I'm not sold on doubling the costs for magical talents though. Magic is already dangerous enough.
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On learning spell: Consider changing the cost of learning from risking mishaps to XP. Many mishaps have little effect when they occur in the safety of one's home while XP is a solid cost. Maybe make learning magical talents cost as any other talent but have spells cost their rank in XP to learn. Double cost of spells as well if you don't have a grimoire or teacher to guide you.
Well since there now are more spells, its easier to regain Willpower (but harder to retain more) and its slightly less danger in rolling mishap dice, I felt that they should cost more xp?
On top of that magic is diverse, like getting a path in magic allows you to do so much more even without all these extra rules, than a rank in, lets say minstrel.. But I can only base this on feelings, I have not played the game yet.
I didn't add a xp cost to spells, as I thought that was a bit far from the core rules, so I instead increased the cost of the talent.
I also though a money sink was better than than an xp sink here, as a magic user might not have the same need for high quality equipment..
I just guess that you would be more frustrated if you gamble and lose xp, rather than money? And I want the game to feel as fun as possible.
Like having a player going "why cant I find a magic teacher?", he can pay his x3 XP, but that will make him feel cheated and dislike his unfair dungeon master..
That's will not be fun... at least not in my regular gaming group.
With my rules you could spend your xp, learn the rank (although it might take a couple of rolls), but still look for the teacher in order to learn new spells.
That said, are the cost for learning new spells balanced? I have no clues on player economy. Like would a base price of 5 silver and double it per rank be better? That would make a rank 5 spell cost 80 silver instead of the current 25.. but on the other hand, you are more likley to fail the roll to learn a rank 5 spell... so it will on average cost a lot more than 5 times a rank 1 spell.. so fine I guess..?
On mixing professions: I'd add some form of cost or limit. Skills are their own reward and it seems like such a small investment to just have to pick up a few specific ones. Maybe say that you can pick one from up to two other professions and learn it at double the cost? That means you can get a talent at like rank 1 for 6 XP, which is reasonable if you consider the potentially very big benefit from grabbing what are effectively the most powerful talents in the game.
I agree that profession talents are very powerful.. but having more does not really allow you to use them (much) more? Since they all cost Willpower Points?
Again.. I have no play testing to base my assumptions upon. That's why I ask for help
The rules are on purpose a bit point-buy (don't loose out on xp), so that players that would play a Rogue turning into a Fighter, ending up gaining more Fighter talents.. wouldn't want to perform seppuku, just to roll a new Fighter character specializing somewhat as a Rogue and in doing so ending up with a better character.
Doing it my way might reduce realism, but I think that is a price to pay, if it increases the amount of fun in playing the game?
The thing I was most worried about was that it only required 8 skills, it felt a bit low, it could be 10.. but my gut feeling was to rather go low than high.. 4-8 skills are what a young PC would have, and not even they will likley place all that in accordance to their profession. So with 8, you still have to gain more than what a young PC normally has put in.
(PS. A rank 1 talent now cost 5, so double cost would be 10)
Edit: i have now put some more thought into this, and the proposed multi classing rules are bad.
2 classes have 4 synergising skills: Fighter + Champion, 4 classes have 3 synergising skills: Druid + Rider, Minstrel + Sorcerer, Peddler + Sorcerer and Rider + Champion.
Out of all combinations Minstrel + Sorcerer is perhaps the most game breaking, as it gives the Sorcerer a very easy way to gain party heal.
An extra XP cost could be introduced to gain access to a class. But it might still lead to a min-max game. Like always go 1 talent in Minstrel if Sorcerer.. or it instead becomes so expensive so that no one wants it (or really falls behind if they do it) and then the rules could as well be scrapped.
An alternative would be to have at level 2 in all skills related to your new profession.
This would solve the Sorcerer multi classing as Minstrel problem, as they as a minimum would need to level up Performance and Healing to 2.
And then even if they might be min-maxing somewhat, at least they will now feel more like a Minstrel.
It kind of solves the Fighter->Champion and Champion->Fighter problem.
It is fully possible to gain multi-class fast here, if you are young and place your 8 skill points toward your other profession, you only need 10 XP (2 ranks in crafting or survival) to complete to be able to multi-class.. or if you are an adult, you only need to gain 5 XP... to pull this off..
..but then again, I can't see any game breaking combinations here... so If a players really wants to do this.. let them have their fun?
