The Campaign Builder's Guild

Celtricia, World of Factions
V 2.0 for CBG
Setting thread--do not post here. Post  here (http://thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?39572.last)
There is a seperate thread for the Celtrician/Guildschool Setting Info.
Celtricia, World of Factions PBwiki (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/?full_access=ykSciyNGwN&l=S)
Celtrician Primer
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Campaigns are like relationships, in that you tend to focus on finding the aspects that were lacking in your last relationship when you venture forth into romance once again. Not to the exclusion of everything else, but there is a tendency to focus on fixing whatever went wrong the last time.
Celtricia started in 1982 with a map. and a few big-picture ideas. A very large map. And the hazy first ideas were about the histories and origins of the world, the current conflicts and then building the game system out of the cosmology and needs of the system.
Working on it's 26th year as a full-time played campaign, with 37 players and 134 PC's, this world has some history and playtesting behind it.
One of my pet peeves about my earlier campaigns was that I was using some version of AD&D, and it felt that I was using a generalized set of rules that did not apply to the outcomes I wanted to get. So during the first few years of work, the setting and the rules were designed together. Please note that this thread is still very much the edited version from the Wiki.

Basic Game Premise
The GuildSchool rules were a direct attempt to make the rules of the game fit the play and outcome I was specifically looking for.  Other games I had played in were fine with other rule systems, however, we had certain goals in mind for the campaign.  And as we tried to make the odl rules stretch over the ideas we had for the setting, it became apparent that the rule mechanics did not create the feel we were looking for.
Also, it bears mention that this was the early 80's.  Many of the later versions of D&D did try to solve some of the same rule-issues.

Though many Homebrews have 'house rules' and major departures from the published rules, the major changes in guildschool took three major forms.

1) Character creation and development rules.
2) Combat mechanics.
3) Spell Mechanics.

I will go into each in it's own post.  It is worth mentioning that one major reason for the changes cannot be easily sundered from the others; and that particular issue has reared it's head in many of the worthy discussions on this site. That is the question of relative threat level, and the progression of same.  This came into all of the three catagories listed above.   So many rules we created in a specific areas were affected by this particular tenet.

(and to all of you who have shown interest in the past, I hope separating the crunch and the fluff will help)

Reserved for Character creation and development

Celtricia, World of Factions
skill page (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Skill+List?full_access=ykSciyNGwN&l=S)


I don't want to throw around the term 'realistic'.  Games that purport realism are often sacrificing in other areas.  But when we envisioned Celtricia and started to build the game system around it, we were certainly looking for a game that allowed for more free-form development.  The older Class-strict D&D games lacked that, and even newer versions were still bounded by class-structures.  This class can gain this skill at this level...etc.  
The second hurdle was how experience was applied.  I know the older game versions explained that combat experience was used to substitute for thieves prctising lockpicking and mages studying books.  But we wanted to create a system that rewarded players for using their skills.  One that would not, as we have said many times, make a thief better at picking locks by killing things.  
Also, the fluff part of the game was moving towards a faction-heavy setting, where intrigue and allegiance to God, Guild, and Country were paramount.  So we wanted a system that would make these factional organisms more valuable to the players.
And as mentioned in the first post, we were looking for a character development system that did neccessitate finding more and more powerful threats every week.  We wanted an axe blow to be threatening to a character 12 and 20 sessions into a characters life.
On the other hand, we wanted to avoid demotivating players by reducing the regularity of advancement.  And though we were trying to reduce the strictures found in a class-based system, we wanted to take advantage of the feature of having certain groups better at certain things, which is the weakness of many skill-based systems.

Skill Based system
So we created a skill-based system, where experience was kept in the skill itself.  And the base amount gained per level in that skill, and the sub-skills it gives are constants.  But the speed that a person breaks the levels is adjusted by an 'experience modifier'.

When a character is created in Celtricia, they need to choose a primary guild or School (hence the name of the system, GuildSchool). The school will have certain skills that have favorable 'BXPMOD', or Base Experience Modifiers. A good example of this is a character that tries to learn the 'Alchemic Spell Point ability' from the Martial school of Song has a .09 BXPMOD. Learning that same skill from The Church of Jubilex of Chaos has a BXPMOD of .2. The Altrnative School of Magic, however, teaches that skill with a .39 BXPMOD. (and you don't ever bother learning a skill from a school that sucks at it...like learning astrophysics from a landscaping company). The effect of these modifiers is the speed that a character breaks level in something. The .39 BXPMOD gains actual, modified experience 4 times as fast as the idiot who asked the Martial School of Song to teach him.

The actual EXPMOD of a skill comes from the BXPMOD of the school and the ATRIBMOD. All skills have an attribute modifier as well, so that smart characters are good at things that need smart, and strong charcters are good at combat, etc.
[spoiler=Hitpoint skill example]HP is a skill that has the least to do with the school a character comes from, and the most to do with the ATTRIBMOD.
It is, however, the only skill EVERY character gets. Still, it is a good illustration of how this works. The BXPMOD froma fighting school might be .15 (a bad school is .05, there is little guild distinction in this skill).
The notation on ATTRBMOD for HP reads ST10-.01/HE10-.03, which means that for every point of Strength a character has over or under 10, the gain or lose .01 on their EXPMOD, and for every point of Health over or under 10, the EXPMOD goes up or down by .03.
So, A character from this school with a 10 ST and a 10 HE has no ATTRIBMOD, and ends with the .15 from their BXPMOD as their total EXPMOD for that skill. If the character had a 15 Strength and a 15 Health, this means they have ((15-10*.01=.05)+(15-10*.03=.15))=.2 as the ATTRIBMOD, added to the .15 BXPMOD= an EXPMOD of .35 for Hit points. This character will gain levels in HP over twice as fast as a character with the lower Attributes.

On a more humorous note, the fastest way to get experience in Hp is to get hit, though you can also add combat experience to HP.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Level breaks for every skill]
100=1
200=2
300=3
500=4
800=5
1300=6
2000=7
3000=8
4400=9
6300=10
[/spoiler]
So the effect of the EXPMOD mechanism in Guildschool is to show how good a character is at a skill, by determining how fast they break levels in it. It also allows us, in-game, to place experience in a skill ONLY WHEN IT IS USED. So in my 12 year old Mistonian crew, the fighters may have 28-38 HP, whereas the non fighters normally have 12-16 hp. You can put experinece in HP, you see, from comabt exp given after the fight, or when you get hit.
This has been kind of cool, as it does not allow for characters to gain EXP in things they do not use.

So anyone who looks at the level break chart and thinks that it seems easy to break levels, guess how many skills a beginning character generally starts with as full skills? Normally 7-12. The Mistonians average about 38k experience (and this group has averaged a session a month for 12 years), but they also average 20-24 skills each. Characters grow and change based on what they learn and what they use.

Subskills
Skills in Celtricia are also based on the familiar tree system, in that 'Basic Trap Skill' has sub skills of 'Find Trap, remove Trap, and 'Set Trap'. 'Avoid Trap is a sub skill of 'remove trap', etc.

Now, since you understand that skills have sub skills, how do sub skills affect the game? It is first important to understand how 'base skills' work. The basic Trap skill has a 1.0 dropdown for Remove trap, Set trap, and find trap, which means that 100% of the skill amount is dropped down as an ability in those skills. SO why would anyone bother to learn the find trap skill?
Because BAsic skills have lousy amounts gained per level. 'Basic Trap, for example has a base of 5% with 1-4 gained per level. This means that a thief-type who does not learn the sub skills may be fifth level in Basic Trap, but it will only give an average of 17.5% skill in the trap abilities, which is pretty lousy. (that 17.5 it gives to the subskills is called the 'dropdown').

Find Traps, the sub skill, has a base of 10% with a 2-7 gain per level. So the amount gained per level is higher, though the scope is narrower. The same thief-type from before, with a second level skill in 'Find Trap' added to his fifth level 'basic trap' skill dropdown, will have a 36.5% Find Traps skill.

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Reserved for Combat mechanics
Damage, Protection, Hit points, and the Lethality of a Campaign
Or,
Another Inside Look at the Mechanics of Celtricia
Or
The Warhorse Fallacy, Revisited.

The Warhorse fallacy is, quickly put, a  critique on the HP system that allows players to take the amount of damage they can in many systems.  The Warhorse is chosen because at a relatively low level, most fighters can absorb more damage than a 2000lb destrier.  (yes, they could get that heavy, though that is about the max).
I understand full well the arguments that HP also equate to luck, learned skills, destiny, etc.  And to a small degree, I totally agree.  It is fun to be able to take more damage as a character gets more powerful, and it is better for the game, to some extent, to have the characters not as threatened by every bow shot.
But I seriously have trouble to the extent that it is done in most systems, and would contend that it is, like many rules , a crutch for bad GMing.
[note]This is not to say everyone who uses such systems is a bad GM, merely to suggest that said rules mitigate the problems that come from poor GMing at the expense of assisting the better GMs to create a more dramatic world [/note]
I mean, I consider it an overdone mechanism of the game that a rogue who never gets hit and almost never gets attacked has 30 HP at a medium power level, and a fighter at that level, unarmored will have 45 or more HP.  Not to even get into higher level characters.

Hit points are a skill in Celtricia, and you only get experience in them in Combat, and a lot more when you get struck. As all skills, it is not hard to break levels early, but it gets much harder later on.  HP as a skill has a base of 3 and gains 2-5 per level (better guilds and schools (and factions) have better experience mods and gain levels faster...a healthy Knight might have an EXPMOD of .35, a wizenned alchemist a .1).  The very highest a PC has in HP is level 10, with 36 HP.  Out of the 13 active PCs, no one else has even 30 (though some of the fighrter types are getting close).  The beginning players that my Igbarians just rolled up have between level 1 and level 3 HP, based on their initial EXP breakouts, and have HP from 5 to 15.

Ogre warriors (between 1st and 3rd rank) will have between 17-42 hp, Hill giants at the same ability will have 45-68 hp.   Ograk have 15 base HP and gain 2-9 per skill level, Hill Giants have 35 base and gain 3-13 per level.

the two parts to the reasoning here are:
1)We use other mechanisms to keep everyone from getting killed whenever they go into combat.  That would be no fun either,
2)Frankly, on the other hand, our game is a lot more lethal than most.  On purpose.  Dumb moves get you killed.  And I want it that way.

