better, or Not - Injury, Healing, and Dying
Injuries
Loss of Hit Points in the Grim-n-Gritty system not only has an immediate effect upon you, but also longterm, negative effects, called injuries. Injury represents a wearing down of the your resilience, an increasing weakness that results from long-term, severe wound trauma.
Creatures that are immune to critical hits do not use these rules.
Injuries are based on your current Hit Point total. When your Hit Points dip below a certain level, you are injured. When your Hit Points rise above that level, the injury has been healed. Injuries do not stack. There are three grades of injury: Light, Moderate, and Severe. They are described below.
Light Injury
When you have only 75% or less of your Hit Points, you have suffered a Light Injury. A Light Injury imposes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws, and skill checks.
Moderate Injury
When you have 50% or less of her Hit Points, your have suffered a Moderate Injury. Like a Light Injury, a Moderate Injury imposes a penalty on all attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws, and skill checks. However, the penalty for a Moderate Injury is –4.
Severe Injury
When you have 25% or less of your Hit Points, you have suffered a Severe Injury. A character with a Severe Injury has a –6 penalty to all attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws, and skill checks. Also, characters with Severe Injuries cannot run or charge.
Disabled, Dying, and Dead
The rules for disabled, dying and dead conditions remain the same as standard d20 rules, with the following exceptions:
1. The instant death from massive damage rule is not used.
2. The amount of negative Hit Points to which a character can drop before dying equals –10 x the character’s Size Multiplier. In general, you guys won’t have to worry about this, as you’ll all be Medium-sized, like all humans.
3. The percentile chance a creature will stabilize while dying equals its Constitution score, rather than a flat 10%.
Normal Healing
All characters recover lost HP at rate of (1 point + their Constitution modifier) times their size multiplier (see table HP-3) per week of rest. With a week required for healing, it becomes extremely important for characters to seek medical help after severe or even moderate injuries.
8. Be a Hero! Action Points
While this is a less cinematic game than most, I do like to give you guys a bit of control over dice. Therefore, we’ll be using something I found (and modified a bit) called the Action Points system.
At each level, you gain 1d4 Action Points. Before you roll any d20, you can choose to use one Action Point to add +1d6 to the roll of that d20. The sum of the d20 and the d6 is treated as the roll of the d20, with anything above a 20 being treated as a 20.
Note that Action Points can be saved across several levels, though you’ll only be starting with 1d6. It’s important that you guys remember that you have these, so I’ll try to point out occasions when you might want to use them. Note also that important NPCs can (and will) get Action Points as well, which I will use as I see fit.
9. Dance that Magic Dance
Magic will not be an unknown force to the PCs, though it will be for the common man. Think of yourselves like Mulder and Scully on the X-Files – you go to where there’s magical trouble, so magic will seem more common to you than it is to everybody else. In fact, a good number of people don’t even believe in magic, particularly among the wealthy and well-educated.
Rules for magic use are presented above and in the Adept class description. It should be noted that damage-dealing spells have been reduced in strength to make things more balanced, since the Grim and Gritty rules tend to give a lot of power to spellslingers.
Spell Chains
In order to prevent you from having to keep old versions of spells that you don’t use any more, I’ll be allowing Adepts who gain access to a new level of spells to switch around their lower-level spells if they gain access to a higher-level version of the same general effect. For example, if you gain access to Cure Serious Wounds and don’t think you’ll use Cure Moderate Wounds any more, you can switch it out for a different 2nd level spell. We’ll talk about this when people gain access to new spells; just drop me an email if there’s something you want to switch around.
Magical Healing
Magic is fairly good at healing, though not as good as it is at some other things. Healing magic in this setting isn’t as quick as it is in most, though, and not nearly as powerful as it is in normal 3e rules.
A spell can heal a number of d4s equal to its level over the course of time. Hit points are regained at a rate of one per minute if the target is active, or two per minute if the target is resting. To start magical healing, a spellcaster must use a full-round action to cast the spell.
Alternatively, you can cast a spell so that it heals quickly, but heals less damage. Any Cure spell can be cast so that it heals 1d4 hit points less than normal, but does so immediately, rather than as a process of regeneration.
