Warrior, Rogue, & Mage. Weapon Qualities.

While looking around on stargazer games I noticed that Michael Wolf the author of WR&M was working on a scifi game using the same system, called Wyrm SF (Wyrm being the name of the system these games share). I got intrigued, so went over to the forums to check on progress on it. A post there really caught my interest.

Mr. Wolf proposed the idea of adding tags or qualities to weapons to add uniqueness to them. Here is the post:

 So, let's look at an example:

In RAG a light machine gun has the following stats: Skill (Ranged), Damage (9), Range (Long)

These stats could form the basis for any light machine gun in Wyrm SF. But there might be variants like these:

Gaian Arms Pacifier Light Machine Gun, Skill (Ranged), Damage (9), Range (Long), Tags (accurate, unfoldable bipod)

MarsCorp LMG-17 Light Machine Gun, Skill (Ranged), Damage (9), Range (Long), Tags (high-powered, extended clip)

I thought adding tags to weapons is a way to add a lot of variety to the simple system of WR&M.
For example an assassins dagger could have an armor penetration (AP 1 ignoring 1 point defense from armor) tag. Distinguishing it from other daggers.

I think Qualities is going to be the choice term. 

I have decided that not all items will have qualities. Just items that are well crafted or magical. This will keep the game running simple. But draw greater distinction to better gear and magical items. Items with qualities will fall into 3 categories. High crafted, Master crafted, and Magical.

High crafted: (HC) This weapon is well made by an experienced craftsman. It will cost and often sell for double that of an average weapon of the same type (more if it has another quality attached). High crafted items gain a +1 to damage and can often have one (and only one) other quality attacked to it.

Master crafted: (MC) These items are forged by great masters. Their quality and workmanship have no equal. Master craft items will cost 8 to 10 times that of an average weapon of the same type (depending on the number of other qualities).  High crafted Items gain a +1 to damage like high crafted. But master crafted items may have up to two other qualities attacked to it.

Magic: (MA) This quality shows that a weapon is magical. For all purposes the weapon is a magical item and can strike creatures that could not normally be harmed by mundane weapons. Most magical weapons give off some kind of glow but not all. Most magical items will be imbued with at least one other magical quality. There is no limit to the number of qualities a Magical Item may have on it.

 Added qualities: 

Armor penetrating: (AP) This quality will have a value from 1 to 2 if it is high or master crafted weapon. And can have a range from 1 to 4 as a magical quality. The number represents the number of defense from armor an attack with this weapon may ignore. But only defense from armor.

Accurate: (AC) This quality will have a value from 1 for being a master crafted item. And can have a value from 1 to 3 as a magical quality. This quality gives the user a bonus in combat to strike his opponent.

Slaying: (SL) This quality grants a bonus to damage against a single creature type. This quality will range from 1 to 3 and can only be applied to weapons with the magic quality. Slaying weapons glow brightly when they are with in 100' of the creature they are a slayer of.

Wizards: (WZ) This quality can only be on a staff or Rod. Only weapons with the magic quality may have wizards quality on it. This weapon works as a channel for raw mana. The character may channel one point

of mana into to fire a mana shard at an opponent. The range of a mana shard is 40' and requires a roll on thaumaturgy to hit.

Still underconstruction 

Warrior, Rogue, And Mage.

In the past I used to love big heavy games. Gurps, Hero, and any number of big games. But a lot has changed in past years. Between time constraints and real life intruding my attitude has really changed. These days I really love rules lite games.

A little while back I stumbled across this game over on Stargazer's world. A blog that I visit almost if not daily. The game is called Warrior, Rogue, and Mage.

Its simple and light system, But modular enough to add to it as you see fit. One main concept of the game is no classes. Instead the classes Warrior, Rogue and Mage are your main attributes. The more you put into that attribute the better you are at doing things associated to that class. Warrior is your base attribute for combat and feats of strength. Rogue is your base attribute for subterfuge and feats of agility. Mage is your base attribute for Arcana and Feats of Intellect.

The customization you can put into your character using this system is great. If for example you wanted to make a ranger you could put points into Warrior and Rouge. A Cleric could be a mix of Warrior and Mage.
And an arcane assassin would be a mix of Rogue and Mage. This is a huge step ahead of most simple fantasy systems where picking a race and class combo is about as custom as it gets. There is a good number of examples of fantasy races.

Skills and talents round out the character creation process. (not looking at magic yet). Skills are simple you either are skilled or you are not. A skill gives a +2 bonus to rolls covered by that skill. You can only take a skill based on one of the core attributes if the character has at least one point in that attribute. So if you have no points in rogue, you cant take the thievery skill for example. This is elegant and simple.

The next thing about WR&M I really like is task resolution. Its a roll a D6 and add the appropriate attribute and skill bonus if you are skilled. The die can "explode" meaning if you roll a 6 you count and roll the die again and add it to the total. Adding any more rolls of 6 the same way and rolling again. You roll against a target number based on how complex the task is.

The magic system is a mana point system with difficulties to cast based on how high the circle (level) of the spell is. With armor subtracting from spell casting rolls. The spell list is small but surprisingly covers a lot of ground. Also simple and elegant.

Combat is Hit point based with rolls being made against the targets defense attribute. Combat rolls explode if the character has an appropriate skill and damage rolls always explode.

There is still more I could cover but I'll have to leave it at that for now.

This is a GREAT rules light system. Well worth checking out. A 5 out of 5. To me this is the perfect kind of rules light game. Its light enough for a quick 1 shot, maybe on a night the normal group cant get together. With enough meat on its bones to give it re-playability. And its modular enough to custom to taste for your own setting.