Spells and missle weapons, and their proper use, definitely do help.  But the way weapons (and everything) does damage, and the way protection is done, makes for an interesting game.

To maintain a potential of great lethality, yet not overly so, was a challenge.    First of all, I did what many games had done, and I broke armor into avoidance and protection, and decided that anything that dealt with a character dealing with a blow that was going to hit something (armor, shield, a defensive weapon) dealt with protection, and slipping by all that was avoidance.  But it still didn't quite give me the variability I needed.  Daggers just could not ever touch anyone even in chainmail.  The breakthrough came one day when I really got down to brass tacks and looked at the probablity curves I was trying to create.  I wanted armor to have a range of protections, but more of a bell curve, while I wanted weapons to have a potential of lethality, but not every time, and the smaller the weapon, the lower the chance of a really lethal strike.

So what came out of it was to give both protection and damage a range, with a dividing die.  Which allows you to really mess with the probablity curves.  
I wanted almost all armor to have some protection, but to have a pretty good range.  And I wanted the frequency distribution to group somewhat towards a bell-curve, but still with a bulge towards the low end and a big single tail.  So the dividing die in armor is actaully the average of 2d6, which gives me my slightly taller bell in my curve.  An example of a character with very light armor would be some guy in Hardened leather and padded silk, who would have a base protection of 14-23, divided by those 2d6.  A guy in chain mail and padded silk would have a base protection of 22-31, with a divider, and a guy in Lammellar and padded silk would have 42-51 base protection, still with a divider.
[note]Note that this example does not include the avoidance, initiative or any skills, for the sake of simplicity.[/note]
So our dude in the leather can protect up to 23 hits, he averages 6 protection, and his minimum is 3.  Our guy in chain mail can protect up to 31, his average is 8 protection, and his minimum is 4 hits.  Our tank can protect up to 51 hits, which is a ton.  He averages 14 protection, but can protect as little as 7 on a couple of bad rolls.  This gives even the medium armors the hopes of rolling a pair of ones or a one and a two, and protecting on a big damage hit.  But it means that even the tank can get nailed if he rolls badly.  And heavily armored tanks never get missed.

Now weapons I wanted something slightly different.  I wanted a range of damage, but I wanted to curve to be a little less belled.  I also came up with a neat mitigastion that allows me to not have the amount of damage being the only factor, but the bigger a weapon is, the smaller it's dividing dice.  [note] Smaller weapons also are much faster.  Sometime, a guy with a short sabre will get in 2-3 attacks for every attack of a guy with a bec-di-corbin, or something.  This is great when you are fighting a lightly armored opponent with a low protection.  However, it has been proved a zillion times that attacking 10 times and not getting through someones protection is not as good as one hit that does.  It's all a ratio, both have their place. [/note]
so a Bank dagger might have 11-18 damage, with a d10 divider, a gladius might have 15-26 damage with a d8 divider, a broadsword might have 17-28 damage with a d6 divider, and double bladed broadaxe might do 22-37 dmage with a d4 divider. Behind the curtain a little bit, this means that with the dagger, you can do up 18 hits (before modifiers), and our guy in Lammellar averages 14 and can protect as little as 7.  So if the guy with the dagger rolls a 1 or a 2 divider die, he has a hope of doing some damage to the tank.  But it also means that there is only a 10% chance of doing decent damage, the gladius has a 12.5%, the  broadsword 16.6%, and the axe 25%.  Only huge, slow weapons have d5 or d4 dividers, they are rare.  Giants generally have all d4 dividers, dragons have d3.  Don't get hit by a dragon.  A medium dragon bite is (55-70/d3)
The way the game has fallen out, and this is a gross generalization, is that a 1 or a 2 divider has a decent chance of doing some damage, anything else means you have to hope your opponent rolls a crappy protection.  So the odds of getting 'decent' hit become 20% with a really small, d10 divider weapon, 25% with the d8 medium weapon, 33% with the good sized weapon, and 50% with those super slow, punishing weapons.

Reserved for Spell mechanics.
Celtricia, World of Factions

 LINK TO SPELL PAGE (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Spell+Rules?full_access=ykSciyNGwN&l=S)
Spell Mechanics

Overview
                   As mentioned before, the GuildSchool system came into being not just as an exercise in creating a diferent rule set, or even just trying to create a system that catered to the maturing sensibilities of the players.  GuildSchool's major dynamic was to create a system that would fit the world we were creating.
This meant creating a system where casters learned to channell power from myriad power sources, sources that powered particular spell effects.  Casting a fire spell in Guildschool means using the caster's inner strength (spirit Spell Points) to initiate the spell, initiate the conduit to the Well of Fire on the Third Station, and use that power source to fuel the fire part of the spell.  So it will cost Spirit and Fire spell points.
                In other words, Spell casting in the bip system is done by the expenditure of spell points. Ability in a spell skill is the game vehicle for a caster's knowledge and connection to that power source, except for Spirit spell points.
 
Spell Point types/Spell Power Sources

Animist SP  --Powered by the Animal Oversoul
Artificer SP   -Powered by reaching out to the echoes of the Creator's Song in the Void
House of Air SP-Powered by the the Endless Sky on the Second Station (Since the House of Air was destroyed).
House of Chaos SP-Powered by the Well of Chaos on the Eighth House, which forces the void apart.
House of Death SP-Powered by the Polar Well of Death on the House of Death, Zevashopal.
House of Earth SP-Powered by the Endless Solidity of the House of Earth.
House of Fire SP-Powered by the Well of Fire on the Third Station (as the House of Fire is no more).
House of Life SP-Powered by the Polar Well of Life, on the House of Life.
House of Order SP-Powered by the Well of Order, which binds the Void together.
House of Water SP-Powered by the Endless Sea on the House of Water.
Mentalist SP-Powered by the Humanoid Oversoul
Necromantic SP-Powered by the conduit from the House of Death to all the Soul's End Journeys
Restorative SP-Powered by the Well of Life
Shade Sp -Powered by the void itself.  (unknown for millenia, not used)
Spirit SP--The personal power of the caster's trained mind.

                One major reason we did this is that we wanted the different specializations to be more than just a list of spells that could be cast.  A Church of Chaos (Orcus) will normally have decent ability in Spirit, Very Good Chaos, decent Restoratove, and decent death magic, and poor at most other types of spell ability.  The Steel Libram Sages of Igbar might have decent Spirit, Very Good Mentalist skill, Above average Artificer.  We want to have real Pyromancers, and real Artificers, and mentalists...Not just different spell lists.
                   
                Spirit spell points are the part of a spell the caster supplies himself; the internal power a caster learns to harness to trigger a spell. Every spell takes spirit spell points, and a caster can use Spirit to fuel any other type of spell point skill he may be deficient in, normally at 1:4 ratio. This is the game mechanic that allows a caster to use energy from his own personal stores to fuel a spell that uses an ability he may be deficient in.
 
 
 
[ic=Rules for Spell Point Conversion]
 
                If all things were perfect, we would always have enough Spell Points to cast the spells we learn. But often, due to past spells cast, or spells not perfectly suited to our characters, we need a little help to cover all the bases in a spell.
                Our characters have been trained in some areas and not others; quite frankly this is purposeful. There is much to know in the world of magic, and the work of many lifetimes to master any part of it. So often, a caster must throw more of their personal power to make up for the area they are lacking in.
                However, if a character is very familiar with a power source, the conversion factor will be less, due to the innate affinity with that source, and the understanding of it.
 
Conversion Chart
unfamiliar No knowledge of Power Source 1:4 ratio
familiar Character has that Spell Category,  1:3 ratio
specialized Level in Specialized Spell Category is >= ½ of Spirit Spell Level, or >= Level 8, minimum lvl 3 1:2 ratio
devoted Level in Devoted Spell Category is >= ¾ of Spirit Spell Level or >= Level 12, minimum lvl 6 1:1.5 ratio


 
                Characters achieving 'specialized' or 'devoted' status will be grandfathered in that status when they achieve the next level in spirit. However, they must achieve another level in the specialized or devoted category before they achieve another spirit level or they will lose the status (unless they are over the permanent status level).
 
Rules for Spell Level
 
                Spell level is normally determined by the characters highest achieved level; normally spirit. However, there are mitigating factors. If the spell that is being cast's primary focus is a category the character has, they may add ¼ of that spell type's level onto their Spirit level. So if Joe Templar is L5 Spirit, L3 Order, L2 Water, and L1 Artificer, and was casting a Water based spell, he would be considered level 5.5 (5 for Spirit and .5 for Water).
                This effect is increased if the spell cast comes from a in which the character is specialized or devoted, to ½ that skill level being added on. So if our friend Joe Templar was casting an Order base spell, his functional level would be 6.5.
[/ic]
 
[ic=Rules For Spell Point Reclamation]
Spell points also take a while to return to the caster. The caster's Spell point reclamation skill determines this. That skill is a 50% auto dropdown from the spell points, so until the caster grows in power, the spell point reclamation skill is normally ½ the casters actual skill in that type of spell points. This translates into the caster reclaiming at .05* their reclamation skill per hour while active, and .15* their reclamation skill per hour while sleeping.
                Also, a caster can reclaim up to 3 different types of spell points back in a given hour while awake, but up to 5 different types per hour while sleeping.
                So this means a character with 20 spirit points has probably a 10 Spirit reclamation skill. He will reclaim .5 points an hour awake, and 1.5 an hour while sleeping.[/ic]
 
[ic=Spell Success]
 
Spells are not assumed to always work perfectly.   The concentration needed to draw energies from the disperate source, the twisted logics that must be used, are all difficult.  So every spell must be rolled for, to see if it succeeds.  The players have a spell success dropdown skill at .5 of their best spell skill which is addded to the spell success of the skill, and added to a dm roll.  The players need to roll under this.[/ic]
 
 

Magic In Celtricia--Behind the Curtain
One of the primary issues I see come up in threads is the magic level question. How prevelant is magic in the mileau? Is it a 'high-magic' world, or a 'low magic' world.

But there is more to it than that. Many games have similar ratios of high, mid, and lower level magic. Another question is what is the frequnecy distribution of ability?

When I created the spell point system for Celtricia, I set it up to be as flexible as possible, so that casters can blow all their points in one spell, or cast lots of little spells, or use rituals to cast tougher spells. I also do not differentiate between divine spells and others, as they actually all come from the same sources of power.


