Caves and Critters 3.7

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Players Handbook v3.7238561824523680087

A Simplified Source Book for General Home-Brew Settings

Not For sale or licensed distribution.

The Golden Rules of Roleplaying

1 We are all here to play a game, everyone has an equal right to enjoy themselves. If your enjoyment is contingent on everyone else not having fun, leave.

2 The DM is always right with respect to rules (although they may not be written that way in the book) 2a The players have a right to expect things to work the way they are written in the book (or at least mostly the same way) unless prior warning is given.

3 The DM is playing the enemy, don't hate him for it.

3a the DM is the only friend you will ever have, outside of your team-mates

3b sometimes he is the only friend you have because your team mates are evil.

3c this is probbably fair since the chances are you are evil too.

3d if you are not evil in this situation, why not?

4 Pay attention to the "flavour" of the game you are joining. People do not always appreciate having an evil player in the group.

5+ there are more to be written

A Quick note from the Author

This system is potentially very abusable, however it was written with the hope that players could work together with their GM's to create PC's of a similar power level to each other to beter enjoy the game. I took a very L5R approach to balancing the classes, largely doing things based on my gut feelings, and past experiences. This is bound to lead to problems (as evidenced in L5R), but hopefully these can be fixed over time. Please feel free to comment on any aspect of these rules, and offer suggestions for improvement.

The Gods

These Gods are setting Specific however they come with a list of altered and rebalanced domains which work with the changes in the new system. DM's are encouraged to remove/alter or play about with the gods for their settings and create new or more appropriate domains. However with the rules for paladins and clerics being so bound up in their gods, I could not create a sourcebook without including a section on gods.

Main page: CC 3.7 Gods

Paladins in the World

Not having written down or explained the paladins code in any detail was always an issue. Here are some clarifications on the code which ALL paladins must follow.

The Paladins Code

All paladins, regardless of alignment or deity have to follow this code as part of their knightly duties. The rules which follow are arbitrary but agreed upon and exist to help allow paladins from different religions to work together and to prevent orders of paladins besmirching each others names or, Gods forbid, Coming to blows.

-Thou shall respect legitimate authority.

This is perhaps the hardest tenet in the paladins code. A Legitimate authority is an authority which any paladin should recognise, anyone placed with divine authority and non corrupt rulers. An evil authority, or one which uses methods vile or reprehensible is no longer a legitimate authority. It is however important to note that at this age of social development it is perfectly acceptable for a king to behead, imprison or torture subjects with very little evidence and the paladins code looks on this behaviour as dubious but normal.

-Thou shall Act with Honour in all thy dealings and not use poisons.

This one is a lot easier. Don't lie, don't cheat (even to save another), always show your full force and don't poison, directly or indirectly. It is also assumed that a paladin will try to avoid being involved in plans which involve poison as a major component, rather than as a minor "the ranger happens to have poisoned his short sword" component.

-Thou shall offer help to those worthy in need.

Help people. Do not help those that are evil. Do not help people with evil ends.

-Thou shall punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

A king executing his subjects is well in the clear if he believes those people not to be innocent. Even if they did turn out to be innocent, the king is still in the clear since he cannot afford to hinge his position of legitimate authority on the odd peasant. If a king is allowed to declare war on an evil nation, he can execute his subjects to prevent evil. Since beheading as a method of dissuasion is still held as normal and acceptable then the king is OK. The Big Bad Evil necromancer however is not, since he is not a "legitimate authority". If a king was executing his subjects and giving their souls to demons on the other hand it's time to get your righteous smite on. Bandits, Brigands, Orcs and other monsters are all fair game.


The Paladins Oath to their god is covered in more detail under each god.

Character Races

Main page: CC 3.7 Races

Character Classes

Main page: CC 3.7 Character Classes

Stats

Stats are generated as standard by a "group roll". All of the players roll one stat, the dm rolls the rest and everyone has the same stat line.

Feats

Main page: CC 3.7 Feats

Skills

Main page: CC 3.7 Skills

Gear

Main page: CC 3.7 Gear

Levelling up and Modifications for starting above level 1

Main page: CC 3.7 Leveling

Major Change: Multiclass Characters

All multiclass xp penalties removed.

Character Death: Just when the heck do I die anyway?

A character is dead not when they reach 0 hit points but when they hit -10. If a character has more than 100 hit points their death limit becomes 10% of their maximum hit points (rounding down). A character who is on less than 0 hit points loses a hit point each round and then makes a stabilisation roll. This is a raw d10 and on a roll of a 1 your character ceases losing hit points and becomes stable. Once your character is stable you must make a stabilisation check each hour to see if your character begins bleeding to death again. If you pass this hourly roll your character resumes conciousness. Being on negative hit points is very, very bad and the chance of recovery without medical help is very slim indeed.

New Concept: BAC

BAC, or Base Armour Class, represents a slight increase in the chance of your character defending himself without really expending much in the way of effort (or hit points). A powerful character wearing his trousers and a shirt is hardly going to be bothered over much by a commoner with a pitchfork, and as such I felt there was a need for armour class to increase at least slightly with a characters level. Only player characters and some powerful or skilled monsters and Npc's qualify for BAC, and it should not really be given to expendable enemies, as it represents very unusual levels of skill. Mechanically, you gain one point of BAC for each full four points of Base Attack Bonus you have, and certain classes, and feats grant you bonus BAC. BAC works exactly the same way as dexterity and is not applicable to your characters flat footed armour class, nor can it be used if your character is helpless or otherwise unable to dodge.

BAB BAC

1-4 0

5-7 1

8-11 2

12-15 3

16-19 4

20 5

New Concept: Marking

I will freely admit to stealing this idea from 4th edition, however it is an emergent mechanic that is quite obvious to anyone who has ever played basketball, watched a game of football, or ever been in a melee. Essentially opponents who are "marking" you, are opponents who are threatening you. Their marking value is the same as their BAC, so a level one fighter has a marking value of one. If you attack someone who is not the person marking you, you take their marking value as an attack penalty, even if you move away from them successfully. If there are two people marking you, and you attack person number two you still take person number one's marking value as a penalty to your attack, but you ignore the marking penalty of person number two. If you were to ignore them both and attack a third person then you would take an attack penalty equal to person one AND person two's marking values. This mechanic provides another reason not to get surrounded, and helps keep the defenders "sticky" in a way which makes sense (they are in your face, getting in your way, and harassing you). A Character cannot "Mark" someone whilst mounted, concentrating on a spell or whilst distracted.

Spells

Main page: CC 3.7 Spells