August Radiance Thread

[Oedipussy Rex]

So. I've been sitting on this for too long. I need to get it done in order to move on to the next project that I've been putting off. As such. I'll be making a post every day this month. Since I'm two days behind, this will be a triple post.

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Some definitions
Size of stat: The Rank of die allowed by a Depth stat (1-5) or the maximum number of dice allowed in a pool by a Width stat (1-10).
Size of a pool: the number of dice actually in the pool.

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Time in Pools of Radiance
I'm sticking with the terminology used in Ə and using Combat, Adventure, and Travel Turns. However, unlike Ə, these time units represent a specific amount of time: Combat - 12 seconds, Adventure - 50 Combat Turns or 10 minutes, Travel - 300 Combat Turns or 6 Adventure Turns or 1 hour.

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Death in PoR
Death in Combat: When the number of Wounds and Hits meets or exceeds the character's Health (note that damage does not take away from a character's Health but Health is the amount damage a character can take) the character falls unconscious and starts bleeding out. Each Turn thereafter one Hit will convert to a Wound, and when the number of Wounds equals the character's Health the character dies. This process halts when the character receives treatment that reduces the Hit/Wound total to less than the character's Health. When bleeding out, any attacks are automatic Wounds.

Death Outside of Combat: First, Hits only exist during and just after combat. Any damage incurred outside of combat results in Wounds. Second, there are two situations of death outside of combat.
1) Death from a long-term affliction, such as an illness, occurs when the number of Wounds meets or exceeds Health. That's it. Dead. You had plenty of time to do something about it and yet here you are, rolling up another character. You have no one to blame but yourself.
2) If the number of Wounds exceeds Health because of a sudden trauma -- traps, falling rocks, instantaneous vertical deceleration, etc. -- the character falls unconscious and loses 1 Health each Turn (either Combat or Adventure, depending on game factors). When Health reaches 0, the character dies. The character recovers when treated so that the number of Wounds is less than the current Health. The loss of Health is permanent.

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Bonus post that I'm going to count as credit some time later
Fatigue: The number of Turns a character can perform a strenuous task is the size of the character's Stamina stat. After this point must rest or suffer a penalty to further skill rolls. (I'm still trying to decide whether the penalty will be an increase in the Target Number or an increase in the number of Successes required. Time to crunch some more numbers.)

[Kersus]

Want a subforum for PoR?

[Oedipussy Rex]

Wait. This isn't the PoR subforum? Explains all the off-topic threads.

[Oedipussy Rex]

Some definitions
Size of stat: The Rank of die allowed by a Depth stat (1-5) or the maximum number of dice allowed in a pool by a Width stat (1-10).
Size of a pool: the number of dice actually in the pool.

Notation: || stat ||, || pool || would be the proper way to notate cardinality (size) but I'm too lazy to type all that and will just go with |stat| and |pool|.

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Advance post for Tuesday

Encumbrance
This is problematic. As with Ə, I'm not going to do equipment/price lists for PoR; I figure that there are enough resources available that it's not worth my time and effort. Besides, part of the reason there are so many of the damn things is because nobody likes the equipment lists provided by game systems and everybody thinks they can do better. Equipment lists are like Hungarian Goulash; there are 9.8 million people in Hungary and there are 9.9 million authentic family recipes.

Unlike Ə, I'm not trying for heavy abstraction with its Items and Stuff, or even middling abstraction such as Gygax's "coin" value for encumbrance (yeah, a large sack of feathers is very light, but it's really big so it's equivalent to a waraxe which is heavy but easy to carry). In PoR, encumbrance will be based solely on weight, but this creates a problem: how does one know how much a character can carry when we can't know how much anything weighs in general because of a lack of a system equipment/price list? By going to outside sources we find that leather armor may weigh 20 lbs. according to one resource, and 10 lbs. in another.

Toward this issue I'm creating the Leather Armor unit of encumbrance, or LA, which is the weight of Leather Armor in the equipment system you use. A character can carry |Brawn| x |Stamina| LAs without penalty. (Oh yeah! I'm changing the Combat stat to Stamina.) If this limit is exceeded every task becomes a strenuous task and for every part of |Brawn| LAs over the limit, the number of Turns between Fatigue checks is reduced by 1. A character cannot carry more than twice the limit. This is not to say that a character cannot perform feats of strength with items that weigh more, just that they cannot perform normal tasks, like fight or cook or saunter. (Amble? Mosey? No, not mosey.) Note that a character has to be able to carry something to be considered carrying it.

