Roleplaying rules
This article will focus on ways to DM and roleplay a campaign within the world of Midrast Wain. Please note that any and all of these rules are optional and may need tweaking in terms of balance. But if you feel so inclined, you are more than welcome to borrow anything from them when making your own homebrew rulesets.The word of the Maker Table of Contents:
- Elements
- Characteristics
- Encounters
- Environments
- Scratch Points (Health)
- Defense
- Escape
- Initiative
- Actions
- Attacks
- Items
Elements
All living beings adhere to five elements. Many recognize only four of these, yet as time passes by, the relevance of the fifth, dubbed only as "Spirit" is spreading across the world. What are they?- Air - Order, Swiftness
- Earth - Learning, Strength
- Water - Compassion, Adaptability
- Fire - Survival, Will
- Spirit - Uniqueness, Mystery
Elemental statistics
Each Characteristic is calculated based on two elements. So for example, Running is calculated based on Character's Air and Earth values added together. Flying is calculated by Taking the Air element value and doubling it. Based on the table below, we can say that Air dragon's Flying is uncontested 10 and their Running is respectable 7. Generally speaking, anything above 7 is better than average but anything below 5 is poor. Below is an example of what an "average" individual from each race would look like. You may customize your starting Elements in the Character sheet.
- Air - Defense and Attack in Air environment
- Earth - Defense and Attack in Earth environment
- Water - Defense and Attack in Water environment
- Fire - Scratch point maximum and bonus Scratch damage dealt
- Spirit - Elemental Reduction
Characteristics
- Flying - The ability to move quickly through the air and maintain flight under strenuous or inconvenient circumstances. Also determines your defense value for Encounters happening above the ground.
- Running - The ability to move quickly across the ground, avoid obstacles and jump further. Also determines your defense value for Encounters happening on solid ground.
- Persuasion - The ability to align others into your line of thinking with the use of truth, good impression and reason.
- Instinct - The ability to react quickly to unexpected circumstances and perceive hidden things via sight, hearing or scent. Also determines your starting place during initiative roll.
- Memory - The ability to recall details of one's past events or lore events/information of importance taught in young age.
- Strength - The ability to lift heavy objects, break sturdy materials as well as endure great physical exercises. Also determines your capability to carry a greater amount of items with you.
- Wisdom - The ability to recognize the world around you, involving plants, animals and lore.
- Combat - The ability to fight off stronger enemies, be they dragons, gryphons or wildlife. Determines your Combat damage.
- Craftiness - The ability to create objects for a specific desirable function or to repair a damaged object.
- Swimming - The ability to move quickly through the water, diving, and last longer underwater without resurfacing. Also determines your defense value for encounters happening on or under water's surface.
- Deception - The ability to align others into your line of thinking with the use of lies or half-truths and confusing enemies.
- Stealth - The ability to obfuscate an item or self from being seen. Also may allow you to surprise your opponents and get a free turn of actions in Encounters.
- Resistance - The ability to resist outside influence and status effects such as awe, pain, toxins and illnesses. Also determines how well you can resist penalties during Encounters.
- Intimidation - The ability to align others into your line of thinking with the use of force or threat thereof as well as inflicting penalties onto enemies.
- Fate - The ability to influence dire circumstances and postpone death.
Encounters
Fighting happens in events where one or more hostile creatures encounter one another and as such these events are called Encounters. Encounters usually occur between two hostile sides but they may have more sides or neutral bystanders and onlookers. These fights take place on either solid ground, underwater or in the air. The place where the fighting occurs is universally referred to as Environment. Compared to other roleplaying games, Encounters are considering the fact that all creatures are within reach of one another as long as they are in the same Environment (see Advanced roleplaying rules ) meaning they all fight in the Air or on the ground. To end an encounter, one side has to prevail over the other with either killing, knocking unconscious or subduing the others.Environments
There are three types, Earth - which is fighting on the solid ground using Earth defense, Air - which is fighting in mid-air using Air defense and Water - which is fighting in the midst of a sufficiently large body of water using Water defense. Some abilities may allow you to transfer between Environments, but for your starting game it is recommended to fight in only one or two Environments for simplicity. For more details about Environments and transfering between them, see Advanced roleplaying rules.Scratch Points (Health)
You may be strong of heart, but are you also strong of body? I have survived crushing boulders, Sheetstone slices, countless scratches and bites, been impaled three times and yet, the Pure Black Mistress refuses to take me in. Words mean little if you can't live to tell the tale.Scratch points represent the vitality, strength of body and resolve of a character to keep on fighting. The less Scratch points they have, the less likely they are to avoid the fatal blow or be incapacitated from the fight. The representation is as much "health" of an individual, as possible "luck" that has been keeping them alive in a fight. All characters by default start with 15 scratch points. This amount is further increased by having a character with high Fire element.