But I also set things up so that I could have a magic rich world, but where even middle level magic is rare, and high level magic is a thing of legend. Igbar, as an example is a small walled city of thirty thousand souls. Bards, mages, sages, priests, alchemsits and other people who can manipulate the void-bound sources of spell power abound. However, There are no priests capable of casting a Full Ressurection. Raise Dead is possible at 5 of the churches.

Higher level spells obviosuly cost more spell point. But they also have unfovorable spell successes, and pull from more spell sources. All spells need spirit points, which is the trigger, the part of the spell that comes fropm the caster. Beginner spells and cantrip pull from Spirit and one or 2 other spell point sources. Tougher spells will pull from 3, 4, or even 5 sources, so a caster must be 'fluent' in many disciplines to cast any medium or higher power spells.
[spoiler=aformentioned spell types]
Amnimist SP

Artificer SP

House of Air SP

House of Chaos SP

House of Death SP

House of Earth SP

House of Fire SP

House of Life SP

House of Order SP

House of Water SP

Mentalist SP

Necromantic SP

Restorative SP

Shade Sp

Spirit SP
[/spoiler]

So, as I have stated before, we keep a level of experience in every skill for a character, and being better at a skill means have a more favorable experience modifier. So only real casters even have the capacity to cast more difficult spells. As a very, very rough rule of thumb, we can assume a caster gains 4 spell points per level in a spell skill.

Cantrips may cost 2-5 spirit points, and 1-3 points from another source.

 



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[spoiler=Air Cantrip, Chilling]

Spell Name Chilling

Major Sphere Air

Spell Source

Initiative 3

Range touch

Duration 20 sec

Save none

Save effect none

Spell Success 27

Area of effect 1' cube

Counter

Spirit cost 3

Earth cost 0

Water cost 0

Fire cost 0

Air cost 1

Life cost 0

Death cost 0

Law cost 0

Chaos cost 0

Restorative cost 0

Necromantic cost 0

Mentalist cost 0

Artificer cost 0

Animist cost 0

Total cost 4

Description

This cantrip decreases the tempurature of an object by 10 degrees or reduces the

tempurature to 35 degrees farenheit, whichever is lower. After the duration, the

object returns to tempurature at normal speed.
[/spoiler]
 

 

So a caster who is first level in Spirit and first level in Air can cast this, maybe even twice.

 

Now, let's go to a common spell everyone know in every system. This is an air variation of Magic Missle.

 



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[spoiler=Air Spell, Minor Kinetic Blast]

Spell Name Minor Kinetic Blast

Major Sphere Air

Spell Source

Initiative 2

Range 60

Duration inst

Save reflex-15%

Save effect neg

Spell Success 0

Area of effect

Counter

Spirit cost 10

Earth cost 0

Water cost 0

Fire cost 0

Air cost 5

Life cost 0

Death cost 0

Law cost 0

Chaos cost 0

Restorative cost 0

Necromantic cost 0

Mentalist cost 1

Artificer cost 0

Animist cost 0

Total cost 16

Description

This is one of the basic offensive spells learned by those versed in Air. It creates balls

of invisible air that smack unerringly to their target. A caster can create 1 ball per 3

levels of experience (i.e., 1 ball at levels 1-3, 2 balls at levels 4-6, etc). Each of the balls

does 5-10/d4 damage (d6+4). Armor protects 1/2.

Please note that these are totally invisible
[/spoiler]


A perfect example, as it pulls 10 Spirit points, 5 Air and 1 Mentalist. A beginning caster, just created, would probably be second or third level Spirit, and first level in 2 other disciplines, so this spell, and maybe a cantrip, would be within casting before needing to recoup points.

Now we move to the lowest of the Raise Dead variations, one used by the Churches of Madrak, Ceminiar, and Amrist.


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[spoiler=Earh Spell, Raise the Earthen Dead]

Spell Name Raise the Earthen Dead

Major Sphere Restorative

Spell Source

Initiative 24

Range touch

Duration perm

Save health+caster's level

Save effect live

Spell Success -18

Area of effect touch

Counter

Spirit cost 42

Earth cost 16

Water cost 0

Fire cost 0

Air cost 0

Life cost 8

Death cost 0

Law cost 0

Chaos cost 0

Restorative cost 20

Necromantic cost 0

Mentalist cost 0

Artificer cost 0

Animist cost 0

Total cost 86

Description

This powerful spell takes a creature that has sunk beyond life and infuses them with

the many spirits of life, bringing them back from beyond the pale.

The person cannot have been dead more than 1 day per 2 levels of the caster, and all

body parts must be accounted for.

The newly raised will be very weak, and will have only one hp. They will take 8

days+2 days per hp to recover their strength. And the character must make a health

CC+ the caster's level, or remain dead, and be unraisable without a ressurection spell.

The caster must use holy water, and at least 3 holy candles tpo cast this spell, and

must know the target's full, real name.
[/spoiler]

The spell successs here s lower, and with 42 Spirit points needed, 16 Earth, 8 Life, 20 Restorative, we are talking 9-12th level in Spirit, 3rd to 5th in Earth, second in Life, and 4th to 6th in Restorative.

So what you have in Celtricia is a land where magic is not unusual at all, where Head Chef's and master Stonemasons use lesser magics on their important jobs, and where minor casters of all stripes are seen regularly. However, greater spell use is extrememly rare and wonderful.

 

Rserved for example character

This is an early Version Of George, A hobyt Mysteriarch from Igbar's Mysteriarchs of Lathe.

File: 1188657491_392_FT31806_georgefront.pdf (//../../e107_files/public/1188657491_392_FT31806_georgefront.pdf)
File: 1188657491_392_FT31806_georgecombat.pdf (//../../e107_files/public/1188657491_392_FT31806_georgecombat.pdf)
File: 1188657491_392_FT31806_georgeother_sk.pdf (//../../e107_files/public/1188657491_392_FT31806_georgeother_sk.pdf)
File: 1188657491_392_FT31806_georgespell.pdf (//../../e107_files/public/1188657491_392_FT31806_georgespell.pdf)

Replaced

Celtricia, World of Factions
Mechanics Thread
V2.0
In game example post.  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a descriptive line from one of the old story posts from the new Legion.  Squire Tusnus set off a trap, and it was a good illustration of the system at work.  
[ooc=behind the curtain]Reflex CC-10%, missed by Tusnus. Assegai (d8+12/d8) damage, +1 for the force of the spring. Tusnus wears padded silk under average chain mail( + his basic defence skill) AV43/PR31. damage for the assegai (15/1)+1=16 (ugg, close to maximum), protection (31-3.4)/3.5=8 protection. Tusnus has 16 HP, and takes 16-8 prot for 8 damage, leaving 8hp. He gains 24 exp in basic defence and 80 exp in HP.[/ooc]

What is the Guildschool Translation of this gobbldeegook?


 [ic=Reflex CC-15%]

Guildschool has 4 major CC rolls. Will, Fortitude, Reflex, and Social. Reflex is based on IN+(CD*3)+ dodge/surprise skill.[/ic]


 [ic=Assegai (d8+12/d8)+1 for the force of the spring.]

GuildSchool damage is almost always done with an amount and a dividing die, to control the probability curve. The Assegai is a small weapon, so it has an 8 sided die divider. So the weapon does 12-20 before adjustments, but the dividing die means that there is a 12.5% chance of doing 12-20. Daggers normally have d10 or d8 dividers, larger weapons have lower dividing dice. A broadsword does (d10+16/d6), having a 16.7% of doing 17-26 base damage, a demilune does (d12+17/d5) base damage, having a 20% chance of doing 18-29 base.
The +1 bonus is for the forsce of the spring. Minor construction adjustments and minor spells add damage before the dividing dice, great strength and better magic adds damage after the divider.
A critical hit reduces the divider of any weapon to a d4 and sometimes has a subtractor to that divider.

Now, how does a low HP world like mine deal with this much damage being thrown around? Other than rolling up new characters, that is?[/ic]


 [ic=Tusnus wears padded silk under average chain mail( + his basic defence skill) AV43/PR31.]

Protection, that's how, or Damage reduction, in some folk's new-fangled vocabulary. The above notation means that Tusnus has a 43 avoidance (he's pretty easy to hit), but has 31 max protection. This explanation deals with protection. All protections have a d10 roll and a (2d6/2) divider. The 2d6 average divide is created to give more of a bellcurve, so that protection has more of a traditional bell-curve, vs the larger-tailed probablity curve of the weapons. Tusnus's protection will be between 5.7 and 10.4 points 77.5% of the time, though it can be as low as 3.6, and as much as 31.

We've used this system for over 2 decades of playtesting now, and despite many tweaks, it accomplishes what I wanted. Charaters who go into combat wear a lot of armor, since they are going to get his a lot. Weapons do a lot of damage and HP are low in GuildSchool. Protection is all fighters have.[/ic]


 [ic=Tusnus has 16 HP, and takes 16-8 prot for 8 damage, leaving 8hp. He gains 24 exp in basic defence and 80 exp in HP.]

