I'm looking to run the first 3 books of Hell's Rebels (I don't have the last 3 books, but if I can afford to aquire them before we get there I'll happily keep going).
However, I'd really like to run this "live" over discord on either saturday or sunday late night central mountain time (starting no earlier than 19:00), but if there aren't enough players up for that, then I'll run it here as pbp, though at a slow pace, about 3-5 posts a week, though obviously weekends are better for me than weekdays. I'll likely be able able to answer questions and such more often than that but I want to avoid making rushed posts to advance the game, especially given how chaotic and unpredictable my weekday schedule is, so I only want to post to advance gameplay when I can sit and think about it rather than tossing it together in a hurry.
An important note, I'm an "old school/classic" style GM (misnomers really, but what else do I call it?), to me rules are a language to more easily communicate details and add some chance/fate, but are not absolute laws on how to play that must be always perfectly applied (I highly suggest reading Alexandrian's article on Calibrating Your Expectations), for example, answering the question "how strong are you" is a lot easier when when you can just reference a chart instead of having a discussion, but naturally such a chart would look very much like a mechanic. Another example is applying an Unstable Platform penalty for a fight to make it feel different from other fights but not worry about using the penalty every single time it might be applicable. Some say the rules must be perfectly applied so they know what to expect, to which my response is to judge by the narrative milieu instead of abstract mechanics. We don't use mathmatical models in the real world and we get by fine, same can be true of the game world. That said, the rules do fine for general case, it is mostly the niche cases and creative concepts that might require bending/breaking the rules and I'm not afraid of doing so in such cases.
I'll be aiming for naturalistic balance rather than gamist balance and will judge according to what makes sense in the narrative milieu rather than treating this like an advanced version of chess. I.E. you will never encounter a Poison Dart trap DC 23, but instead you'll find a trip wire, or pressure plate, etc. How you try to get past it determines what skill you'll need, and if you're clever enough, you might avoid needing a check at all.
Also, while I'm not out to kill players, I'm not out to prevent death either. It should be dangerous, and if you are not using good tactics, you will die. I want to avoid death being so common that players are not invested in their characters, yet also to avoid players feeling like they can take survival for granted or even to feel like death is avoidable with only minor thought, rather I want survival to the end to feel like a goal that needs to be worked for. Hirelings are not a bad idea, if you can find some.
And the 15 minute workday, well, not when enemies are around, as the world does not wait for you. If you attack a "dungeon," expect to clear it out or retreat before you get to have a long rest, and if you retreat, expect the inhabitants to be better prepared for your next attempt (if they bother to hang around).
It should be noted that most creatures of the material plane will not fight to the death, but a few will. They will also use tactics and strategy. I'm a big fan of Tucker's Kobolds, so don't expect even the low cr guys to just be pushovers, in general at least.
I also don't do the whole "encounters should be lvl appropriate" thing. Not sure why everyone thinks things "should" be like that, but most creatures in the world are low level and those few high level creatures can turn up at any time. For non-story encounters, I roll dice for encounter strength similar to ORE, with a curve favoring low level guys but more variable for total difficulty. You can get unlucky in either ememy CR or total encounter CR, so being careful is advised.
Worried about XP? Don't be, you'll get XP/advancement based on accomplishmemt of goals/tasks, so just randomly killing things is not the most efficient way to earn XP. Generally I'll hand out XP based on how difficult things are for you, so minmaxing can actually work against you in regard to advancement.
If you're still reading, then let's get to the rules modifications. They are somewhat hefty but not as different in gameplay as they might at first seem.
1 dice.
I'll be using 3d6 rolls, but while take 10 works like normal for 3d6, the take take 16/18 options are replaced.
Take 12, spend 10 times as long and twice the resources to treat 2d6s as max and roll only the remaining 1d6.
Take 20, spend 100 times as long and 5 times the resources to add 20 instead of rolling.
In some cases, the take 12 is the expected norm while a straight roll is for when rushing, such as picking a lock is much easier when being careful and slow but being fast is less reliable and more variable.
