Vambracer of Vampiric Hunger (Cursed Item)

The vambracer of Vampiric hunger.
This cursed item has no legends or oragins known. Its as if its dark will simply wished it's self in to existence. Once placed on ones wrist the vambracer can only be removed by very powerful magics.

Stats: +1AC, +2AC vs Radiant or holy sources.

In use:
Every time the player does damage (rolled a damage die) they are healed 1hp. But any and all healing actually harms instead, equal to the amout of HP that should have been healed, even natural healing. Even natural resting drains life and only drawing blood will heal. 

Grayson's Clockwork bow (Savage Worlds & Amazing Adventures)

Jeremiah Grayson created the bow for one purpose, revenge.

Growing up at the dawn of the industrial revolution Jeremiah came from a long line of jewelers and clock makers. Jeremiah had a unique bond with mechanical devices, in both building and repairing them. He found work outside the family business as a machinist.

One night there was a robbery at the family business. The thieves took merchandise and the lives of Jeremiah's father and sister. Tormented with guilt and grief Jeremiah tracked down the stolen goods.

The thieves were well connected and Jeremiah grew frustrated with law enforcement for not acting on his findings.

Jeremiah withdrew into his worshop. He crafted this bow. It's diminutive size made it concealable in a long coat. Making no more noise than a humming bird. With the bow was crafted eight arrows desined to be used with the bow. The thieves were hunted down one by one.

 When using a normal arrow treat the bow as just a simple or short bow. But when the custom arrows are used use these custom profiles.

Savage Worlds: 10/20/30, 2d6, AP 4, wgt 3, st d4 +2 to all shooting skill rolls.

Amazing Adventures: +3 to hit, 1d8, 60', -6 AC worth of armor (worn armor only).

Palladium style Armor for 5E D&D.

The armor rule in the 5th edition of D&D is by far my favorite of any edition of D&D. Though there is one system that I can't help but love. The Palladium armor rules grew from house rules of older editions of D&D. I want to do the reverse and see how I would handle a Palladium style system within the frame of D&D 5E.

I want to keep this system very simple so to be upfront about this. I'm going for the feel, while still keeping things simple. I have no interest in realism or direct porting from one system to the next. I'm also doing my best not to throw off the math. It will add more granularity to armor, Which is not everyone's cup of tea. This is totally untested, for now. So here we go.

Armor now has its own hit point pools.
All light armor has a base of 25hp.
All medium armor has a base of 40hp.
All heavy armor has a base of 50hp.
Obviously none standard materials could add or subtract from the base pool of hit points.For example a breast plate made from bone might have only 30hp, While one made from the Dwarven great forge could have 50 or more hit points.

Armor has an AR rating. AR is equal to original AC of the armor plus any Dex bonus it originally had.

Base to AC is now 5 + Dex bonus.

So for example:
 Athen the bard has a Dex bonus of +2 and is wearing leather armor. His armor would be:
Leather armor, AC 7, AR 13, 25hp.

Dillan the warrior with a dex bonus of +2 and wearing chain mail would be:
Chainmail, AC 7, AR 16, 50hp

Any roll of the AC or lower is a total miss. A roll greater than AC but less that AR is a hit to the armor, damage is rolled and deducted from the armors HP. Any roll greater than AR is a hit to the character directly and deducts from the characters HP as normal.

Once armor looses its last hit point it is useless and must be repaired or replaced. And the player looses the AR value all together. I'm sure GMs could allow armoring rolls to repair armor allowing armor to regain some or all of its hitpoints back.

This can also add granularity to well crafted items. For example maybe Dwarven armor has more hit points. While Elven steel is so light it adds more to base AC. And Human Fine craft adds to AR bonus.

Hacking Castles and Crusades.

I've been inspired by a great many games. Some leave their mark but for whatever reason fade from my table. Some I get an idea or two from but don't really care for some other aspect of the game. I've done a few house rules posts here and there for C&C. But I think its time I put more into them. make some real hacks for C&C. One reason I haven't is because Troll lord games already did a lot of that in the Castle keepers guide. They tore apart the Siege engine and put it back together again in different ways. They did such an amazing job of it I hate to reinvent the wheel so to speak. At some point I will do just that, But instead of hashing over already covered ground I will propose a few alternate resolution methods to replace the Siege engine.

I've been running a bit of 5E D&D and find a few of its components interesting.With both C&C and 5E being so modular I think a few of these components could easily be used in C&C. So here they are, C&C style.

BOON: This is a mechanic by which players are reworded for good role-playing. They gain a boon as a reward that can be spent at a later time to give themselves and one time re-roll choosing the best of the two rolls. Players can not stock pile boons, they either have a boon or they don't. Players may give other players their boon if they feel the player does something truly 'inspiring'.

