Overview
Solid OSR style game from Forbidden Lands. Has some fast paced combat, with very streamlined character design and one of the best character sheets i've seen in awhile!
- Fast
- Emphasis on quick turns. Monsters auto hit. Tactical decisions on what to do with your reaction. You have simple turns, just move and 1 action. Initiative cards are surprisingly quick!
- Deadly
- Monsters always hit! They also can't be blocked, only Dodged. This could lead to some devastating encounters. The Rally mechanic to defy death is nasty
- Flexible
- All professions can choose from all the Abilities in the game. So you have a lot of options
Resolution Mechanic
You are going to have stats or target numbers that exist between 1-20. Your job is to role under or equal to that number in order to then have a success.
Character Design
Ancestry/Race/Kin
Dwarf Elf Halfling Human Mallard WolfkinThere are multiple kin or ancestries to choose from. Ranging from Human to Mallard (a duck race that is pissed off).
Each kin provides you with some flavor and they give you an ability that you are going to be able to use in combat or social situations. These typically help with skills, dice rolls, your health, etc. You power these abilities with Willpower.
Characters also have an age. Your age will dictate how many skills you might have, and what attributes you might get bonuses or penalties to when calculating your scores. You are physically more strong as a youth with less skill, and you are more wise and a bit more frail as an older individual, but you do have more skills.
Attributes
Agility Charisma Constitution Intelligence Strength WillpowerThe classic six, with two substitution: Agility, Willpower
You’re attributes are going to be associated with all of the skills you are going to have access to. I’m not sure how often you make a straight attribute check.
In addition to this you are also going to get bonus damage die based on your stat in Strength & Agility. You can either get a +d4 or a +d6 depending on how high your attribute is.
Your attribute scores are going to be between 3-18. You are going to roll 4d6, drop the lowest, and then add up the results. You don’t get to choose which attribute takes which roll, you go down the line and assign. You do have the option to switch two results at the end. (So you can have at least 1 attribute be your highest by choice)
Skills
There is a defined list of skills that are all associated to the attributes. You can attempt to perform any skill, but your skill level is based on what your attribute is. Its not 1:1 relationship, but this chart shows what your chance is based on your attribute.
If you are proficient in a skill you will double this Base Chance
Class / Profession
Artisan Bard Cleric Fighter Hunter Knight Mage Mariner Merchant Scholar ThiefLots of fun options, with non-traditional professions. Instead of just Fighter, Bard, etc (which are still present) it has things like Artisan, Scholar, Merchant.
Your classes give you options to what skills you are going to be able to be proficient in and also will give you access to a starting Heroic Ability. These are the features, or powers in the game.
Abilities/Power/Feats
These are the Heroic Abilities. They are incredibly varied. You use your Willpower Points to fuel them, and you get them from leveling.
The profession and kin are flavorful and give you some small bonuses and direction to your skills, but otherwise every other ability in the game is accessed through Heroic Abilities. Backstab for instance is not a Thief ability, but something that anyone can access. However, there are prerequisites for abilities. You need certain skills, attributes levels, or other abilities first before getting some of these.
Equipment / Gear
There are some fun aspects to gear. For the most part we will focus in on weapons and armor.
Weapons have your standard concepts of:
- number of hands to use
- Range to use
- Damage it does
- Cost
- Effect - damage type, good for tripping, etc
But it also adds in a couple cool ideas with:
- Strength requirement which is an OSR concept
- Durability - when you parry or block with the weapon this is the amount of damage it can do that well with before it itself takes damage
Armor has a rating of damage that it can absorb, but it also has its effect on skills or attacks. Most of these effects are negative due to the bulkiness of the equipment
Clothing - You can actually wear different clothing to get a different effect with different groups of people. Wearing Fine Garments will get you a Boon with charisma based skills. Very cool
There is a really cool system that works here also for Encumbrance. You have 3 different areas on your character sheet. The At-Hand/Weapon section, the Inventory, and the Tiny Things. You can have 3 weapons in your At-hand section (heavy weapons take up two slots, and a shield counts as 1). These are the things that you can switch between without having to use an action to do so.
The things in your Inventory require you to actually dig them out for an action. This is where encumbrance comes into play. You can only have a number of items here equal to half your strength attribute. The weapons in your at-ready section don't count towards encumbrance.
The Tiny Things section is a free for all. You can have as many as you want, and they are all also ready to be used.
Advancement
Leveling is dependent more on the skills you use, or the stories you participate in. Not based on gold or Xp accruing.
Anytime you use a skill and you either get a critical success or critical failure you will check a box next to the skill (there is only 1 box). Then you get to also check other boxes based on the following questions:
- Did you participate in the game session?
- Did you explore a new location?
- Did you defeat one or more dangerous adversaries?
- Did you overcome an obstacle without using force?