So, a few examples. Bob the Priest has the spell Cure Serious Wounds, which is a 3rd level spell that heals 3d4 points of damage, requiring a Spellcasting roll of DC 16 to cast, and costing 5 spell points. Bob successfully casts the spell on Joe, who is at 4 hit points out of his normal 14. Since they’re still in melee, Bob decides it would be a good idea to get Joe back on his feet RIGHT THE HELL NOW, and so he uses the quick version of Cure Serious Wounds. Over the course of the full-round action, Joe regains 2d4 hit points, in this case 6. He is able to return to the fight, thanks to Bob’s healing magic.
This is the basic rules document I use for the campaign. It's sort of an overview, going through things in the same order as the PHB. Things are explained here if they're short, and elsewhere if they're more involved.
The campaign these rules are for is a historical fantasy game set in Boston in 1763. It's a mix of Call of Cthulhu, Dark Matter, and the X-Files. PCs are investigators for a group that deals with supernatural threats to the citizens of the British Empire.
The game uses a slightly modified version of the Grim and Gritty rules, which I found were very nice for the setting I was thinking of. Magic exists, and is known to the investigators. Magic items are rare; while they were once more common, creating them is more or less a lost art. Most opponents are human, though Things intrude occasionally as well.
Comments are greatly appreciated.
1. Ability Scores
Ability scores will be largely unchanged from core d20 rules. You will have 28 points to generate characters, using the Point Buy method from the DMG.
2. Race
Unless you have a really good idea for a character, you’re a normal human. Use the stats as presented in the PHB – bonus feat at 1st level, 4 bonus skill points at 1st level, +1 skill points per level. And that’s pretty much it. You can be any nationality you want, though some face more prejudice in the British Colonies than others. The French typically won’t be looked upon with much fondness, though they might earn some points with anti-British colonists. Most of the people you’ll be interacting with are either British or colonials, though people of most European descent are fairly common in Boston.
3. Classes
I covered all the classes in a separate document. Note that I’ve eliminated the XP restrictions on multiclassing – you can mix and match classes as freely as you want to create your character the way you envision them. Note also that this means I trust all of you not to min-max your character.
4. Skills
Only minor changes have been made to the skills, mostly renames and a bit of restructuring to fit the decreased role of magic. I only added one skill, Spellcasting.
Spellcasting (controlling stat varies), Check Penalty Applies
This skill measures your ability to control whatever innate or learned supernatural powers you possess. It is rolled whenever you attempt to activate a power, as a part of the action. Each adept chooses what stat they use for spellcasting; this is the primary stat for this skill, as well as determining bonus spell points and maximum power level you can learn. Note that you can only use mental stats for this purpose.
Whenever you attempt to use an adept power, you must roll a Spellcasting skill check. The DC for this check is 10 + (2 x the level of the spell). So, for example, a 0th level spell has a DC of 10, while a 6th level spell is DC 22. A failure on this check causes a loss of half the spell points normally expended, rounded up. A natural 1 on this check raises the possibility of a critical spell failure. If you roll a natural 1, you must immediately roll another Spellcasting check against the same DC. If you succeed at this second roll, it is a normal failure. If you fail, however, you have critically failed to cast the spell. The effect of this varies depending on what you’re doing, but it’s never good.
This skill can be retried normally, though you must expend additional magical energy in order to do so.
The only other changes of note to the skill system are the renaming of two skills, and the deletion of two more. Alchemy became Chemistry, and Use Magic Device became Use Foreign Device. Animal Empathy was deleted; this is a bit too supernatural a skill for this campaign, though it can be emulated pretty easily with appropriate magic. Also, Knowledge (Arcana) was removed; Spellcraft functions as both Spellcraft and Knowledge (Arcana) for this campaign, as there’s much less of a body of knowledge on the subject than in a normal campaign.
Note also that several skills are noted as Exclusive skills. This differentiates them from normal skills, in that they’re not automatically cross-class skills for everyone who doesn’t have them as class skills. They can’t be used untrained, and you can only put skill points into them if they are specifically noted as being available to you, based on class or feat choice.
