This is a WIP system for tabletop roleplaying games. It should be recognizable to those familiar with popular games involving dragons and/or dungeons, but has different design goals.

Quick Notes

To generate a character:

Changes

Basics

Feats

See Feats

Classes and Paths

All paths cancelled. Good abilities become feats.

Ranger, barbarian, paladin

Numbers

We've already tried sky-high stats. Let's try a different approach.

Classes

No classes. Instead, you can choose one of the following per level:

Feats can do many, many things, such as:

Too many choices? That's a UX problem, not a system problem.

Hit Points and Mana

No more magic numbers. Only ability checks!

Hit Points

No more hit dice, no more Hit Points.

If you get hit, and you don't Dodge or Parry (core maneuvers available to all, spends reaction), and you don't Resist, Block, or otherwise avoid or mitigate, then you suffer Wounds.

Wounds are cumulative. If you have 0, and you take 12 damage, you have 12 Wounds. If you take another 10, you have 22 Wounds.

Each time you take Wounds, roll Con vs Wounds. If you pass, you are Bloodied; you can grit through the pain, suffering no immediate consequences. You are still Unstable and need to deal with that. But you can stay in the fight.

If you fail the above check, you are Disabled and can no longer take standard actions. You'll need the help of medicine, magic, specific feats, or a really lucky auto-stabilization roll to get back in the fight.

While Unstable, you suffer 1 Wound per round automatically. This requires a roll vs being Disabled, as normal. If you pass 3 of these in a row, or roll a single natural 20, you self-stabilize, and are no longer Unstable.

If you fail 3 checks in a row, or roll a single natural 1, you start Dying. You are completely unable to act. You still accumulate 1 Wound per round. Failure from here causes permanent death. Success causes stabilization (but still unconscious).

Long rest converts unconscious to disabled, or disabled to bloodied, etc.

Injuries

Once it has been determined that you are taking Wounds, and whether or not this will put you in an unfortunate condition (e.g. disabled, dying), there is an alternative. You can exchange the entire attack for an Injury. In this case, you gain a long-lasting (possibly permanent) injury, but the Wounds themselves are stricken from the record.

The PC taking the damage gets to choose the injury, subject to the following caveats:

Every injury has a Max Damage. If you suffer 24 Wounds, you can nullify it by selecting an Injury with a Max Damage of 25, or anything higher. An Injury with a Max Damage of 10 would not be a valid choice.

Examples:

Injury Max Damage Effect
Arm damaged 10 Disadvantage with checks using that limb. DC 15 Con or medicine to heal with long rest.
Arm disabled 25 Unable to take actions requiring the use of said limb. Three DC 20 Con or Medicine checks (one long rest each) to reduce to Arm Damage.
Arm severed 50 As disabled arm, but permanent (barring magical intervention or racial regeneration).
Leg damaged 15 Speed reduced by 50%. DC 15 Con or Medicine to heal with long rest. Disadvantage to any checks involving legs, such as Athletics, Acrobatics, etc (as adjudicated by DM)
Leg disabled 30 Speed reduced to 5 ft per move or std action. Cannot perform actions requiring the leg's use (e.g. many uses of Athletics, Acrobatics, etc)
Leg destroyed 75 As Leg Disabled, but permanent (barring magic/renegeration)

Other ideas:

Mana

No more Mana! What does that mean?

When you use a given ability score to cast a spell, you must always roll a skill or ability check with that ability, even if you don't need to set a DC or target an AC.

The DC is 10 + Mana cost. Yeah, there's still a "Mana cost" of sorts, just no Mana stat from which to subtract it. On success, you cast the spell, nothing happens. On failure, you may choose to either lose the spell or Strain the ability.

Ability Strain reduces the ability score by 2 points. If you reduce it below 10, you cannot use that ability score to cast spells.

Long rest restores 2 Strain to one chosen ability score.

Races

All D&D races gone. As is the word "race".

Each level represents either training or innate ability. I suppose you could say there are two Classes in the game, one representing each.

Levels of training grant 1 Feat, as mentioned.

Innate ability should total 0 at 1st level, but it can do so by balancing useful abilities with disadvantages.

Examples:

Sylvans

Netherkind

Other vampire abilities are generally +1 level.

The World

Like 3e, this system has an Implied Setting. Effectively, that means it has everything a normal setting has except a map. More specifically:

People

The words "race", "races", and "racial" shall not appear in the work. The section that describes the innate abilities of PCs and NPCs shall be called People, and it will explain all of the People in the setting.

We have heard of worlds where magic hides, and must be teased out through rigorous study, and purchased dearly from the world's life force. We have seen visages of worlds where magic flows too freely, and is tamed and weaponized, perverted in its purpose, until all life is drained from the world by one means or another. This is not our world.