Guildschool is also skillbased, not classbased. We keep experience seperately in each skill. Character's that leasrned the skill from a good school and have advantageous Attributes have a better EXPmodifier, so they go up levels faster. No one gets better hitpoints from picking a lock, but no one becomes a better lockpick by killing a skeleton.
In the example above, Squire Tusnus got nailed. He protected 8 points, and gained 24 exp in basic defence skill (he's not advanced enough to have to worry about what subskills to put it in, if he wanted to), and his 8 HP taken in a real battle netted him 80 EXP in hit points. He also gasin a share of exp for creature he has a part in killing which must be spent based on his contribution to the combat.[/ic]

Celtricia, World of Factions
V 2.0 for CBG


Well, despite me being in my own busy season at work, work on the Celtricia pbwiki continues.
I have been ably aided recenly by a few of my players (2 of them original players of this setting from the early-to-mid 1980s)  So the front page has been cleaned up a lot, and many more pages have been added, including many more in-depth notations of the Igbarian area of play.
I'm mentioning this in thr crunch psection because that much of the rectent work has been in crunch.
World of Factions (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/?l=S)

Spells are now 2/3 transcribed.
spell index page (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Spell+List?l=S)

Crunch updates for celtricia

Examples of combat expanded
examples of combat (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Examples+of+Combat)
Rsetorative and Order spells finished (working on Mentalist spells, powered by the collective subconsious of all celtrician sentients)
spell list (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Spell+List)

Bump for more spells
Mentalist spells trasnscribed onto site.  Necromantic spells next.  Which might be my favorite...stupid little spells like "Vermin Puppet".
celtrician spellbook (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Spell+List)
(yes, to go along with our own spellrules, we have our own spellbook unique to the campaign, 11 different major spell sources  since I have been speaking to many designers on many threadsa about their spell systems, the link to the spell book is above, the link to the spell rules are here.  Artificers, Animists, Necromancers, Life mages, Death Mages, Pyromancers and Earthmagi (and more! and combinations!) all exist in Celtricia.
It was very important that a mage who knows some spells about charming and noise (mentalist spells) can't just learn a spell about a totally different discipline (say a fire spell) without knowing how to access the power source for Fire spells.
rules (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Guildschool)

Basic Necromantic spells added to spell list.
spellpage (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Spell+List)
Only Restorative and Water spells to add, then the basic spellbook is posted, and I can get back to creating new spells again.
Frankly, I think I enjoy my necromancers better than any other spell sources.  Way fun to create.  And since they are powered by the Well of Death, many sentient undead actually can access some of these spells once in a while.

And once again, a bump, as the Basic Spell List and descriptions for the Restorative Spells in Guildschool is finished.
Guildschool spellbook (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Spell+List)
Restorative spell ability is channelled fropm the Well of Life, on the House of Life.  It represents the caster's ability to restore and revitalize a creature.

And once I finish the House of Water spellbook, I can get onto creating new spells again!  Phew!

And finally, the job of inserting the 467 basic spells and descriptions from the guildschool system is finally finished.
celtrician spellbook (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Spell+List)
Basic water spells aer done, so the basic spells for all 13 spell types are done on the site.
Air Spells
Animist Spells
Artificer Spells
Chaos Spells
Death Spells
Earth Spells
Fire Spells
Order Spells
Life Spells
Mentalist Spells
Necromantic Spells
Restorative Spells
Water Spells
 
This has taken months to complete.

Now I can get onto the task of redoing the weapons.

Somehow forgot to update this on the thread. We have been playtesting this for almost a year, and it went onto the Wiki months ago.
spell rules (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Spell%20Rules)

Spell Resistance
                      Spell points of every type are skills, as we have mentioned, and they have a few drop-own sub skills.  Spell resistance (and counterspelling) is one of these.   The skill is an automatic dropdown at 1/4 the ability of the spell point ability, excepting Spirit Spell Points.  In other words, if a person has 16 points of Fire Spell points, they have Fire Spell Resistance at 4% skill.  The idea behind this skill is that if a caster is conversant in a type of magic, he will know better how to resist it.
                      This has 2 major uses.  The first is simple, passive resistance.  Whenever a person casts a spell that is in a realm the caster has points in, any CC gains a bonus of the 1/4 of the spell points.  So if the caster above has a fire spell cast at them with a reflex CC needed, they have a 4% bonus on their CC.                      
                      The other use is to counterspell.  Instead of casting, a caster can gain initiative, and wait for an opposing caster to work magic.  They can try to agressivley counterspell if they have 'Spell resistance'  as mentioned above in the type of spell the caster is using.  If so, they can subtract their spell resistance to the caster's success% (as Magic resistance ability), and it only cost them one Spell point in that type of spell.  Note that the point it lost whether the spell comes off or not.  Also, please note that is with other casters, infering the actual casting of spells.  One cannot counterspell the spell-like effects of an outsider or any Sauroid casting, as they cast differently, and it would be alien to a caster.

Armor types slightly changed, more shields added in and changed.
4 players in the Igbarian crew are serious SCA folk, and have done tons of research.  Nothing is like a PC telling you how happy they are that your game has lammellar armor, and then to pull out a eral suit of lammellar they have made.  

So the boys made it very clear how much protection a shield really gives, and how important shields were to combat, and we all did a lot of work on the history of the shield.  So I had to up all the shield protections a little bit, since it was made all too clear to me that a good shield's protection is more than a poor suit.

New Armor Page (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Armor%20types)

And the Chicken skin armor is a joke from a long time ago...

*BUMP*
FEAR THE STREAM-OF-CONSIOUSNESS DISASTER THREADS.

I've been working assiduously on my spell rules: not so much changing them as formalizing them and making them a little more clear.  All the conversations that we have been having on spell systems  (as well as some of the ones on skill based systems) have kept me plugging away.

 Guildschool spell rules, redone (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Spell%20Rules)

BA---HA!!
(Yo, Troll!)

Been working on the weapon page to clean things up.  STill a WIP, but Troll and I were going over some of it a few nights ago, and it convinced me to add examples to the page.  
Weapons in Guildschool, among the 10 zillion other things peculiar to the system, have a Stregth Needed, and a Coordination needed. They actually have 2 sets of these each, for one and 2 hand use. (STN1h, STN2h, CDN1h, CDN2h)
There is also a a Strength Modifier and a corrdination modifier that determines the effect of every point of the attribute above or below the needed number.
(this is a variant we use on the skills, as well).
So I added examples of three different NPC's, and have them each using three weapons.
Pfenig Restlington, Goblin Artificer (ST6, CD 9), Rex Baird, Human Igbarian Scarlet Pilum (ST 13, CD 13), and Bar Vox Grenthog, Gartier Priest of the Earth (ST 18, CD 15).
Then I statted them each out with a little Bank Dagger, a scimitar, and a huge, heavy mace.
weapon page (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Weapon%20types)

Below that are the new, shortened weapn buying charts, and at the bottom the full chart.  Still work to be done to clean it up, but it is coming together.  Just thoguht I might get some more input.

[blockquote=Steerpike]Wonderfully creepy! Undead are vulnerable to silver, eh? [/blockquote]
More powerful Undead and outsiders normally have some level of DR based on the type of weapon used.

It is actually harder to creater magic items from normal items than materials that 'resonate' throught the void.  Silver is the least of these.  But once magic is on a weapon or item, it is partially in the void itelf.

DR adds to Protection, but that is adjusted by the type of weapon used, in 10 point increments.
the hierarchy used is

Silver
Masterwork metal (blacksteel, Amretton Brass, Ambretton mithril, Asslewood, Charsteel, etc)
Magiced
Magiced +5% (means at least +5% to hit, +1 damage or more than 3 use a day spell)
Magiced +10% (means at least +10% to hit, +2 damage, or more than 5 spell use per day)
Magiced +15% (Means at least +15% to hit, +3 to damage, or greater spell use per day)
(and this goes up to +25%)

So a wight may be listed as 30AV/50PR-magiced, which means that the wight has 50 protection against magicied weapons or better.  Against masterwork, the wight has 60 protection, against silver, 70 protection, and 80 protection vs normal weapons.

This upper rank wraith that the group was fighting was statted with was statted with 55 protection-Magicced +05%

Does that make sense?

Spell List up to 510 Guildschool
_________________________________________________________________
I keep trying to add the spells that would make sense for the setting.  I added in the plague spells because the Antroo Vampyre is trying to cause a plague in Igbar  (S.O.P. for undead lords, doncha know...)

Complete spell list  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Spell+List)

New spells.
Death
 Destruction of Unborn Foetus  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Destruction-of-Unborn-Foetus)   (yes, I went there)
Instigate Disease, Greater  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Instigate-Disease%2C-Greater)
 INstigate Disease, plague  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Instigate-Disease%2C-Plague)
Necromantic
 Undead Scavenger's Totem  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Undead-Scavenger's-Totem)
Restorative
 Greater Altar of Healing  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Greater-Altar-of-Healing)

New Spells added for specific reasons.  Total spells up to 516 on Wiki.  I'll transfer a few nw choice offerings.
Strike of Snake and Spider (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Strike-of-Snake-and-Spider)
[spoiler][ic]
Spell Name Strike of Snake and Spider

Major Sphere Animist


Spell Source
Initiative 4
Range touch
Duration 1 hr plev
Save none
Save effect none
Spell Success 20
Area of effect target
Counter


Spirit cost 5
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 0
Death cost 0
Law cost 0
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 0
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 3
Total cost 8


Description

This spell was originally created back in the Age of Heroes, but it's current name
and configuration comes from the Chruch of the Circled Snake and Spider, of the
Old Astrikon Traders.
It is a contingency style spell, much like Souce Charge (q.v.). Is. After the spell is
cast, it lies in wait for the whol dureation, unused. However, the first time the target
attempts to strike another person (with a weapon or unarmed, not including magic
or missle), the ensorcelled will gain a speed advantage, the speed of a striking creature
added to their own.
Mechanics-wise, this spell gives the target an improved initiative the first time they
try to strike someone in melee within the duration of the spell. After that initial
roll, the spell is used. It does not affect other initiatice rolls, nor spell casting or
missle weapons.

It provides a -1 per 2 levels of the user to the initi roll, for a minimum total init of
+1.

This spell is a great spell to cast on that big-weapon user as one enters an adventure,
as it lasts hours.[/ic][/spoiler]
Created by me to give more depth to the whole schism betwen the old Isham/Vernidale church.  These are spells that I can have the 'Terrors of the Knife' use, but also give to Kiko.