There is also Take 5, aka Passive. Mostly used for stealth or search, but this basically means that one is so good that they are basically automatically using the skill even when not trying to. For example, someone who is sneaky tends to be more quiet even when walking normally, even accidently scaring people by normally walking up to them unnoticed, you know the type, those folks who always seem to be behind you without you noticing. It doesn't come up often, but can be funny or interesting when it does.
I'll sometimes use advantage/disadvantage for circumstance modifiers and a few select effects like the Bless/Bane spells and any morale modifiers. Advantage works like expected, you add extra dice and then discard the same number of highest/lowest rolling dice as were added.
Additionally, for discord I'll use the Players roll all the dice variant rule, but...
If this ends up as pbp that'll be too slow with all the asking for rolls, so to speed things up in that case, it'll be active rolls all the dice vs static reaction, which basically means that if you do it then you roll, if done to you, they roll. I.E. spell DC is rolled against static save, etc. This way, both player and gm need only worry about rolls for things they choose to do and thus never need to ask for or wait for someone else to roll in reaction.
2 levels
There are numbers tied to class or character level. These are based on other things now, allowing many more levels of versatility to be gained without growing into superhuman levels of power so quickly (in the fashion referred to in the Alexandrian's article Calibrating Your Expectations. Thus while lvl 5 is normally an Einstein at the peak of real world human capability, now it can be set to lvl 10, 20, or even 100).
Mainly this will be based on a new stat called Power, though many things will also be based on ability scores or turned into skills.
Power (I still call it Tier sometimes from other rules I work on) basically represent two things, a character's agency in the world, and raw numerical power (i.e. someone with no training nor experience yet can release blasts of fire to melt titanium or to cover whole buildings, is someone with low level but high power). Power is improved via narrative rp. It requires character growth in general but other things can improve power as well, both temporarily and inherently.
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BAB no longer exists. Attacks are now skills (a skill for each weapon type, proficiency merely determines which are class skills. -4 to attacks for non-proficiency is instead when untrained). Combat maneuvers are also skill checks, one for each type of maneuver, but do not take the -4 penalty for being untrained, otherwise working like skills with all the DCs as normal for such maneuvers. Grapple, Unarmed Attack, and Natural Attacks are treated as Attack type skills including -4 for untrained use. Unarmed Attacks can be affected by anything that can help/hinder Natural Attacks unless specified otherwise. Bonuses to bab apply to these skills.
There is an attack skill for spells, which covers hitting a target/location with any aimed spell.
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Armor and Dodge are skills.
AC is the ref save plus the lesser of the armor skill rank or the armor's armor bonus and is by general type (plate, scale, chain, magic force [spells and items with armor bonuses], etc. Like attack, proficiency determines class skills).
Dodge is your touch ac skill, but armor check penalties apply to the dodge skill, as actively avoiding a touch is different from parrying with armor, and a focus on wearing armor vs dodging is a choice impacting what equipment to wear.
The reflex save by itself is used for unexpected attacks (flat-footed or would normally be denied dex bonus), while knowing of an attack allows an improvement upon that. Since these defense skills build on saves, they don't add ability modifiers again since those are already added.
Attacking someone who literally can't move/react, such as for coup-de-grace, paralyzed, etc, the AC is 10+size+ half the armor bonus.
Heavy armor does not reduce base speed (it doesn't in real life and now it is no longer needed as a balancing factor).
When using total defense, you may choose to brace for impact and use your fort save instead of ref save for defense (basically not even bothering to avoid the blow and just trying to withstand it instead.). This also allows you to reduce dmg more.
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DR is treated like an Armor bonus that stacks with other armor bonuses, but not added to touch AC.
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Saves do not get a base save bonus, instead add two ability score modifiers plus Power.
Fort is str and con.
Refl is dex and int.
Will is wis and cha.
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Max skill ranks is equal to Power+3 with an additional +1 for class skills.
Class skills do not get the +3 bonus.
Skill ranks have a growing cost, each rank costs itself in skill points (i.e. improving a skill from 2 ranks to 3 ranks costs 3 skill points.