| Fire 1 | Scratch Point bonus -1 |
| Fire 2 | Scratch Point bonus 0 |
| Fire 3 | Scratch Point bonus 1 |
| Fire 4 | Scratch Point bonus 3 |
| Fire 5 | Scratch Point bonus 5 |
Size
There are three playable sizes of characters, this approximates the class of height and body mass of an individual. Being large generally means you get hit easily, but you can shrug off more damage, smaller characters dodge better but don't resist as much damage.| Size S | Defense +4 | Reduction +2 |
| Size M | Defense +2 | Reduction +3 |
| Size L | Defense +0 | Reduction +4 |
Defense
The best way to kill someone is to make sure they don't kill you first.Defense values are based on Size of the defender and its characteristics in the environment they fight in. Smaller characters gain larger bonus to Defense. Running is used for measuring defense in Earth environment Encounters, Flying for Air and Swimming for Water environment defense. Note that some environments may support additional special modifiers within its terrain. More information about Environments can be found in Advanced roleplaying rules - section Environments. The precise calculations of defenses within Air, Earth and Water environments are provided automatically to you by Character Sheet. You don't need to calculate it manually. Section below is only if you are interested in the details of the calculation and can be skipped.
Defense calculations:
Size bonuses to Defense+
Movement Characteristic
=
Defense in that terrain
For example, Air Defense of an Air dragon (size M, Air 5) would be calculated like this:
Size 2 + Flying 10 = Air defense 12 To get a sense of each race’s strengths and weaknesses, you can use the table below that lists some default characters and how their defenses fare in all three possible Environments. Note that these values may be different once you choose your Character background.
| Character | Air defense | Earth Defense | Water Defense | SP bonus | Reduction | Elemental Reduction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air dragon | 12 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| F Mud dragon | 2 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 0 |
| F Water dragon | 8 | 7 | 14 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Diurnal gryphon | 10 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Nocturnal gryphon | 8 | 7 | 10 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
Reduction
Physical Damage taken from battles is calculated based on Combat of attacker and reduced by Reduction of a defender. Reduction is calculated by Size class of your character but can be further modified by certain items, actions or tattoos later on.| size S | Reduction 2 |
| size M | Reduction 3 |
| size L | Reduction 4 |
Example:
Fiercetooth has starting health at 15 Scratch points when he is attacked by a Horned Bee for 5 scratch damage. Because Fire dragons are size M, this number is reduced by 3. As a result, Fiercetooth suffers 2 scratch damage and his life total becomes 13 Scratch points.
Elemental Reduction
Elemental reduction works the same way as Reduction, except it diminishes the damage sustained from extraordinary means, such as poison, fire, cold and enchantments. The higher your Spirit element, the more Elemental reduction you get. If your Spirit is low enough, you take an additional point of damage instead.| Spirit 1 | Elemental Reduction -1 |
| Spirit 2 | Elemental Reduction 0 |
| Spirit 3 | Elemental Reduction 0 |
| Spirit 4 | Elemental Reduction 1 |
| Spirit 5 | Elemental Reduction 1 |
Incapacitated and Unconscious
When a character's scratch points reach 0 to -15 they become Incapacitated, meaning they are too injured to continue fighting. When a character's scratch points reach -16 or less they fall unconscious and need to roll 1d20 + Fate + current scratch points. If their total is less than 0, the character dies. Repeat this roll for each time they suffer additional injury or for each hour without medical attention.Example:All attacks lead against Incapacitated targets (0 to -15 SP) are rolled with advantage, as they are barely standing with their countless injuries. They also roll with disadvantage on all DC rolls except for Fate.