Developed to explain the difficulty my PC's are havng sneaking up on members of the Terrors of the knife.
[spoiler]
[ic]
Spell Name Sense of Snake and Spider
Major Sphere Animist
Spell Source
Initiative 11
Range target
Duration 10min+ 1 min plev
Save none
Save effect none
Spell Success 15
Area of effect target
Counter


Spirit cost 8
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 0
Death cost 0
Law cost 1
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 0
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 5
Total cost 14


Description

This spell, whose most recent incarnation comes through the Old Astrickon religion
of the Circled Snake and Spider.
This spell enhances the detection of danger in a target. During the spell, the target
has a +25% to their surprise skill/CC.
[/ic]
[/spoiler]

Greater Strike of Snake and Spider  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Greater-Strike-of-Snake-and-Spider)
A bigger, more costly, but much better version of the first spell.  This is a contingency style spell that a PC can cast, and then start getting spell points back pretty quickly.  It was a common scroll for the Astrickon's to carry, as it really takes away the downside of a big, slow weapon.
A normal caster (without some esoteric skills) gets back about 5% of their max spell points per hour, and can recover in up to 3 sources an hour.
[spoiler][ic]
Spell Name Greater Strike of Snake and Spider

Major Sphere Animist

 
Spell Source
Initiative 5
Range touch
Duration 3 hrs+1 hr/plev
Save none
Save effect none
Spell Success 10
Area of effect target
Counter


Spirit cost 12
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 0
Death cost 0
Law cost 0
Chaos cost 1
Restorative cost 0
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 7
Total cost 20


Description

This spell was originally created back in the Age of Heroes, but it's current name
and configuration comes from the Church of the Circled Snake and Spider, of the
Old Astrikon Traders.
It is a contingency style spell, much like Souce Charge (q.v.). Is. After the spell is
cast, it lies in wait for the whol dureation, unused. However, the first three time the
target attempts to strike another person (with a weapon or unarmed, not including
magic or missle), the ensorcelled will gain a speed advantage, the speed of a striking
creature added to their own.
Mechanics-wise, this spell gives the target an improved initiative the first three
intitiative rolls where they try to strike someone in melee within the duration of the
spell. After the third, the spell is used. It does not affect other initiative rolls, nor
spell casting or missle weapons.
It provides a -1 per 2 levels of the user to the initi roll, for a minimum total init of
+1.

This spell is a great spell to cast on that big-weapon user as one enters an adventure, as it lasts hours.[/ic][/spoiler]

Undead in Celtricia use a lot of fear effects.  Even lesser 'Cunning Undead' like wights and wraiths have some automatic, if lesser fear effects.  Funny, because there was a whole postiong on controlling and mind effecting spells on Gnome Stew recently, and a buch of people were admitting they under-utilize these types of effects.

Remove Terror (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Remove+Terror--)
[spoiler]
[ic]

Spell Name Remove Terror

Major Sphere Life

Spell Source
Initiative 5
Range 3' plev
Duration perm
Save will+lev*2
Save effect spec
Spell Success 10
Area of effect target
Counter ment

Spirit cost 10
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 7
Death cost 0
Law cost 1
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 0
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 0
Total cost 18


Description
This spell allows a caster to remove the effects of any fear spell from an afflicted
recipient.
After a succesful casting, the target gains an extra will save with a bonus (see above),
and can try to throw off the effects of the fear attack. Note that this works on
necromentic, mentalist, or any other type of spell unless otherwise specified.
The caster must point a holy symbol at the taget for this to work
Note that this will not affect any later fear effects.[/ic][/spoiler]

 Remove Terror, Greater (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Remove-Terror%2C-Greater)

[spoiler][ic]
Spell Name Remove Terror, Greater

Major Sphere Life
 

Spell Source
Initiative 5
Range 10' plev
Duration perm/4 sec plev
Save will+level*3
Save effect neg
Spell Success 0
Area of effect target
Counter

Spirit cost 15
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 8
Death cost 0
Law cost 2
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 0
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 0
Total cost 25

Description
This spell has a similar effect as the lesser 'Remove Terror' (q.v.), but has stronger
effects.
In addition to longer range, this spell also confers a bonus on all CC's vs Fear for 4
sec per level of 2* the caster's level.[/ic]
[/spoiler]

Tiring slightly...But the necromantic additions are somehow the most fun.

Raise Entropic Skeletal Servant (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Raise-Entropic-Skeletal-Servant)
Greater Zombie Servant (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Greater-Zombie-Servant)
Comforts of Home, Servant's Circle (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Comforts-of-Home%2C-Servant%27s-Circle)

Go here for the  Spells Page  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Spell+List), if you want to get some context, or see the other spells that are in similar veins...

Rules for GMing skill use
 link to page (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/How-skills-are-used-and-played-in-game)


HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED-SKILLS
Guildschool is, at the basic level, a skill-based system.  So much of the roleplaying is based on the application of skills.  Combat skills are just another set of skills and treated the same way.  Even a combat skill like 'basic sword' is actually the % chance to hit an unencumbered, actively avoiding person.  Also, the Guildschool system is best suited to a game where combat is a means to an end, not the primary focus of the game.  While 'Life-or-Death' situations naturally lend a tremendous amount of drama to a game, the gaming done in town, building relationships and forging the future of the game, is just as important.

So, at the most basic level, The game is just the application of skills in the enviroment around the PCs, or gaining new skills.  This means that as a GM, another major job is trying to create an enviroment where the players want to stretch and use their skills.  This often means stretching things and trying to work with the payers in giving them little bonuses to tasks unless it is ridiculous.  And don't hesitate laughing at the ridiculous attempts, it breaks the tension.

And laugh at your own NPC's CC misteps even more.


(//../../e107_files/public/1243705430_392_FT39632_edward3_mortimers_arrest.jpg)

Also, when adjudicating skills, a GM will regularly give bonuses and subtractions.   The scale is set up so that an average attempt is against difficult circumstances.  This is because adventuring is difficult, frankly.  Perfect circumstances are considered to be +40%, very favorable attempts are +30%, easy attempts are +20%, favorable attempts +10%, difficult is 0, hard attempts are-10%, very difficult -20%, extremely difficult are -30%.  

This is why some of the skills are so low.  Adventurers live in a difficult world, where they are trying to overcome adversity.  Unlocking a door in a dungeon, to use an absolute trope, with the light issues, the lock being an alien design, worrying about noise or someone attacking you...that is difficult.  A normal roll, unless the quality of the lock is better which would decrease the chance, or maybe it is in an area that is totally cleared out and considered safe, which might slightly increase the chance, maybe by 10%.  And that same average lock, in the adventrurer's own house in the light of day, with all the time in the world, might be +20%.  It would have to be an easier lock to increase the chance more than that.

Another piece of advice is to use the roll to describe the success or failure. So a really good roll represents a very competent, perfect job, while just barely making the roll could be described as a difficult, painstaking attempt.

[note=Some Examples of Skill Use]
a simple example--

Perto Van Oster, Gnomic member of the Eye of Igbar has a 16% 'Basic Trap' skill.  He is at a backdoor late at night in the Dockside, trying to get into Lucky's Ointments.  The lock is decently made, and it it dark (he has a candle, shielded) , and Perto is is a little worried about the Scarlet Pilums in the Area.  This would be a normal roll on his 16% chance, since this is a normal, difficult situation.

If he had paid off the 'Pilums to be somewhere else, or felt comfortable using a lantern, he'd probably be given a +5% on the roll.

Another example
Skald Pinotage AfrikanVintage of the Martial School of Song is being prodded by his group about the significance of a Statue they have found in a ruin in the Wibble Hills.  The Statue shows a monkey faced man with a noose and an ankus, with a head with three faces and three sets of arms and legs.  Pinotage only has a 5% basic scholar skill (level2), and cannot think of any other skill sthat might help, so he has a very poor 5% chance of knowing anything.[/note]



(//../../e107_files/public/1243705508_392_FT39632_edward3_vow_peace.jpg)

Social Skills
Even more involved is the GM's job of adjudicating social skills.  Determining the effect of a skill and the proper difficulty often stretches the skills of even the best GM.  On the other hand, when this is done well, the game runs incredibly smoothly, with the use of skills and the affects of skill CC's determining the flow of the game.


The Clever use of Addition
Ther game is set up to encourage the clever use of skills.  This often manifests itself as players asking for a bonus on a skill CC or skill use due to a related skill. Since this is a skill based system, one based on thinking players, this is not a thorn in the GM's side.  Rather, this is something that has to be adjudicated personally, situation by situation, but try to encourage the players thinking.  


The system is built to do this.  There is a lot of skill overlap by design.  Basic Outdoor and Basic Forester seem very similar and are indeed complimentary and meant to be used in a skill stacking situation.  Basic Forester is an artisan skill, and as such is a lesser knowledge involving the mundane aspects of this skill, whereas the Esoteric skill of Basic Outdoors includes powers and knowledge of how the House of Earth affects trees, the treants, tree spells, etc.  

As a rule of thumb, skill stacking (except for dropdowns that are already allowed) are normally a maximum of 25% of the add on skill allowed.  And as a rule of thumb, even if it is totally applicable, the maximum an artisan skill can add to a non-artisan CC is 10% of the artisan skill amount, while a non-artisan skill can add a maximum of 25% of that skill.  
An artisan skill to another artisan, or a non-artisan to another non-artisan, the maimum is 25%.

Remember, the idea here is not to make the players fail.  The idea is to encoutrage them to think.  This doesn't mean a cakewalk, but rather fostering and reinforcing their clever use of skills.  This creates a magical synergy in the game that is impossible to beat, where the intelligence and creativity of the player directs the game.

[note=Some examples of additive skill use]
 
Portney Bastardly, a spear Brother of the Scarlet Pilums, is trying to improve his suit of armor.  It's a normal suit of Chain Armor he wants to improve to masterwork.  He's a level 5 blacksmith and a level 2 armorer, for a total of 39%.  He's not trying to just fix or create, he's actually trying to improve it, so the GM  adjudicates it is very difficult, -20% to actually effect an improvement from basic armor to masterwork quality (to say nothing of the price).  This would be a difficult task, so Portney's player askes if his Protection, Heavy Armor skill would help.  The GM is thrilled that Portney's PC is working his skills, and since he has a total of a (basic def- Hvy armor 15% + protection-Hvy armor 5%=20%) 20% of protection-hvy armor, the GM affords him 25% of this skill (20*.25=5%) to his 39% armorer chance, for a total of 39+5-20=24% cance of success.

A more complex example, revisited.

Skald Pinotage AfrikanVintage of the Martial School of Song is being prodded by his group about the significance of a Statue they have found in a ruin in the Wibble Hills.  The Statue shows a monkey faced man with a noose and an ankus, with a head with three faces and three sets of arms and legs.  Pinotage only has a 5% basic scholar skill (level2), but in his artisan skills, he has Basic Artist 18% (level 3).  Since Sculpture is under the umbrella of Basic Artist, his player requests to get a bonus.  The GM feels that some of the information about the statue (the format and style is from the Old Orbic Devilkin worshippers) would be under the baliwick of Sculpture, so he gives Pinotage 1/10 of his Basic Artist Skill to go along with his Basic Scholar, bringing the chance from 5% to 7%.[/note]

very nice read, will probably look more in depth at it later (and give you a better reply)

Relating to the post above, (skills adjudicating in game)
we post that the Skill list continues to grow, though there is still work to be done.