The exclusive skills for this setting are Decipher Script, Read Lips, Spellcasting, Scry, Use Foreign Device, and Spellcraft.
5. Feats
There’s another whole document that deals with this subject, so I won’t bother to explain anything here. You do get feats every three levels, as normal.
6. Equipment
There’s a separate document for this as well, but there’s one important thing that’s worth noting – your Armor Check Penalty applies to your Spellcasting skill, if you have one. This replaces Arcane Spell Failure chance, because a skill-based system can incorporate that sort of thing much neater than the normal 3e rules.
7. Combat
This is where the majority of the changes lie, as we’ll be using an alternate hit point and armor system. I’ll just go through the different stuff, step by step. In addition, we’ll be using something called Action Points, which have the same function as the Hero Points we (never) used in BitS.
1. Figuring Hit Points
Your hit points are calculated using the following formula.
HP = Con Score + Level-Based Hit Points + Other Bonus Hit Points
So, you start with your Con, then add any hit points you’ve gained from leveling (which can be found on the chart for each class in the Classes document), then add any other hit points you may have gotten (such as from the Toughness feat). And that’s it. That’s all the hit points you have. This may not seem like a lot, particularly since the amount of damage caused by weapons hasn’t decreased. And, to be honest, it’s NOT a lot. And that’s kind of the point – this is a darker, grittier setting than normal D&D. If you get into a gunfight, there’s a chance you’re going to take a bullet in the head and die where you stand. Two knife-wielding thugs are life-threatening, rather than in D&D, where they’d mostly just be annoying.
Step 2. How Not to Get Killed – Defense and Protection
What is normally just called AC in D&D is split into two different things in this system. Defense represents your ability to avoid getting hit in the first place, and Protection reduces the effect of a successful hit by putting stuff in between the thing doing the hitting and you.
Defense
Defense, as I just said, represents your ability to avoid getting hit by weapons. It’s natural dexterity, luck, skill, and magical stuff, but what you’re wearing doesn’t figure into it, at least not armor-type stuff. Your Defense is the target number that somebody has to roll on an attack roll in order to hit you with a weapon. Defense starts at 10 and increases, just like AC under normal rules. To calculate your Defense, use the following equation.
Defense = 10+(Base Defense Bonus + Dex modifier + Size Modifier - Armor Penalty + Other Bonuses)
When someone attacks you, use your Defense just like you use AC in normal D&D – that’s the number that they need to meet or exceed in order to hit you. You should note that your Defense doesn’t change between a normal attack or a touch attack; they’re the same thing using these rules.
If you’re caught flat-footed, your Defense drops considerably. You lose your Base Defense Bonus and your Dexterity modifier, as well as any Dodge or Haste bonuses you might have had.
Wearing armor reduces your ability to dodge, and thus incurs a penalty to your Defense bonus. Light armor imposes a –1 penalty, Medium, -2, and Heavy, -4. These may seem like a lot, but remember that while wearing armor, you’ll take less (sometimes a lot less) from every attack that hits.
Protection
Protection represents the ability of armor and tough skin to turn aside weapons. Whenever someone or something hits you with a damage-dealing attack, you subtract your Protection from the damage inflicted. To calculate your Protection, use the sum of your highest Armor and Natural Armor bonuses using standard D&D rules. This is your Protection, barring any sort of magical Protection you may have.
Protection = Highest Armor Bonus + Highest Natural Armor Bonus
Step 3. Getting Hurt and Getting Better, or Not - Injury, Healing, and Dying
Injuries
Loss of Hit Points in the Grim-n-Gritty system not only has an immediate effect upon you, but also longterm, negative effects, called injuries. Injury represents a wearing down of the your resilience, an increasing weakness that results from long-term, severe wound trauma.
Creatures that are immune to critical hits do not use these rules.
Injuries are based on your current Hit Point total. When your Hit Points dip below a certain level, you are injured. When your Hit Points rise above that level, the injury has been healed. Injuries do not stack. There are three grades of injury: Light, Moderate, and Severe. They are described below.
Light Injury
When you have only 75% or less of your Hit Points, you have suffered a Light Injury. A Light Injury imposes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws, and skill checks.