I think this is a better option. It makes multi classing harder (but not impossible), especially for professions far away from each other, like Druid+Fighter, Sorcerer+Fighter or Druid+Sorcerer, and that is probably good. These would need at least 20-40 XP before they could pull it off.. and if they really wants to work toward such a goal.. probably not game breaking?
On languages: I'd suggest moving literacy from lore to a talent of its own. Just seems more... correct. Literacy just feels so much like a talent. Writing isn't a big part of the Forbidden Lands, but in another setting it could be relevant.
Yes, but it then felt a bit like stepping on the core rules, they probably assumes everyone can read, just as everyone can swim?
There are books (and libraries) in the game, and you could probably loose some elements from the game if so many would be illiterate?
Also people in my player group generally hate to be illiterate.. they wouldn't at least not be happy with such a change.
The willpower threshold being tied to Wits and Empathy seems like it could cause some headaches in calculation. If you're damaged in those attributes then does your threshold get reduced?
Yes, it should probably only change from permanent changes to the ability scores and definitely not from damage.
I should really fix that! Good find!
I had another idea to change the willpower system which was to say that it resets to 0 after a Rest. In compensation you roll a Condition roll after a rest, which is just a roll with 10 dice with boons based on things like food quality, good weather and so on. Each success is one point of willpower for the whole party. (Obviously it can't be pushed). Adapted from the condition check in Ryutaama. Something to consider.
I agree, it could be interesting. I would need a more fleshed out system, more feedback, and probably play testing to try out what works best/is more fun, though.
Resting restoring only 1 in each attribute is something I've considered. I concluded against the idea on account of the many abilities that allow a character to restore attribute damage up to any amount but only if they were broken. Attribute damage is simply not meant as the type of long-term damage that you'd simulate with this type of rule. It'd be more in line with the rest of the rules to rewrite the injury tables to have more time-limited simple injuries higher up on the list, even if that is way more work. I've been thinking of doing that, along with changing the rules for injuries. Instead of d66 you roll d36 the first time you suffer and injury and gain the injured condition. While injured you roll d66. The injured condition in turn takes 1d12 days to recover from which can be halved with healing. This allows combat to be a bit less deadly-out-of-nowhere while still being dangerous.
The reason was more of a, if you run a marathon, you will not be fine to run another one after 6 hours.
I have no problem with for instance having Strength being restored more if you are broken, it is then more like an adrenaline rush and new count down to your next wound, instead of having a low Strength score that hinders you, you now have a wound that hinders you..
But there are flaws, currently you could be encouraged to break yourself. That is not good. I should probably add a penalty for breaking yourself.. (a light critical wound? no WP gain? harder to heal a character that breaks themselves?)
There are also a flaw in that breaking for example Agility, have no penalty.
I need to think more about this. Input on the subject is ofc more than welcome!
Weather and temperature seems just great. I've been working on a similar weather table but yours does the same thing but better. Gonna steal these wholesale =)
Edit: They are a bit on the negative side though. Perhaps there should be something positive as well? Like Sunshine + Rain = Rainbow, gain 1 Willpower Point (over your limit) / once per day?
Could perhaps also add something about the trails faintly visible on the map, like giving a +2 bonus to lead the way, if you follow them. (only +2 if you consider them as mostly gone after a 1000 years with almost non-maintenance.. otherwise the bonus should probably be higher.. like no roll needed?)
I love what it essentially a list of suggestions for specific but reusable complications for pushing rolls. I think the list would be better if it was more compact though. This would be something that you'd refer back to quite often. Since it doesn't recap the whole text of the main rules you'd still have to refer to the rulebook at the side. Thus the entries for failure doesn't add much imo. I think it would be better if it was just a compact list of the effects of pushing each of the rolls. If it could fit on one page then that'd be really handy to have as a reference.
I agree... I should probably change this. Not sure on how to do it.
It could also be a reference page, like the back of the book Journey reference thing?
On the note of inventory, a rule to consider: Readied items. You can keep a number of readied items on your body (that can be drawn directly with the draw action) equal to your Sleight of Hand skill + 1. Good for if you have stuff like potions and the like. Might be an unnecessary nerf to dual wielders though.
Interesting.. I must say that I like it.
On that note, I have probably mixed up the word "readied" instead of "drawn". Need to go through the document and fix that!
Many thanks for the input!
I'll add you to the credits.