Skill ranks earned every lvl is by class as normal plus power.
(This is because even at 20 max skill ranks, 100 levels will give you hundreds of excess skill points at a 1 to 1 cost, a decidely bad thing, so costing more slows it down such that power better controls how many high ranked skills one can get)
All classes that normally get fewer than 6 skill points per lvl now get get 6 (under the presumption that those extra skill points used to go towards attack and magic skills in the background, but now are now explicit. Because nowyou have to actually buy thosr skills instead of getting them free.)
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All other effects not specified that improve numerically based on class or character lvl instead improve on Power stat. For example, precision dice progression (like sneak attack) and spell resistance. *There are a lot of these, if you think something should be exempted, ask about it and make your case. I'll consider it.
3 Health
Normal HP works like Vitality, representing both non-specific physical issues, such as bruises, scratches, bloodloss, exhaustion, etc, and non-physical aspects like focus, determination and morale.
You have a lot more hp than before, you can lose a number of HP equal to your con score before hitting a Benchmark. You can hit a number of Benchmarks equal to your con score (effectively giving you your con-score-squared in HP), but each Benchmark passed requires a fort save (DC 10+number of benchmarks passed) in order to remain conscious. You get a +4 to this save if you take action knowing it will hurt (basically, when your character can mentally brace for it).
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When you take dmg, if it is higher than your Wounds Threshold, you take a wound.
The Wounds threshold is set by Power, Con, DR, and Armor bonus (this is why soldiers in full plate get battered to death rather than killed by greivous wounds). When taking Total Defense and choosing to brace for impact, you also add Str to the Wounds Threshold.
Any DR that applies to the attack adds to the Threshold as well as any armor and natural armor bonuses that apply to the attack (a touch spell for example doesn't get the armor bonus against it for the attack and therefore not the dmg either). Armor and natural armor do indeed apply against burst AOE attacks (due to exposing less of the wearer). Properly worn armor applies to electricity attacks.
When dmg exceeds the Wounds Threshold, or you get hit with a critical hit, or when an attack hits AC+10, you get a wound.
Roll a d20 and subtract the weapon's critical multiplier and the number of precision dice if any were rolled (reduced size precision dice reduce the bonus here proportionally. I.E. d4s would add only 2/3s the number of dice). Getting a roll of 1 or less is death. Getting less than 5 is 3 points of bleed per round and 3 con dmg. Getting less than 10 is 2 con dmg and 2 bleed per round. Getting less than 15 is 1 con dmg and 1 bleed per round. Bleed from multiple wounds stack. Getting 15 or above will merely have 1 bleed per round.
Bleed X means losing X HP at the end of every round. Bleed stacks, so Bleed 3 + Bleed 2 = Bleed 5. But remember each wound individually along with it's bleed number. These are healed per wound, not by simply reducing numbers.
Cure spells heal HP, OR stop bleed effects if used with a successful heal check DC 10+thrice the bleed value of the targeted wound, but do not fix wounds themselves (leaving any other effects of the wound still in effect).
Wounds must be healed via the Heal skill or with restoration-like magic. If an effect can heal your choice of ability dmg (i.e. as in not specific to just str, or just mental abilities), then the effect can instead heal one wound per point of ability score damage that would be healed. Potions must be specifically brewed for this, it can't be chosen at time of drinking.
4 magic
Magic is normally a sure thing balanced by limited use. I'm changing that to be less certain, weaker, but usable more often.
Casting magic requires a skill check (DC 5+5 per SL), with a skill for each spell known (prepping a spell that has been added to spellbook but has no ranks can be done, you just won't have any bonus to casting it). This check is also used for the quality of the spell (such as for how good your illusion looks) and the spell's save DC. [ooc]Trick; subtract DC from roll, 0 or above is success and result is the direct magnitude of success/failure. Magnitude of success plus 10 plus Power is spell DC.
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Any spell aimed at a location (not a target but a location) beyond 30' requires a ranged touch attack to hit the desired spot (a square has an AC of 10, spells in this manner have a range increment of 20' for close, 80' for medium, 120' for long, and 1/2 mile for extreme. Use the Spell Attack skill for all such spells.), a miss drifts the spell origin by 1/4 a range increment per point by which the attack roll missed, randomly roll direction.