See the chart on the bottom for the full list with dropdown skills, attirbute modifiers, et al
Skill listing (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Skill+List#view=page)

Added more defensive combat skills, athletics skills, and of course, more Artisan and more social skills.
We are up over three hundred skills, and more still to go.

It's interesting.  I like the way your continuous initiative system works.

M.

Link to Celtricia page (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Ritual-Magic)
Witchcraft and Ritual Magic in GuildSchool
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Since the Trollish Madapesicle has been muling it over, as well as seeing new members doing system design, I thought I'd post the current version.

Celtrician Rulebook


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

Ritual Magic

Witchcraft, or ritual magic, is another facet of the Celtrician world. Due to the very steep ramp up of skill needed to cast even lower power spells, and the many types of spell power sources needed for higher powered spells, there comes a time when the pc's, and even more when the NPC's need a little crutch for casting.

It also makes the world more believable that the more powerful spells can be used, it just takes preparation and time.  And when people try to understand the complex magical achievements of the ancient Omwo~, the Vicorians, and others, ritual fills part of the gap.

Witchcraft is a casting skill that uses ritual to allow a caster to cast spells that would be beyond their level, or to add that skill onto their spell success %[note=Makes sense...I hope]  Witchcraft has been available by the rules since almost the beginning of the game.  But only a few PCs have used it.  Maybe because it is bloody useless in combat, maybe becasue scrolls are a more useful albiet more expensive way of casting more powerful spells...[/note]

Ritual magic is a skill. Using it requires basic reagents, and tripling the reagent's needed for the spell. It also takes a minimum of 1/2 an hour, or 10 minutes per segment the spell actually takes to cast. So if the caster is trying to cast Vernidale's Hold (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Vernidale's+Hold), which has an initiative of 3, it would take 3* 10 minutes, or a thirty minute ritual. A write magic-style  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Write+Scroll) spell has an initiative of 20, so casting it as a ritual would take 10 min*20, 200 minutes, so 3 hours, 20 minutes.  Create a Potion (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Create+a+Potion) is very difficult, but used a lot by witches.  As a spell, it takes 50 segments, or 10 min *50, 500 minutes, or 8.33 hours to create a potion.  This is kind of in keeping with how we see our alchemists, etc.

If used as a ritual, the care and time taken add the ritual magic ability to the spell success ability of the caster, increasing the likelihood of success. In addition, the caster's abiliy is added to the spirit spell points of the caster, allowing spells with higher spell points than normally possible to be cast, though the caster is reduced to zero points available in Spirit where the ability is added to spell points after spell completion.

Since the extra spell points from the skill go to spirit, normal rules of spellpoint conversion apply.  A caster must have at least 5 spirit points available to be able to use a ritual

Witches often come from areas where the teaching of the different spell types is somewhat weak, so that to augment their weaker abilities, they are strong in ritual magic.

 

There is a subskill of ritual magic, hard to learn, called 'true Ritual' This is the abilty to have multiple witches come together to cast.  All the particiapants must have the ritual magic spell skill, and the leader must have the true ritual skill, to use this.

There is another sub-skill, called blood-magic, that allows a caster to use pain and blood to reduce the amount of spell points needed.

Obviously, this skill must be learned before it can be used.  

Did I mention that Palimar's old Player has him creating a spell called "Reclusive Asshat"?

Adding spells still.  up to 529.
Air Platform (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Air+Platform-spell)
 Destroy Parasite (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Destroy-Parasite-spell)
Summon Wolf (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Summon-Wolf-spell)
Nature's Glamor (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Nature%27s-Glamor-spell)
 Disrupt Moon Cycle (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Disrupt-Moon-Cycle-spell)
 Basic Preserve (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Basic-Preserve-Spell)
Preserve (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Preserve-spells)

One of the more interesting features about having an old setting with multiple players is that from time to time they get it in their head to really help.

Imagine that.

Lately, Clark, who ran Sam dnad George before they perished (and who has a new Gartier Bone Knight to run) has been cleaning up and prganizing some of the Celtricia wiki.  Causes a little stres, as I have to work on things he needs, but it is still cool that 3-4 other people are adding to the Celtricia site.

 skill page (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Skill-List)
You can see here how the skills are all being seperates out for organizational purposes.  

Celtricia, World of Factions: Rules for Magic

Rules Overview
 
----------------------------------------------------------------
         
               This is a system where casters learn to channell power from myriad power sources, sources that powered particular spell effects.  As an example, casting a simple fire spell in Guildschool means using the caster's inner strength (spirit Spell Points) to initiate the spell, initiate the conduit to the Well of Fire on the Third Station (Fire spell Points), and use that power source to fuel the fire part of the spell.  So it will cost Spirit and Fire spell points.
 
                      How is this played?  What rules and mechanisms are used?   In gaming terms, this made a Mana based/spell point-based system more logical. But unlike many Mana systems where there is one pool of energy to draw from, caster's in Celtricia have many power sources to draw from.  Lower power spells normally use spirit and one or two other power sources, more powerful spells with larger effects can draw from up to six sources in one spell.  The list of power sources is below.
 
Spell Point types/Spell Power Sources
 

Animist SP  - Powered by the Animal Oversoul
Artificer SP - Powered by reaching out to the echoes of the Creator's Song in the Void
House of Air SP - Powered by the the Endless Sky on the Second Station (Since the House of Air was destroyed).
House of Chaos SP - Powered by the Well of Chaos on the Eighth House, which forces the void apart.
House of Death SP - Powered by the Polar Well of Death on the House of Death, Zevashopal.
House of Earth SP - Powered by the Endless Solidity of the House of Earth.
House of Fire SP - Powered by the Well of Fire on the Third Station (as the House of Fire is no more).
House of Life SP - Powered by the Polar Well of Life, on the House of Life.
House of Order SP - Powered by the Well of Order, which binds the Void together.
House of Water SP - Powered by the Endless Sea on the House of Water.
Mentalist SP - Powered by the Humanoid Oversoul/Collective Unconsious
Necromantic SP - Powered by the conduit from the House of Death to all the Soul's End Journeys
Restorative SP - Powered by the cunduit from the Well of Life to the beginnings of the Soul's Journey.
Shade Sp - Powered by the void itself.  (unknown for millenia, not used)
Spirit SP - The personal power of the caster's trained mind.  This is the power to start and sustain a spell that comes direct from the caster.
                     
               
Rules for Spell Point Conversion
 

Spirit spell points are the part of a spell the caster supplies himself; the internal power a caster learns to harness to trigger a spell. Every spell takes spirit spell points, and a caster can use Spirit to fuel any other type of spell point skill he may be deficient in, normally at 1:4 ratio. This is the game mechanic that allows a caster to use energy from his own personal stores to fuel a spell that uses an ability he may be deficient in.

 

If all things were perfect, we would always have enough Spell Points to cast the spells we learn. But often, due to past spells cast, or spells not perfectly suited to our characters, we need a little help to cover all the bases in a spell. Our characters have been trained in some areas and not others; quite frankly this is purposeful. There is much to know in the world of magic, and the work of many lifetimes to master any part of it. So often, a caster must throw more of their personal power to make up for the area they are lacking in. However, if a character is very familiar with a power source, the conversion factor will be less, due to the innate affinity with that source, and the understanding of it.

 
Conversion Chart
unfamiliar 1:4 ratio
familiar 1:3 ratio
specialized 1:2 ratio
devoted 1:1.5 ratio\

 
unfamiliar No knowledge of Power Source
familiar Character has that Spell Category
specialized Minimum level to be specialized is 3.
If your level in the spell category is >= ½ of Spirit Spell Level, or your is Level 8 or above, then you are considered to be specialized.
devoted Minimum level to be devoted is 6.
If your level in the spell category is >= 3/4 of Spirit Spell Level, or your is Level 12 or above, then you are considered to be specialized.

 

Characters achieving 'specialized' or 'devoted' status will be grandfathered in that status when they achieve the next level in spirit. However, they must achieve another level in the specialized or devoted category before they achieve another spirit level or they will lose the status (unless they are over the permanent status level).

 
   
Rules For Spell Point Reclamation
 
Spell points also take a while to return to the caster. The caster's Spell point reclamation skill determines this. That skill has base  50% auto dropdown from the spell points. Having the appropriate reclamation skill(s) will increase this.  And your reclamation rate is by type of spell point.  Each spell type skill you have will recover at different rates.
 
The rate the caster recovers is actually determined by what they are doing.
While not asleep, they will recover at 5% (0.05) of their reclamation skill per hour.
While sleeping, they will recover at 15% (0.15) of  their reclamation skill per hour.  
 

Also, a caster can reclaim up to 3 different types of spell points back in a given hour while awake, but up to 5 different types per hour while sleeping.  So choose carefully what your caster recovers...
 
Rules for Spell Level
 
Spell level is normally determined by the characters highest achieved level; normally spirit. However, there are mitigating factors. If the spell that is being cast's primary focus is a category the character has, they may add ¼ of that spell type's level onto their Spirit level. So if Joe Templar is L5 Spirit, L3 Order, L2 Water, and L1 Artificer, and was casting a Water based spell, he would be considered level 5.5 (5 for Spirit and .5 for Water).

             

Spell Success
 
Spells are not assumed to always work perfectly.   The concentration needed to draw energies from the disperate source, the twisted logics that must be used, are all difficult.  So every spell must be rolled for, to see if it succeeds.  The players have a spell success dropdown skill at .5 of their best spell skill which is addded to the spell success of the skill, and added to a dm roll.  The players need to roll under this.

 
Spell Resistance
 
Spell points of every type are skills, as we have mentioned, and they have a few drop-down sub skills.  Spell resistance (and counterspelling) is one of these.   The skill is an automatic dropdown at 25% of  the ability of the spell point ability, excepting Spirit Spell Points, which have no resistance drop down (no spells are pure spirit).

 

This has 2 major uses.  The first is simple, passive resistance.  Whenever a person casts a spell that is in a realm the caster has points in, any CC gains a bonus of the 25% of the spell points.  So if the caster above has a fire spell cast at them with a reflex CC needed, they have a 4% bonus added to  their CC.                        