Moderate Injury
When you have 50% or less of her Hit Points, your have suffered a Moderate Injury. Like a Light Injury, a Moderate Injury imposes a penalty on all attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws, and skill checks. However, the penalty for a Moderate Injury is –4.
Severe Injury
When you have 25% or less of your Hit Points, you have suffered a Severe Injury. A character with a Severe Injury has a –6 penalty to all attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws, and skill checks. Also, characters with Severe Injuries cannot run or charge.
Disabled, Dying, and Dead
The rules for disabled, dying and dead conditions remain the same as standard d20 rules, with the following exceptions:
1. The instant death from massive damage rule is not used.
2. The amount of negative Hit Points to which a character can drop before dying equals –10 x the character’s Size Multiplier. In general, you guys won’t have to worry about this, as you’ll all be Medium-sized, like all humans.
3. The percentile chance a creature will stabilize while dying equals its Constitution score, rather than a flat 10%.
Normal Healing
All characters recover lost HP at rate of (1 point + their Constitution modifier) times their size multiplier (see table HP-3) per week of rest. With a week required for healing, it becomes extremely important for characters to seek medical help after severe or even moderate injuries.
8. Be a Hero! Action Points
While this is a less cinematic game than most, I do like to give you guys a bit of control over dice. Therefore, we’ll be using something I found (and modified a bit) called the Action Points system.
At each level, you gain 1d4 Action Points. Before you roll any d20, you can choose to use one Action Point to add +1d6 to the roll of that d20. The sum of the d20 and the d6 is treated as the roll of the d20, with anything above a 20 being treated as a 20.
Note that Action Points can be saved across several levels, though you’ll only be starting with 1d6. It’s important that you guys remember that you have these, so I’ll try to point out occasions when you might want to use them. Note also that important NPCs can (and will) get Action Points as well, which I will use as I see fit.
9. Dance that Magic Dance
Magic will not be an unknown force to the PCs, though it will be for the common man. Think of yourselves like Mulder and Scully on the X-Files – you go to where there’s magical trouble, so magic will seem more common to you than it is to everybody else. In fact, a good number of people don’t even believe in magic, particularly among the wealthy and well-educated.
Rules for magic use are presented above and in the Adept class description. It should be noted that damage-dealing spells have been reduced in strength to make things more balanced, since the Grim and Gritty rules tend to give a lot of power to spellslingers.
Spell Chains
In order to prevent you from having to keep old versions of spells that you don’t use any more, I’ll be allowing Adepts who gain access to a new level of spells to switch around their lower-level spells if they gain access to a higher-level version of the same general effect. For example, if you gain access to Cure Serious Wounds and don’t think you’ll use Cure Moderate Wounds any more, you can switch it out for a different 2nd level spell. We’ll talk about this when people gain access to new spells; just drop me an email if there’s something you want to switch around.
Magical Healing
Magic is fairly good at healing, though not as good as it is at some other things. Healing magic in this setting isn’t as quick as it is in most, though, and not nearly as powerful as it is in normal 3e rules.
A spell can heal a number of d4s equal to its level over the course of time. Hit points are regained at a rate of one per minute if the target is active, or two per minute if the target is resting. To start magical healing, a spellcaster must use a full-round action to cast the spell.
Alternatively, you can cast a spell so that it heals quickly, but heals less damage. Any Cure spell can be cast so that it heals 1d4 hit points less than normal, but does so immediately, rather than as a process of regeneration.
So, a few examples. Bob the Priest has the spell Cure Serious Wounds, which is a 3rd level spell that heals 3d4 points of damage, requiring a Spellcasting roll of DC 16 to cast, and costing 5 spell points. Bob successfully casts the spell on Joe, who is at 4 hit points out of his normal 14. Since they’re still in melee, Bob decides it would be a good idea to get Joe back on his feet RIGHT THE HELL NOW, and so he uses the quick version of Cure Serious Wounds. Over the course of the full-round action, Joe regains 2d4 hit points, in this case 6. He is able to return to the fight, thanks to Bob’s healing magic.
