Forum

I've just finish a first quick reading of the Player Guide of Ruins of Symbaroum. I'm gladly surprised by some designed choices... and very surprised by some others.

First, thank for the pdf and all the job done.

I've several questions and remark

1/ The new rules chapter is very odd... i think it's more a GM guide stuff.

2/ About corruption (p.37):

However, sometimes youwill gain permanent Corruption, usually by taking up a powerful magical item or by exceeding your Corruption Threshold

To be clear, this happen only if you roll a 1-2 on your mark of corruption.

3/Character origin:
a/ Ability score
I notice that some origin have only 3 ability score points (changeling, elves, goblin, ogres, trolls, undead) increase and some 4 (abducted human, dwarve, human).
Is it an error or not... because it's harsh.

c/ Hit dice
I think it's so strange to have the same hit dice value for an ogre or a human or a troll? Same for class, everyone is at D8 (except goblins)

d/ Remark
I think (hope) this is a mistake but on p.73, for Common Folk, on ski proficiencies, you don't have "choose one": is it a miss... or does he have 4 skills?

4/ Classes & Feats
a/Ritual
Maybe it will be explained more in detail in the GM guide but for now, i don't see the point of rituals. According to p.107, when you are ritualist, you take permanent corruption equal half the spell lvl (rounded up)... but clearty, taking a 8th level spell as ritual... give you 4 permanent points of corruption... who will really learn ritual??? Imagine you learn 4 ritual, one lvl 1, one lvl 2, one lvl 3, one lvl 4 and one lvl 5 (which is a class features (learning ritual), you will have 1+1+2+2+3 (so 9 permanent corruption). ==> Is ritualist really a feature or more a burden? I think that maybe you can take 1 permanent corruption by learning them and only 1 temporary for launching them... making this feature far more useful.

b/Feats
There is not a lot of feats.

c/ Remarks
I'm very surprised that 3 of the most iconic "talent/boon" are not available to everyone: bushcraft (which is, in all campaign, totally mandatory (even if in this version, this is the old symbaroum bushcraft with no bonus in wild/dark davokar, only finding food part). As the talent "loremaster", which allow you to understand old symbarian, it's only available for elven and ordo magica and only lvl 9... so before lvl9, no one can understand this language et if you don't have this class in your group, you're kind of lost/stuck); how do you manage that for campaign (in the tomb of dying dream, you have old symbarian stuff so no way for players to understand it?).
And finally, "Shadow-sight", the hard discount version of Witchsight (only see the shadow of people... but not environment stuff), which is only available for Abducted human.

So i'm surprised, especially for witchsight and loremaster, is it intended? Does it mean that in ROS, seeing the shadow of a person will be harder?
And for eg, the witch hunter (so the guys specialized in finding corrupted person... have no way to detect corrupt person except taking holy smoke ritual... hard no and not so logic? And no possibility to detect a corrupted place... i know there is a lot of wichsight roll in symbaroum campaign, and often to detect useful stuff!
Maybe put in a feat some of the "loremaster" features, as another feat with witchsight ability, and another one for bushcraft... like that, you can be more flexible?

A couple of quick corrections and then I may try to respond to some of the other feedback later, though a lot of decisions were made in balance with 'what is the best way to join the setting expectations of Symbaroum with the play expectations of 5e?'

1. Anyone can exceed their Corruption threshold by any amount, it's just dangerous. Whenever they gain Corruption over their threshold they have to check for a Mark of Corruption and the number range is based on how much they exceed their Threshold. For example if your Threshold is 10 and you gain 2 more Corruption then you have to check and you're looking for 1-2 on the d20 to get a Mark. If you take on 3 more Corruption then you'd have to check again and this time you would get a Mark on 1-5 (since you're now past your Threshold by 5 points). Make sense?

Additionally, magical items provide permanent Corruption because of their very nature.

2. Rituals exchange a small amount of permanent Corruption for being able to cast a spell as many times as you like and not gain any new Corruption. Rituals do, per 5e rules, take at least 10 minutes to cast so you won't be using them in combat situations.

3. Shadow-sight is available for humans and abducted humans (since they're functionally the same). So any human can have it at 4th level, if desired.
3a. I count 81 feats, which is almost twice as much as a certain core rulebook offers.

Thanks for the quick answer .

1. Yes thanks.
I think the corruption management is one of the great thing in this adaptation, very clever, i totally love it.

2/ For ritualist, i'm not very conviced. To be able to launch at will some spells is great, but as you said, it takes 10 min (so no combat) and you avoid the corruption... it seems quite expensive. Because permanent corruption is a very hard stuff, for a mage, having 3 ou 4 permanent corruption points limits its possibility to cast spells (or make him taking a lot of risk). So personnaly i don't think it it's very insteresting... but ok i'll see in game.

3/ Ok right all human can take it, thanks.
But so for the Shadow-sight, it speaks only of discerning a creature shadow... but not for "object"/nature thing (maybe it's will be explained how to detect it in the gm guide). But for eg, in the last campaign (the haunted waste), you can use witchsight to detect the corn is corrupted in Belgaro or in the veiled library, witchsight allow to detect the veil. So does it work only for person like written or is it more large ?

3/ Ok right all human can take it, thanks.
But so for the Shadow-sight, it speaks only of discerning a creature shadow... but not for "object"/nature thing (maybe it's will be explained how to detect it in the gm guide). But for eg, in the last campaign (the haunted waste), you can use witchsight to detect the corn is corrupted in Belgaro or in the veiled library, witchsight allow to detect the veil. So does it work only for person like written or is it more large ?

Definitely something for the development team to take another look at.

It's maybe too soon, it will maybe be explained in the GM book but for the talent Bushcraft, in the Mother of Darkness book, the talent has been "upgraded" to manage the different level of Davokar (same thing for travelling in Alberetor).

Bushcraft, and helping the expedition avoid the worst hazards of the journey. In order to be truly useful, the guide must know Bushcraft at whatever level the local environment requires; in Davokar’s case: level I for Bright, level II for Wild, and level III for Dark territories.
Furthermore, when it comes to avoiding Misfortunes, the person guiding the group can make success tests even in regions that require a higher level of the trait/boon than he or she possesses. It takes at least Bushcraft (I) to be allowed an attempt, and the test is made with a –3 modification if the environment requires one level higher, or –5 if the guide has level I and the environment requires level III. I