If unhappy with the LA unit, perhaps the SA unit or even the CA unit would be preferable. I do not recommend the PA unit for any gaming system, let alone PoR.

[Oedipussy Rex]

My first stab at a monster chain for this system. I don't know if I'll keep the stats notation. I also don't know if I'll eventually add skills for monsters or only worry about it with NPCs. 

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Cyclops
C/S: 7d10
I/K: 4d6
F/F: 4d6
D: 3 (Hides)
H: 10
S: Large

A race of large, single-eyed humanoids of low intelligence, low humor, and a racial hatred of Simon and Garfunkel. (Huh. The edition of The Odyssey I had to read in high school translated Οὖτις as "No Man," but every reference I looked at just now has it as "Nobody," which completely ruins my overly convoluted joke.)

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Bicyclops
C/S: 7d10
I/K: 4d6
F/F: 6d8
D: 3 (Hides)
H: 12
S: Large

The two-eyed cousin of Cyclops, the Bicyclops is considered more dangerous because of their ability to use ranged weapons effectively.

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The Bicyclops is not to be confused with the
Bi-Cyclops
C/S: 7d12
I/K: 3d6
F/F: 3d6
D: 3 (Hides)
H: 15
S: Large

A two-headed Cyclops. Twice the brains, half the smarts.

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According to legend, a Bicyclops pissed off the gods, who, being the petulant, childish beings that they are, cursed his children with six spider eyes, creating a race of
Tribicyclops
C/S: 6d8
I/K: 5d8
F/F: 4d6
D: 3 (Hides)
H: 8
S: Large

While Tribicyclops do not have 360° vision they are very motion sensitive, making sneaking up on them very difficult.

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And finally we come to the subterranean sub-race who, like the mole, lost their eyes
Clops
C/S: 4d8
I/K: 4d6
F/F: 6d6
D: 2
H: 10
S: Large

No relation to Polyphemus.

[Oedipussy Rex]

Just got the new Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, so here's another early post.

Tracking (Finesse) <- This means that the skill (I'm calling them skills again) uses the Finesse and Fortune stats to determine the limits of the pool 

Base TN of 5 requiring 4 Successes to find the trail and 2 to keep on it, adjusted according to the tables below. Meeting the Success requirements indicates the character is able to follow the trail for the (usually Adventure) Turn. Any additional Successes in a roll means the character is able to follow the trail for an number of Turns equal to the excess without needing to make another check. A failed check to keep on the trail requires a new roll to find it again. Only single check is allowed to find a trail, but multiple rolls on a single check is allowed. Multiple rolls are not allowed to keep on the trail except when the size of the pool is less than the number of required Successes. (Reminder: If a skill roll results in at least 1 Success but not the necessary number required, addition rolls of the pool are allowed as long as until a roll results in no Successes or the required number are achieved. Not all skills allow this.)

Inherent Modifiers (add to TN)
Size:
-Tiny +2
-Small +1
-Medium 0
-Large -1
-Huge -2
-Gargantuan -4
Slimy (worms, Viscous Blobs, etc.) -2
Alters terrain (Lava Lizard, Basilisk, etc.) -5
Flying or Swimming +20

External Tracking Modifiers (Add to required number of Successes, minimum 1)
Terrain (use one)
-Fresh snow -3
-Muddy ground, loose dirt -2
-Thick vegetation -2
-Forest, field, dusty floor -1
-Normal ground, wood floor, sparse vegetation 0
-Desert, dry sand +1
-Swampy +2
-Rocky terrain, solid ice, stone floors, shallow water +2
Illumination (use one)
-Sunny day 0
-Twilight, light fog, snowing, torch light +1
-Full moon-lit night, day with moderate fog +1
-Overcast night with no moon, Forest, field, dusty floor, dense fog +2
-Blizzard, sandstorm, monsoon +7

Situational Modifiers (add to required Successes, use all applicable)
Every two in group being tracked -1
Each additional tracker assisting -1
Every half day since trail was made +1
Every hour of rain, snow, or sleet since trail was made +2
Creature being tracked attempts to hide trail +2
Trail crosses another trail +3
Failed Tracking attempt +1
Two consecutive successes (non-cumulative) -1

[Oedipussy Rex]

*Sigh*

So. I somehow managed to lose 80% of the work I've been doing over the past few weeks. What a pisser.