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Base Caster Level is equal to Power+(1 per 5 points rolled over the DC) for all spells, regardless of spell lvl. I.E. a fireball from a Power 1 caster requires a DC 20 skill check to get 1d6 dmg, and DC 30 for 3d6 dmg, while a Power 3 caster gets a 3d6 fireball at DC 20.
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Spell slots can be used to cast spells for free but are unstable and can become disrupted after a while, but after that, HP can be spent to cast a spell (spend 1d4 hp per spell lvl [roll that many d4s], 1hp for cantrips if all other slots are disrupted). This makes casting more magic easier but risky.
Whenever casting a spell using a slot, you'll roll a die, if it rolls a 1 then that slot is disrupted and can't be cast again until it is prepared again, or after 4 hours per SL in the case of spontaneous casters.
Areas with little magic may recharge slower or not all, while areas with plenty (such as a ley line) can recharge faster.
Con is used for determining extra slell slots.
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Spells that heal hp however work normally using a slot, but once using hp, any HP healed comes directly from the caster's HP in addition to the spell's cost. When doing this, you can either heal the minimum (treat as rolling a 1 on all dice), or you can roll taking the full amount rolled.
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Skipping Componants (still spell, silent spell, etc) can be done by any caster simply by adding +4 to the DC per skipped componant. Expensive spell materials can be skipped by adding costs of both +1 DC and 1d4 HP per 100gp.
Spell effects always use the base cl as mentioned above.
Burst effects are 5' at highest CL and from there, each doubling of range reduces the CL by 1 until CL is less than 1. The only way to improve the radius of a burst is to improve it's CL. I.E. a CL 5 fireball is 5d6 dmg out to 5', 4d6 dmg out to 10', 3d6 dmg out to 15', 2d6 out to 20', and 1d6 out to 25'. Just roll the full number of dice once, and ignore one die per 5', in order.
Metamagic feats can be learned, they increase the DC by 5 per SL of modification. Except for metamagic that skip componants (such still spell) which instead halve the DC cost listed above for skipping that componant (i.e. Still spell adds +2 DC instead of +4).
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Note:
Spells that link two individuals or points have an ethereal conduit. Force effects block such conduits. Conduits can generally flow around such effects if a path exists, but such effects can be also be used to sever such conduits in some cases. This allows areas to be warded against such links. Teleporting, scrying, telepathy, and many other similar effects rely on such conduits. Force effects used in this manner can also be made to block only the ethereal, allowing doors to be made for people and goods to be moved through that still blocks such conduits.
Most of these spell effects are ended when the conduit is severed, but more permanant ones, like the link between mage and familiar, remains but requires the conduit to be re-established after being severed. This re-establishing of the conduit can be done by touch or connecting via other spells that form similar links.
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Simpler spells of higher SL can sometimes be learned by lower Power casters (such as better illusions and evocations), but some spells also require higher Power to cast (such as dimensional spells or Wish/Miracle). By default as a general guideline, you can cast spells with a base SL up to your Power Stat. Modified SL, such as from metamagic, does not affect whether you can cast a spell.
5 Clarifications
These are not really rules alterations, but my take on certain rules that is different from the stereotypes.
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Start of combat/in combat.
This is about preparedness and expectation. If you see people up ahead and are suspicious they might be bandits and feady yourselves for combat even though you plan on not attacking first, then that choice is the first round of combat, even though we won't be counting rounds until/unless combat actually breaks out.
The rules around surprise rounds and start of combat apply only when you are not expecting combat when combat starts. Thus, most of the time, you'll be "in combat" plenty ahead of the first actual attack roll.
This is particularly important to note in dealing with people. Being aware of a merchant, but not realizing that he is actually an assassin means you are not "aware" of him as a combatant even though you are aware of his presence.
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Alignment,
Alignment doesn't apply to personal relationships.