Our world sits in the balance between Aether and Nether. Above, the Aether stirs, ever creative, blossoming into existence from nothing. In its pure form, it is power, and potential, and all things--but far too potent for mortals. The Aether is the realm of the Divine. But Aether does not last forever. It decays--some say it evolves--but the transition is permanent. Aether becomes Fire, or Earth, or Life. It becomes the air we breathe, the water we drink. It becomes the complex elements that form the biosphere, and the simple energies that make the elements vital. And, at long last, when matter and energy have expired, they decay once more, descending into the Nether, from which they will never return.

The many elements and energies of our world keep it vital and diverse. Minerals, plants, and animals exist in abundance, all aligning with one element or another, or several, or even an ever-changing preference. And so, too, does intelligent and sentient life form its clades and niches. The many peoples of our world all have a favorite element or two, or a guiding energy that unites them. The Sylvans, full of Life, are similar to the many animals and plants of the surface world, but with the advantage of speech, tools, and complex society. The Elementals dwell where pure elemental energies ebb--in the earth's crust, in pools of fire, in deepest ocean, amidst the clouds, etc.

It is even said that, beyond our world, others peoples live similar lives. The Devi are the peoples of Aether, kin to the gods themselves. Below, the Netherkin scrape some sort of existence together in a realm of eternal decay. Some clever folk have even engineered new energies, distinct from those of nature: Artifice makes wonderful toys, and terrible weapons, and even a new sort of people: the Automata. Similarly, not all people agree on how magic ought to be used, and some have used it--intentionally or otherwise--to warp natural people and creatures into something nature never intended: the Divergent.

But people are as people do. No one element or energy is right, and none is wrong. People do good, and bad, and they change their minds. No one sits in judgment. There are godly beings, every one with a story to tell of their exploits, their virtues and vices, but there is no consensus as to who is right and who is wrong, for people believe what they wish to believe. Religions are as numerous as any other invention of people--they are an attempt to understand a Universe which is more complex, beautiful, and awesome than any work of words has ever captured. There is more mystery in the Earth and the Heavens than may ever be explored.

Gods:

Humans:

Magic

So Aether becomes elements and energy. More specifically, all those twinkly white things in the sky are explosions of Aether, pure and white, devolving into matter and energy spewed in every direction. Some time ago, perhaps at the direction of gods, this world was woven together from many elements and energies. Other worlds may even exist, somewhere out in the Cosmos.

But what is magic, then? Well, magic is just a continuum of possibility in a Universe where more energies exist than in ours. While thermal and electromagnetic potential exist in both Universes, only in this one does pure Fire, Air, or Life energy bind itself to matter. And thus, said energies can be coaxed apart, and formed into something useful.

The most traditional magicks are probably those of the Sylvan and Elemental peoples, at least before the increase in the complexity of civilization over the last few thousand years. For long eons prior, Sylvans and Elementals practiced traditional arts that could be called "magic".

Sylvan "magic" is mainly incorporated into their forms, which can grow and evolve in power as they become more potent. The more esoteric and "magicky" of their arts are those involving the Spirit Realm, a coterminous space (or an extension of existing space that others cannot see). Within the context of ancient Sylvan life, this might not even be considered magic at all--although these days, only a small few practice the ancient ways.

Elemental magic is a bit more obvious, albeit restricted to the spaces and times where the energy abounds. Within nodes of elemental power, Elementals can create many effects in line with the energy they are using. Far away from such sources, they must draw on their own internal energy, which can diminish them quickly.

So is that it? What of robed wizards animating brooms? Broom-riding witches brewing potions in cauldrons?

Well, apart from things that are decidedly not spellcasting such as Alchemy, such magic definitely exists, and is the result of careful study and experimentation by many generations of clever practitioners (of varying ethical persuasions).

The mechanisms by which a Sylvan might call upon natural power to change their form, or by which an Elemental might cause Earth to roil or Fire to blaze, were once mysterious. Through study, practitioners have made them less so. Given that all elements and energies have a natural affinity, it becomes possible to create tools to help create overt magical effects.

For instance, a tree is a fairly advanced form of Life energy, so a branch of that tree can be used to manipulate said energy. Staves and wands are a common sight among those who wish to wield the energies of Life. Elementalism is really quite simple: earth is earth, water is water, etc. If one wishes to control fire, one needs some fire to control. Older schools of elementalism deal exclusively with manipulating what already exists in nature, and is at hand. In times past, fire elementalists would not be caught outside without a burning brazier, firebrand, or some such source of their preferred element.

But we mustn't forget that all things come from Aether, which means there exists a primeval source for any desired energy. Perhaps the greatest discovery of the magical arts--certainly the most disruptive--was that the Aether, long known not to have any direct affinity with any known physical object, does in fact have affinity with complex thought-forms: words, symbols, mathematics, geometry, etc. Careful, exhaustive study of the appearance of abstract logic in nature (e.g. hexagons in beehives, crystalline structures in rock, the golden ratio, etc) eventually yielded the unifying theorem: how abstract, otherwise unreal structures that seem only to exist in the mind ultimately link with the Aether above. And so, mages learned to call upon Aether to create their own energies.

(This has been the subject of much criticism)

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