The other use is to counterspell.  Instead of casting, a caster can gain initiative, and wait for an opposing caster to work magic.  They can try to agressively counterspell if they have 'Spell resistance'  as mentioned above in the type of spell the caster is using.  If so, they can subtract their spell resistance to the caster's success% (as Magic resistance ability), and it only cost them one Spell point in that type of spell.  Note that the point it lost whether the spell comes off or not.  Also, please note that is with other casters, infering the actual casting of spells.  One cannot counterspell the spell-like effects of an outsider  as they cast differently, and it would be alien to a caster.

It would, however, probably aid you to understand that the term 'Outsider' is applied to creatures from other Houses and Stations.  So the first sentence basically says you can only counterspell a caster who casts by pulling power from other places and uses Spirit to initiate and channel the spell.   An outsider has a personal reservoir of Spirit AND whatever their home 'plane' might be.  Counterspelling an Entropic Outsider who is casting Chaos magic willprobably just feed more power to it.  
 

recent conversation...read from the bottom, but the gist of it is the players have a lot of say as to what rules we use and where we streamline.  

[ooc]

NJM4 wrote...
This is good data to have.  I am more than fine with this.  The character sheets take care of most of the addition anyways.  I agree with your comments 100%

-----Original Message-----
From: Clark Wright [
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 1:53 PM
To: Norm Morrison
Cc: Joseph O'Malley
Subject: Re: latest skill sheet questions....armor



Actually, I took great advantage of that with working up Sam.

And then you started just handing out "off the rack" sets of armor.

Personally, I think it would be great to go back to bits and  pieces.  
And to just get bits and pieces of armor has treasure.

- clark.
Norm wrote-
> I'm looking at this.
>
> Armor in Celtricia, as I have mentioned, does not have an
> era-equivalency for earth.  Less centralized cultures, non-human
> opponents, and especially magic replacing technology removes any chance
> of that.
> (though there were some dark ages where some technology was lost)
>
> and I originally used the 'sum of parts' approach for the game, it just
> became a complication that the pc's never took advantage of, though I
> have the rules still since I expect that to be part of the advanced
> game.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph O'Malley [
> Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 1:29 PM
> To: Norm Morrison
> Cc: Clark Wright
> Subject: Re: latest skill sheet questions....armor
>
> Thinking about it more, it would simply be a "above x points of
> protection, you need the wear armor skill."
>
> For most of the time that armor was worn, it was not a suit; it was a
> mix of hard and flexible bits, you could get much more granular on
> protection.
>
> For example, in the 14th century, you would wear: a klapvisor bascinet,
> a mail hauberk with a coat of plates over it, steel greaves, elbows, and
>
> knees, and splinted vambraces and cuisses, with steel finger
> gauntlets..  This is not a mish-mash. This is the best of the best for
> 1350.
>
> What would be the protection value of that in Celtricia?  And yes, I
> think you would need the 'wear armor' skill for it. :-)
>
> Joe
>
[/ooc]

BAsically, I used to have my armors in parts and pieces, then for simplicity, I went to full suits.  I am probably going back to the parts mentality.  Do any of those who follow this game have any preferences?

I will also be posting mopre on this as we move back into armor builds.

Well, you know me, I like bits and pieces. Gives me one more thing to work with and potentially exploit!

While it adds more complication that doesn't bother me. I am curious as how your going to handle it, where would the Wear Armor Skill fit in (what commonality? dropdown %?, etc...) if its needed.

How does the bits and pieces of armor work? Is it similar to Oriental Armor is your supplement (the one you use from Mongoose for items?). How would adding not direct prot things work? Like died silk and junk for a move silent/hide bonus? How would you calculate total magical protection?

The last thing would be... Do we just build suits of armor out of all the misc bits and keep prot and it is now, or are you going to add in a hit location bit into combat?

The summarize, I like the idea but there's tons more info I'd like to know tbh.

Base armor page  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Armor-types)

Guildschool is going back to a 'build your armor' system.  There is also a more advanced hit-location system, but for the basic game as it is now played, characters buy pieces and add them together.  On the page with the link, there is an example mook from a spread sheet.

Since all the PCs asked said they liked this approach better, we went back to it, with a few imrovements.  I will say a lot of work has gone into this part of the system.

Fist off, chaarcters with suits are grandfathered until they add in pieces or buy new armor.

Hit location will not be included in this iteration.

We will go to Tuesday night at 8:30 this week, as it seems the only compromise.

The spell list continues to grow.
Guildschool now has 549 unique, game specific spells.  The last batch I actually ported over from Access to a word doc, and Llum actually put them into the wiki.
(and maybe later I'll go over the plusses and munuses of having a shared wiki with your players.

 Shrive the Spirit (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Shrive-the-Spirit) is essential to to the game, so I had to get it in.  IN trhe Celtrician Mileau, the spirit of a dead person does not easily make the journey to the Well of Death, and without shriving, most spirits will stay in the "Waking Dream' for decades or centuries.  This issue with undeath is fundamental to understanding the game world.

Mental Static (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Mental-Static) is a mentalist spell designed to throw casters off balance by increasing the interference in their head.  Not to tough to make the CC, but after a few have been cast, the odds change.

Belief in Life (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Belief-in-Life%2C-Greater) is one of the more powerful 'belief' series of Order magic.  Through this spell, a caster expresses their belief at a level that slightly overrules reality.  This particular powerful spell actually slightkly decreases the effects of aging on a caster.  

Belief in Martial ability (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Belief-in-Martial-Ability) is a pretty crappy 'belief' type spell, unless one use unarmed combat.  Nonetheless, is does last for an hour per level, toughening the caster's skin slightly.

Belief in Strngth, Lesser (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Belief-in-Strength%2C-Lesser) is a decent spell, adding a few points of strength to the caster for a decent amount of time.  This spell is a staple for the Order mage.

Belief in Health, Lesser (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Belief-in-Health%2C-Lesser) is similar, a very low cost, long term spell that helps in Hit Point CC's, such as poison, stunning, and going below 0.

Belief in Immutability (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Belief-in-Immutability%2C-Lesser) is another belief spell, this one based on the unshakeable faith of the caster reducing the effects of other spells on them.

Fire Storm (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Fire-Storm) literally opens a vent in the sky from the Third Station, which pours impossibly hpt flames into an area.  Only very powerful mages can even think of casting this.

Fire Host (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Fire-Host)  this is the scroll that Fire mages covet.  It directly connects a caster with he Third Station, making them a fire casting machine.

Basic Fire Affliction (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Basic-Fire%2C-Affliction) this spell makes a target more susceptable to fire spells, no matter their background.

Chemmy Blossom[ allows a caster to use the fruit of the Chemmy tree to cast a loud, disruptive grenade-style spell.  Yes, the teen mages love it, but every year, some kids blows off a few fingers...

[link=http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Firehands]Firehands (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Chemmy-Blossom) must have been created the day after some fire mage got his ass handed to him in a brawl.  It makes a fire mage something of a threat in hand-to-hand combat.

Magnify Light, Lesser (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Magnify-Light%2C-Lesser) is a cantrip designed to make the most of a light source.  A very minimal cost spell, even journeymen casters can use this to make candles and other normal fires impressively illuminating.  Also good for candlelight reading.

Tea time (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Tea-Time) is the living definition of a cantrip created in a world where magic has overtaken technology.

 Heated Blade (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Heated-Blade) is another cantrip designed for kitchen work.  Sounds pretty dangerous, but it works better on cake or butter than flesh.  Unless you are fighting a Pie Golem...'Cause in the CBG, it might happen.

Greater Entropic Chant (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Greater-Entropic-Chant) brings the power of entropy into line with a caster's side in a battle, increasing their damage and chance to hit slightly, but also increasing their chance to critically hit by 3%.  

Present Accepted, Great (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Present-Accept%2C-Great) was created by Nomadic, Llum, and I one night.  It takes an already cool spell, and increases the range dramatically.

All the basic rules and charts have now been posted on the  Character creation  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Character+Creation) page of the Celtricia Guildschool wiki.  One of the main purposes of the Guildschool system is to create a character and a partial backstory, but recently I have wanted to do this in a little bit more of a collaborative format.  So by having the players aquire a skill or item, it gives the player and Gm a tool to creating this backstory.

This includes the new Social Acquisition chart/Starting Items chart.  The idea behind this chart is to fill in some of the backstory of the character by giving them some skills or items they have aquired before their played life began.
It is socially biased by class, and this is realized by having a bonus added to the rolls of certain social strata.

Then the players make five rolls on the social Acquisition/Starting items chart, with this bonus added in.

[spoiler=social rolls]
I'm including this so that readers can understand where the numbers come from.  As you can see, it takes a few very good % rolls to even getting into the property owning class.
The guildschool character creation emphasizes creating a story.  We want the players to be writing a narrative with their characters.  A rough understanding of the circumstances that shaped the character before they were played gives some depth to that story, almost like a prologue.

First the players roll percentile, adding or subtracting their racial social modifier, and apply it to this chart.


Up to 20%    Lower/serf class base 0
21-60%        Lower unlanded class Base 10
61-88%        Middle class, mercantile  base 20
89-98%        Upper class, landed, base 40
above 99%   Nobility or simliar historic base 70

 

After that initial roll, there is a second roll, that the racial modifier is NOT added to.  View the first roll as wher the family of the PC was at before their parent's generation, and this second roll as more of current history of the family.

01-10%  lowest roll 1d4
11-25%  lower roll 1d6+1
26-40%  lower middle roll 1d8+1
41-60%  middle roll 2d6+1
61-75%  upper middle roll 2d8+1
76-90%  lower upper roll 2d10+1
91-98%  middle upper roll 3d8+1
99-00%  upper upper roll 3d10+1

 

From here, add the base to the roll on the second chart.  This gives a social # (that can change a little with the history rolls)

under 5 --serf/former slave/criminal or criminal parents, 100% is this or higher.

6-10      --unlanded/tenant worker/menial/peasant, 70% is this or higher

11-17    --unlanded/guild and church memberships/little formal schooling, 45% is this or higher. +5% on starting items chart[1].

18-25    --guild or church position/some schooling/mercantile guild member/some military possible/possible plot of land or intown plot owned, 20% are this or higher. +10% on starting items chart.

26-40    --Definite Guild or church positions with some rankings/formal schooling/probable investments, 10% are this or higher. +10% on Starting items chart.