- Did you give in to your weakness?
At the end of the session you then roll a d20 for each boxed check. The goal of skill training is to roll the d20 higher than the skill (not lower). Therefore its easy to rank up bad skills and hard to rank up great skills
You gain Heroic Abilities if you can get a skill up to 18, or if the adventure itself grants you one.
Combat
Initiative
Card BasedThe game comes with a deck of cards that goes from 1-10. Each round you shuffle the deck and randomize who is in what order. Whoever has the 1 goes first and it goes upwards.
Monsters can go as a group or spread out with their own cards.
You can always swap your card with someone who hasn’t gone yet, delaying your turn. Monsters might have multiple cards, therefore having multiple turns in a round. When you trade cards, you can choose which of a monster's cards to trade with.
Turns / Rounds
Everyone is going to take a turn based on their initiative. Once everyone has taken their turn that will complete the round.
Action Economy
On your turn you have 1 Action and 1 Move to take. Your movement is going to be based on your kin.
There are a variety of actions you can take. You can help others, take attacks, do a round rest to gain back Willpower, cast a spell, or try to defend yourself.
Defending yourself is called dodge or parry. When you do this you are taking a Reaction because it is not on your turn, but it takes up the action on your turn. If you have already taken your turn then you don’t have a reaction, so this adds a level of decision. Do you trade your turn with the monster to go after them to see if they hit you or not? If they hit you then you better parry…if they miss then you can attack them with your action.
Attack Mechanic
Simply a skill check roll under for the weapon you are using. If you have a 14 in Axes and swing an axe, you need to roll equal to or under 14 on a d20.
Then you roll damage and would subtract any Armor bonuses the enemy has from the damage dealt.
Critical Hit gives you double the damage on your attack, but it also gives you an extra attack action to someone who is close by. So you can’t do this with ranged attacks
Opportunity attacks do exists. This is the idea of hitting a target when it moves away from you. They are called Free attacks. It appears that a Player will have a free attack against them if they move away from any enemy. However, they will only get free attacks if an NPC moves away from them, not a monster.
Defensive Mechanic
NPCs will make skill check attack rolls just like the Players. If they hit, the players will have armor ( hopefully ) that can absorb the damage.
Monsters will always automatically hit with their attacks. This is brutal.
Players can utilize their reaction to try and dodge or parry attacks. However, they can only use parry against NPCs, but can use dodge against both NPCs & monsters
Modifications to Resolution
Advantage/Disadvantage Bane/BoonAdvantage/Disadvantage system. The System refers to them as Banes and Boons. If you get a Boon then you get to roll an additional d20 and take the higher result. Same with the Bane but you take the lower.
Pushing yourself. If you fail a skill check you can push yourself by rolling that a second time to see if you can succeed. Regardless of succeeding or not you are then going to take a condition. You get to choose any of the attributes you want to gain this condition.
Conditions
There are 6 conditions that pair up with the 6 attributes in the system. When you have an active condition then that *attribute* will roll skill checks with a bane.
- Exhausted -> strength
- Sickly -> constitution
- Dazed -> agility
- Angry -> intelligence
- Scared -> willpower
- Disheartened -> charisma
You can only heal these 1 at a time over a stretch of time. But a full rest will heal all.
Environment
Things like difficult terrain and the distances of things matters. Its a grid based distance system. All of the hazards are going to do something in terms of conditions, or temporary boons & banes
Resource Management
Rest Mechanic
There are three different types of rest you can take. Round rest is something you can do in combat. Its good for getting willpower back. A Stretch Rest is going to be 15 minutes. You can get a condition healed for this, and also heal up some HP and WP. A Shift rest is going to be a full 6 hours. This will reset everything.
Resource
You have your Willpower that is going to power your heroic abilities and your spells, and you have your Hit Points which are what dictates if you are alive or not.
Neither of these pools ever really go up. They are based on your attributes which seem to never change with leveling. You can take different heroic abilities that can increase these. Robust improves hit points and Focused will increase your Willpower
Health & Dying
If you reach 0 hit points you are dying. You then make constitution death saves to see if you are going to die or if you will come back to life
The Rally action is really interesting when you are dying. Either a friend can make a Persuasion check or you can make a Bane/Disadvantaged Willpower check. On a success you are up and fighting again! But you are still dying. Any successful hit against you counts towards a death fail. You only get 3 death saves until you are dead.
Magic System
There are 4 schools of magic, and Mages get to choose a school as skill.
You have prepared spells based on your base intelligence skill number. When you use a spell you will spend Willpower. To change the spells you have prepared you need to take a shift rest.
You can spend WP also to determine the power level of the spell. Spell power is ranked 1-3 and you spend 2 willpower per level.
You gain more spells in your Grimoire spell book on adventures and hunting. There are ways to fail spells terribly.
Character Sheet