Bonus/Penalty roll: Any time a player has a bonus or penalty to a roll +/-3 or greater the GM can call for Bonus or penalty roll instead of imposing the bonus/penalty. Instead the roll is treated as a re-roll. the player re-rolls the dice. If the roll was a penalty roll the player must keep the lower of the two rolls. If the roll was a bonus roll he keeps the greater of the two rolls.

More to come!

Space station mica one (cyper system)

I'm gearing up for a sci fi one shot using the material from both The Strange and Numenera.

The plot and location is going to be a space station in the far future besieged by an alien race. Think the movie Aliens mixed with Die hard.

I will be using the types from The Strange. But allow decriptors from either game.

Players can choose just about any focus and explain it as trainning, tech, alien biology, or psionics.

For example three different characters could all have 'Needs no weapon' focus. One might be an alien race whos biology make them a natural hunter/warrior. The other could be cybernetically enhanced.  And the third is a soldier who is trained in martial arts.

Equipment and gear will be drawn from both main books.

Very basic 5E D&D (basic 5E Hack)

I'm really working on an even more basic version of 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. The free basic rules are great, or even a great start. One option I discussed in my proficiency hack was applying proficiency to abilities rather than skills. I really like this option. But what about another option.

The other day I was thinking about how well the three saves from previous editions of D&D worked. It was easy to tell which of the three categories any one save would fall under. What if those three were very broad skill groups? Physical, Social, and Mental.

So then I have to ask, Is it just one category that the character is proficient? or two? How about full proficiency in one, half on a second, and none on the third. I'm going to give this a try. Maybe once I do I'll come back and post a few pregens made this way.

Gaslight, Savage Worlds setting (Review)

I am a HUGE fan of roleplaying in the victorian era. I'm a HUGE fan of Victorian horror. I'm a HUGE fan of sherlock Holmes.

I'm a HUGE fan of Gaslight. A victorian era fantasy setting for Savage Worlds. Published by Battlefield press, Inc. Although it weighs in at only 80 pages it covers a lot of groud in those 80 pages. Packed full of inspiration and useful information. My copy is a POD from Rpgnow.com. The covers are strong, the binding seems more than adequate, and the paper is heavy weight. Every bit of the book is quality. The art looks to be mostly from free sources. None of the art looks cheesy or out of place. It's plentiful enough to give the book a nice feel. And is well layed out and appropriate for its placement.

Chapter 1: (pages 1-27)
This chapter covers two major subjects. The world of gaslight, victorian themes for your game.
The second is Organizations and secret societies, from Holmes' Baker street irregulars to the secretive MI 7. Covered with (in my opinion) just the right information. Enough to inspire but not enough that it rambles on.

Chapter 2: (pages 29-43)
This chapter is all about making characters in the gaslight setting. Covering concepts, races, edges, and hindrances.
I find the races to be pretty interesting. Ratlings, Humans, Vampires, Werewolf, and Wildlings.
Each races is covered in a lot of detail. I love that it doesn't just give you a few racial packages and a sentence or two and leave you to it. It really fleshed them out with personality, description, relations, lands, religion, language, names, and adventures before getting to racial edges and flaws. Very nicely done in my opinion.

Chapter 3: (45-49)
This is a very small chapter entitled Worldly goods. Most of this chapter is menu style of charts with the goods and services avalible in the Gaslight setting. It's by no means exhaustive, but I feel it covers enough ground to get the job done. Every bit of it useful.

Chapter 4: (51-52)
This even shorter section is all about handling wealth and social status. Two very important topics in any Victorian setting.

Chapter 5: (53-54)
Beyond the veil is all about powers. Which one fits in which category. Which race or archtype is allowed which power. This is one area of the book I will say I disagree with. With the right trappings any power should be open to any type. But it's never bad to have options. If you so choose to introduce restrictions on powers it would not be a bad way to go.

Chapter 6: (pg 55-72)
This huge section is the Gazetteer of the Gaslight setting. Location by location of the world described in the Gaslight setting. So many great adventure seeds in here. I can't read this chapter without gleeming at least a little inspiration from it. Next is a timeline of the Gaslight world. From 1859 to 1901, again full of inspiring little nuggets.

Chapter 7: (pg 73-80)
The reliquary is full of wonderous items that can be found within the Gaslight world. The Ark of the covenant, crystal skulls, the holy grail, and the playing cards of wild just to name a few. This was one of my favorite parts to sit and read. Inspiration on every page. If the reliquary has any short coming, its that its too short. I would love to have even more.

Small but mighty. Gaslight is exactly what I like in a setting. Inspiring and useful. I didn't feel like I was reading a text book or some academic showing off. Hoping to see more in this line in the future.