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Skills
Any time players roll, they are rolling for a skill. Pick a pocket, climb that hill, tote that barge, kiss him upside the cranium with an aluminum baseball bat, all done through the use of skills. Skills "fall under," "rely on," "are dependent on" one of the three pairs of stats. 

Skills that fall under Finesse/Fortune are general actions and are the most numerous; Climb, Loot, and Observe, for example. Yes, one would think that Intellect/Knowledge would be a better fit for Observe, but one would be wrong. Hopefully one will be able to see the error of one's thoughts in the following paragraphs.

Intellect/Knowledge skills require a specialization. For many of these skills rolls outside the specialization are allowed at a higher difficulty. The History skill specialized in ancient Rome will allow a roll for Middle Kingdom Egypt, but knowing how to read Sanskrit does not allow a roll to read Swahili.

As with Intellect/Knowledge skills, those that fall under Brawn/Stamina require specialization, the vast majority of which are classified as Combat skills. When taking a Combat skill, the player must specify, most often, a weapon with which the skill is used. Some Combat skills have specializations other than weapons. It is the GM's call on whether to allow non-specialized use of a Combat skill.

Skills that require a specialization can be taken more than once with different specializations.

Okay, enough of this "/" crap. From now on it is understood that "Finesse," "Knowledge," and "Brawn" are synecdochous for the pairs of stats and that "Combat" is metonymous for Brawn. And yes, I just made those words up. Don't blame me for the language's short-comings.

[Oedipussy Rex]

So let's get to one of, if not the, most important skills in the game.

Weapon Proficiency (Combat) - Choose a weapon.

[Oedipussy Rex]

Races
Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, and Orc

We all know what they are.

Classes
Schmuck - The class all characters qualify for when they don't qualify for anything else
Sorcerer - Able to cast all spells but limited in combat and penalties to skills outside Knowledge
Warrior - Masters of Combat and little else
Adventurer - Limited magic and Combat
Mystic - essentially a Sorcerer/Adventurer
Crusader - Warrior/Sorcerer
Scout - and of course the Warrior/Adventurer

Which brings us to the Class/Race of
Radiant - You know that guy who plays Drow for the 50% magic resistance then, when having a Heal Light Wounds spell cast on the character throws an absolute shit-fit when told to roll for resistance? That’s the type of asshole this Class was designed for. Radiants have no restrictions on skills, magic, or weapons. They start with the most CP, gain the most Health per CP, get an extra CP when earning CP, whether as a reward for finishing an adventure or via a successful roll, and when adding a new die to a pool, Radiants add a d6 instead of a d4. Radiant is a class that announces to the table just who you are when you choose to play it.  A word of friendly advice: don’t. Just don’t.

[Oedipussy Rex]

Parry
Without getting into the details here, Parry is a sub-pool used in combat to counter attacks.

Armor
The armor worn determines the TN opponents need to beat to hit a character.

Leather 3
Scale 5
Banded 7
Chain 9
Brigandine 11
Plate 13

Shields
Shields provide a pool of d4s, the number of which depends on the size of the shield, that are used for Parry in combat, including ranged attacks. Like armor, using a shield is not a skill. If you have one, you can use one.

Small {d4}/{}*
Medium {2d4}
Large {3d4}
Tower {4d4}/{6d4}*
*pool for ranged attacks

Getting ahead of myself but
Magic Shields
The basic magic shield is Shield +X where X is the increase in Rank of the dice in the shield's pool: a Medium Shield +1 provides {2d6} and a Tower Shield +4 is {4d12}/{6/d12}.

Magic Armor
Basic magic armor does not increase Defense but provides a pool for Parry. The size will be no larger that the Defense provided and the maximum die as indicated below.

Leather d4
Scale d6
Banded d6
Chain d8
Brigandine d10
Plate d12