Good folks are good because they uphold society and people in general as more important than themselves. They value the lives of strangers and sacrifice much for people they don't even know.
Evil folks can be regular evil or monstrous. Most tropes of pure evil are actually the monstrous category. Regular evil is simply apathy for society or strangers, someone who simply doesn't care if random people they never see get hurt, but they can still care about personal relationships, and can still have friends and loved ones (usually these will be messed up in some way, but not always) and may even be willing to sacrifice a lot for these personal relationships that they'd never even consider doing for a stranger.
Monstrous are the ones who like causing pain, who take pleasure in harming others and commit murder and torture for the fun of it.
Monstrous characters almost always deserve to die. Regular Evil may or may not deserve harsh punishment.
Lawful is not about law, more like orderly behaviour. OCD behaviour, or someone who is dedicated to routine and doing things in the "proper" way. They make plans and follow them. The violinist who practices proper technique and does scales.
Chaotic folks go with the flow and do what seems like a good idea at the time. They don't like plans, and get frustrated when they aren't allowed to just handle something instead of wasting time preparing. The fiddler who learns by ear and practice by just strumming notes till they sound right.
If you've seen Mr and Mrs Smith, Mrs Smith is Lawful, Mr Smith is chaotic.
Dot and I could also do Saturdays at the mentioned time but not Sundays.
Awesome. Do you guys want a session 0, or to make characters ahead of time? Or both?
Of course, more people will be nice too. :)
Unfortunately I think I miscalculated a few things. Don't think I'll be able to do this one.
That's alright. Happens to the best of us. If by some miracle we get enough for pbp, should I pm you?
Most PF pbp APs on here get enough applicants to fill 3 tables, I doubt you'll have problems gathering enough interest if you switch over to pbp (even with your massive amount of house rules). If you really want to run a real time game, I think it would be easier to advertise other places than here .
I'm interested if this ends up being PBP. If it does and we get through 3 books I would be more than happy to chip in for the 4th book as well.
I'm willing to run pbp, I just know myself well to know that I'm better when it's live, not to mention that I can't be consistent nor quick in the pbp format due to my unpredictable and unreliable scheduling. On the other hand, the panic of this virus might screw that up anyway.
I'll start on making a character for pbp then :). Hopefully more people will notice that this has switched formats (unless there's a sudden influx of live people)...
Edit: With so many house rules, I'm not sure I'll be able to wrap my head around how they impact things. I may not be able to actually figure out how to make a character.
Hmm, it is mostly an issue of being unfamiliar, but an example couldn't hurt no matter which way things go. I'll put one together tonight.
That said, many folks often play a style dependent on system mastery, which is understandably at a disadvantage here, then again, such styles are working against the intended style of this game and would be at a disadvantage even if they had complete system mastery.
I've been a bit delayed. We're moving to my grandparents for a few months, so quite suddenly my time has been restricted this week.
No idea what my schedule will be after we get there, so if scheduling was your only issue, stayed tuned and I'll post as soon as I figure it out.
Settling in, I do have internet here, but it's sketchy. Seems to keep up with youtube for the most part so gaming on discord should still be an option. The next couple of weeks I'll be looking at at getting a local job where upon I'll have better idea about longer term schedule, but pbp is the easiest since chaotic schedule doesn't affect pbp as much.
Okay, seems I got a job but can't start till they get a class in a couple months and won't find anything out schedule-wise till after that. Anything else is basically a bust right now.
So I'm not going to worry about that for now. I did get a better, not perfect, internet connection though.
So I'm considering my schedule open for days (nights will sadly disturb the house too much) on discord, or pbp 5 posts a week. If everyone still interested will please check in (or wait to see my character creation example) and I'll get the character creation example up tomorrow (I'll be borrowing a real keyboard for it :). Then we can determine whether enough folks are up for discord, or if it'll be pbp (and hopefully not a resounding silence).
Here is my example, I left out most of the small stuff that hasn't changed, such as languages and such.