A young Mud dragon was trying to show off in the air but didn't manage to dodge the treeline in time. His current scratch points are at -17. Rolling 1d20, they got 13 + their Fate is 6. 13+6-17 means that they narrowly avoided death at 2.
Those that fall unconscious (-16 SP and less) can be targetted too, and attacks against such creatures hit automatically, resulting in them having to roll again on the Death saving roll for each hit. As such, you should not leave your Incapacitated or Unconscious allies unprotected.
Escape
If things go south, remaining players that are not incapacitated, unconscious or dead may decide to Escape, thus removing them from the Encounter. To escape from their enemies, players will have to outrun, outswim or outfly them by rolling a contested roll. Each enemy that decides to pursue an escaping player will be removed from the current Encounter. Each time your character fails to escape, they will be still within attacking reach of all the pursuers that rolled higher than them. In some cases, escape may be hindered or enemies may have no desire in pursuing the players. If there are no enemies in your current Environment, you may escape without needing to roll for it. Enemies may also decide to escape from players, in this case, same rules apply but roles are reversed.Example:
Air-water dragon hybrid Sayeth hears many stomping feet running through the underbrush. Suddenly the direction changes... towards him! The raptor-like forms of Tiktiks seem to not take kindly to intruders and so Sayeth tries to outrun them.
His Running is 7 and he rolls 10, resulting in the speed of his escape 17. There are three Tiktiks who give chase to him. Their Running is 5 and they roll 10, 3, 17, meaning they get 15, 8 and 22 total. Sayeth managed to outrun two out of three of his pursuers and the last one gets to attack him now.
Initiative
To determine the turn order of who acts first and who last, each player and enemy rolls their initiative using 1d20 + Instinct. The highest number starts their turn and can perform their Actions. If two players or share the same initiative, they can decide which one gets to act first. If the tie is in between Player character and NPC, player is given priority.Actions
Actions are performed during your turn in an Encounter and are used to give your side an advantage and possibly win a fight. Only one action can be performed per turn. Each character can use the standard Claw attack which applies two attacks in a row or any other action they have at their disposal based on their Character race and Character background. For a full list of default actions, including the Environmental ones, refer to Advanced roleplaying rules.Free actions
Free actions are also available once per turn, and generally have less of an impact than your standard actions. For a free action, you may either Retaliate or Protect other. To see the full list, visit Advanced roleplaying rules.Attacks
Attacks that hit - meaning your 1d20 + attack value is higher than Defense of your opponent - deal Scratch damage. Your attack modifier is determined by the Environment you are in and your element. Some weapons, tattoos, or abilities may give you bonuses or penalties to your attack and Scratch damage. Note that attack bonus will be calculated automatically for you in Character sheet. You can refer to below example and table to understand this better.| Attack -1 | Attack +0 | Attack +1 | Attack +2 | Attack +3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air element | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Earth element | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Water element | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Example:
Facing off the terrifying Witless Air dragon on the ground, Fiercetooth rolls to slash the enemy with his claws and rolls 9 and 16. His attack bonus is +2 for having Earth 4. The Witless dragon's Running is 9 and size M which makes its Earth defense 11 and thus only one attack hits it. Fiercetooth's combat is 8 and the enemy's reduction is 3. The base formula is (8/2)+3 and -3 for opponent's reduction = Fiercetooth deals 4 points of damage to the ferocious enemy.
Scratch damage table
| Combat 0-1 | 3 Scratch damage | Combat 8-9 | 7 Scratch damage |
| Combat 2-3 | 4 Scratch damage | Combat 10-11 | 8 Scratch damage |
| Combat 4-5 | 5 Scratch damage | Combat 12-13 | 9 Scratch damage |
| Combat 6-7 | 6 Scratch damage | Combat 14-15 | 10 Scratch damage |
Items
Some items, tattoos or equipment may modify the standard values, or allow you to roll an additional die. Add these if you meet their requirements. If an item is a consumable, it means you can only use it once unless stated otherwise. Using a consumable in an Encounter generally counts as a free action unless stated otherwise. See Gems, Items and tattoos for a full list of items you may buy for your Gems.Where to next?
To download a character sheet and see what available races there are, visit Character races article next or you can read up about more in-depth rules in Advanced roleplaying rules.Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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