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Generate ability scores as normal (using default 4d6 drop lowest). We'll say I got 15,14,14,13,12,10
I assign them as such,
str 10 +0
dex 14 +2
con 14 +2
int 15 +2
wis 12 +1
cha 13 +1
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Race is human for simplicity. I'll add the +2 to cha, bringing that to 15 with a +2 modifier.
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Power is 1.
Just like starting level, this is not unique to character but rather is determined by how the campaign starts, in this case we start at level 1.
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class, lvl 1 in class of choice, for this example I'll be going for an eldritch knight type character, so I'll start with my first lvl in sorcerer (spontaneous casting is better in my opinion, especially in combat).
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Thus so far,
str 10 +0
dex 14 +2
con 14 +2
int 15 +2
wis 12 +1
cha 15 +2
Hit Dice = 1d6
HP = 14 (my con score, so I take penalties and roll to remain conscious at 0 HP, -14 HP, -28 HP, -42 HP,... Death from HP loss at -182)
WT (wounds threshold) = 3 (1 power, 2 con) [Death will more likely be through this than HP loss, likewise for your enemies.]
Fort = +3 (1 pow, 0 str, +2 con)
Refl = +5 (1 pow, +2 dex, +2 int)
Will = +4 (1 pow, +1 wis, +2 cha)
[add 10 to each save if these end up as static values for pbp]
Max Skill Ranks = 4 (3+1 from power)
Max Ranks Class Skills = 5
Base CL = 1 (1 power)
######
I got 6 spells known, four cantrips and two 1st level spells.
My spells known,
mending
detect magic
prestidigitation
ray of frost
shield
chill touch
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I get 6 skill points, +2 from int, +1 for human, for 9 points to spend on skills.
A weapon is a skill as are spells and armor, so I'll need those. Going for eldritch knight really taxes my skills at first lvl, but that will even out quickly with a few lvls.
1 rank in,
Combat (longsword) [I won't be able to hit 5 ranks in this but that is a few levels away anyway and I'll get the proficieny for it by then, in the meantime, being trained means I won't get a -4 penalty for longswords]
Perception
Diplomacy
Armor (chain)
and 3 for a spell
As a sorcerer I get 6 spells known, but can't yet put ranks into each, so for some I'll be casting without training, which just means I haven't gotten good at them yet, but they are on my spells known list which means I can try anyway, and as I only know cantrips and 1st lvl spells, the DC is only 5 and 10 respectively, which means it isn't much of a problem yet.
I spend 1 point for the first rank in the Shield spell, then 2 more points for the 2nd rank in that spell.
So my skills are,
+1 Armor (Chain) (+1 rank)
+1 Combat (Longsword) (+1 rank, +0 str)
+3 Diplomacy (+1 rank, +2 cha)
+2 Perception (+1 rank, +1 wis)
SL 1 DC 10 to cast, spell save is +3 or DC 13
+4 Spell (Shield) (+2 rank, +2 cha)
+2 Spell (Chill Touch) (+2 cha)
Cantrips DC 5 to cast, spell save is +2 or DC 12
+2 Spell (Ray of Frost) (+2 cha)
+2 Spell (Prestidigitation) (+2 cha)
+2 Spell (Mending) (+2 cha)
+2 Spell (Detect Magic) (+2 cha)
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Feats, Combat Casting plus an extra from being human, so Alertness.
Traits, Disillusioned and an open slot for a campaign trait.
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I buy a chain shirt (+4 armor, +4 MxDx, -2 ACP, 20% SFC) and a longsword (1d8, 19/x2, S)
My skill in armor mean that I'll only have 19% SFC.
My AC is +6 (reflex save plus 1, which is the lesser of Armor skill vs armor bonus)
with a touch AC of +3 (reflex plus -2 ACP)
Add if PBP and these become static values for AC 16 and TT 13.
The Armor ups my Wounds threshold from 3 to 7, from adding the armor bonus.
[as a reminder, since power won't be increasing so drastically nor as quickly, you'll spend quite a bite of time with enemies that deal lower dmg. The high 20-30 dmg values will be harder to achieve and rarer than normal, for your enemies, so this isn't quite as fragile as it might at first seem.]
I hope that clarifies things. If you have questions ask.