41-55    --property owners, business pricipals or owners/ranking guild or church positions/formal schooling/contact with nobility, 05% are this or higher.  +10 on 3 rolls starting items chart, +15% on 2 starting items chart.

56-70    --lower landed gentry/business owners/ small estate/ranking guild or church position, 1% are this or higher +15% on starting items chart.

71-88    --gentry, landed, minor nobility, lower titled.  +15% on 3 starting items rolls, +20% on 2 rolls.

89-99    --landed nobility, normally with multiple holdings, titled.  +25% on starting items chart.

above 00  upper nobility. +25% on starrting items charts.

[/spoiler]

Basic Social Aquisition chart.
Normally 5 rolls are made for each starting character, with the bonuses frolm the social chart above

Item- family net                     1
Item- leather scrollcase             2
Item- 6 wax candles                  3
Item-juggling balls                  4
Item-Tinder box w/ flint and steel   5
Item-Blessed Food                    6
Item-Ginger or pepper, 6 we          7
Item-tobacco or salt                 8
skill-Basic sail +100exp             9
Skill-Basic Stonework +100 exp       10
Skill-Basic Hand +100 exp            11-12
Skil-Basic Agriculture +100 exp      13
Skill-Basic cooking +100 exp         14-15
Skill-Basic Dagger +100 exp          16
Item-Bedroll                         17
Item-Charring Incense                18
Item-40' hemp rope                   19-20
Item-3 Torches with cloth ends       21
Item-2 oil flasks                    22
Item-book of local history           23
Skill-Basic Defence +100 exp         24-25
Skill-Basic Axe +100 exp             24
Skill, Basic hand +100 exp           25
Skill-Basic Customs +150 exp         26-27
Skill-Basic Shipwright +100 exp      28
Skill-Basic Forester +100 exp        29
Item-Bank Dagger                     30-31
Item-average quality long cloak      32
Item-leather purse                   33
Item-leather low boots, average quality 34
Item-wool hat, average quality       35
Item-Basic silk armor                36
Skill-Basic Defence +100 exp         37
Skill-basic domestic +100 exp        38
Skill, ascend +100 exp               39
Skill-Basic Sneak+125 exp            40-41
Skill Basic Spear+100 exp            42-43
Skill Basic Trap +100 exp            44
Skill Basic Outdoors +100 exp        45-46
Item-Clay (5 lbs)                    47
Item-Standard Instrument (under 50 horn) 48
Item-Wooden Holy Symbol              49
Item-Nice ceramic pipe               50
Item-20 small caltrops               51
Item-Nice vest (optional rogues vest)52
Item-Thieve's Pick and Tools         53
Item Backpack, leather waterproof    54-55
Item-Common Spear or Q staff         56
Item Chain Leather Helm              57
Skill-Basic Actor +100 exp           58
Item-fine ivory dice                 59
Item-Gladius                         60
Item-Lg growler bottle of Hopitup    61
Skill-basic Engraver +100 exp        62
Skill-basic artist +150 exp          63
Skill-Basic Athlete +100 EXP         64-65
Skill Basic Detect +100 exp          66
Skill-Basic Song +100 exp            67
Skill -Surprise+100 exp              68
Item--Toolkit-leather workers        69
Item--Donkey                         70
Item-dog                             71
Item-Target Shield                   72
Item-Small dome tent                 73
Skill-Hitpoints +150 exp             74-75
Item-3 inkpens                       76
Skill-Basic First aid +100 exp       77
Item-heavy robe, average quality, with hood 78
Item--Explorer's staff, shod         79
Item-Bullseye Lantern                80
Item-Studded leather curriass and Full Lowe 81-82
Item-Tracking kit Basic              83
Skill-Basic Outdoors +125 exp        84-95
Item-Silk Rope 50'                   86
Skill-Basic Priest +100 exp          87
Skill-Basic defence +100 exp         88
Skill-Basic straight sword or cured sword+100 exp 89
Skill--Westic lang +150 exp          90
Skill-read/write +100 exp            91-92
Skill-Basic Priest +150 exp          93
Skill-Penmanship +100 exp            94
Skill-Basic Horsemen+100 exp         95-96
Skill-Basic Appraisal+100 exp        97
Skill-Basic Chemistry +100 exp       98
Skill-Basc Law +100 exp              99
Skill-Bow or pole arms +100 exp      100-101
Skill-Basic dance+100 exp            102
Skill-Basic Detect +100 exp          103
Skill-Basic Math +100 exp            104
Skill-Basic Social +125 exp          105-106
Skill-Basic Leader +100 exp          107
Skill-Spirit Spellpoints+125 exp     108
Item-Broadsword or light flail       109
Item-Curriass and full lower Scale Mail 110
Item-Basic healer's kit              111
Item-Knight's shield, very good quality 112
Item Travelling cloak, silk lined, excpt quality 113-114
Item-Light war Horse                 115
Item-Silver holy Symbol              116-117
Skill-Basic Ettequite+100 exp        118-119
Skill-Basic Scholar +130 exp         120
Item-Flute or lyre-Inspirational Masterwork 121
Item-Identification or appraisal kit 122
Item-Mapmakers toolkit               123
Itme-Medium Longbow                  124
Item-Fine magnifying glass           125
Item-Silvered Dagger or sword        126
Item-Silver necklace with gemstone (100horn) 127


Eventually, I will remove some specificity and add some sub-charts on.  But this was the last major unfinished piece of the character creation system.  I am officially filling in the little stuff and rounding out the corners...until I change something again.

Huh.
No response about the fun Social Acquisition chart.  Do something new, and be ignored...

OK, another mechanism that is important in a skill based system the is the ability to gain new skills or work on present ones without in-game play.  This is in my head for a few reasons.  One, because the online group has used this mechanic as heavily as anyone I have seen.  They just did a layover in Steel Isle Town, and they all decided to pick up new skills, ones that saw they needed.

It's also in my head as I watch others on this site (PC and LC, my brothers in scholarship) work out their systems, and so game mechanisms for non-exp based growth are important.  

 Celtrician Rulebook

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Skill Kits and the General costing of kits

 

Kits are the generalized names for study aids a character can buy to learn a new skill or to become better in a skill they already have. Though we speak of them in a somewhat antiseptic terminology, a kit can contain practice items, small samples, and models as well as written material. Similarly, kits may require practice and field work, not merely reading.  In terms of the mechanical side, Skill Kits are the generic name for the rules mechanism for acquiring new skills and working on current ones.

 

Kits come in two types, kits that teaching kits or a study kit.
Teaching Kits are needed to give a character the skill. A character still has to have the parent skill if the skill trying to be learned is a dropdown.

 

Teaching Kits
Teaching kits come in three types, but need to be modified by the commonality of the skill.

'¢A Basic Teaching kit gives the character the skill based on the modifier of the school where the kit came from. This kit takes 2 hawaak to use in town, three hawaak outside of town, and the character has the skill at -250 exp at the end of using it. This kit costs 250 gold horn. The basic likelihood of finding a kit for a skill the school teaches is 80%.
'¢A Superior teaching kit does the same thing, but the character has a -100 exp amount at the end of using the kit, and costs 450 gold horn. The basic chance of finding a kit of this type if the school teaches the skill is 60%
'¢A Masterwork Teaching kit has a similar effect, but takes 1 hawaak in town or 2 hawaak outside of town to complete. The starting experience amount is -50, and this kit will cost 1100 gold horn. The basic chance of this type of kit being available is 40% if the school teaches the skill.
(//../../e107_files/public/1261578681_392_FT39632_marozzosegno.jpg)

Study Kits
The Study kits also come in four major types. The statistics given are based on a commonality 1 skill. Note that all exp gains are before the exp mod.

'¢A basic Study kit takes 1 hawaak in town, 1.5 outside of town. It requires a will CC+15 at the end of completion to absorb properly. At the successful completion, the character can add 50 exp to the skill studied. This kind of kit costs 100 gold horn, and is 85% likely to be found in a school or guild where this skill is taught.
'¢An advanced Study kit takes 1.5 hawaak in town, 2 outside of town. It requires a Will CC+15 to absorb properly, and at the successful completion of such a kit, the character can add 100 exp to that skill. This kit is 65% likely to be found in locations where this skill is taught, and costs 250 gold horn.
'¢A Superior Study kit takes 1.5 hawaak in town, 2 hawaak outside of town. This kit requires a will CC +10 upon completion to absorb properly. Upon successful completion, the character is awarded 200 exp in that skill. This kind of kit is 45% likely to be found in a guild that teaches this skill, and costs 600 gold horn.
'¢A Masterwork study kit takes 2 hawaak in town and 2.5 outside of town. This kit requires a will save upon competing, and if successful the character adds 300 exp to the skill studied. It will cost 1100 gold horn, and be 20% likely to be found in a guild where this skill is taught.
The above statistics are, as mentioned before, are modified by the commonality of the skill and the size of the guild.

 


Commonality Mods
 
commonality  cost modifier likelihood mod
 
1.00             1.00          1.00
 
2.00             2.00          0.80
 
3.00             4.00          0.50
 
4.00             6.00          0.30
 
5.00             8.00          0.20
 

So a superior teaching kit of '˜Find Trap', a commonality 2 skill, would cost (450*2)=900 gold horn, and be (60*.8)=48% likely to find.

Wow I just looked over the Celtricia website, and the weapons do alot of damage. Or is just the characters have alot of hitpoints?

Quote from: LlumWell, you know me, I like bits and pieces. Gives me one more thing to work with and potentially exploit!

While it adds more complication that doesn't bother me. I am curious as how your going to handle it, where would the Wear Armor Skill fit in (what commonality? dropdown %?, etc...) if its needed.

How does the bits and pieces of armor work? Is it similar to Oriental Armor is your supplement (the one you use from Mongoose for items?). How would adding not direct prot things work? Like died silk and junk for a move silent/hide bonus? How would you calculate total magical protection?

The last thing would be... Do we just build suits of armor out of all the misc bits and keep prot and it is now, or are you going to add in a hit location bit into combat?

The summarize, I like the idea but there's tons more info I'd like to know tbh.

I say bits and peices. Like helmet, shoulder guards, chest plate, etc.

Quote from: SurvivormanWow I just looked over the Celtricia website, and the weapons do alot of damage. Or is just the characters have alot of hitpoints?

Weapons CAN do alot of damage. However the damage curve basically looks like a hump with a long tail. In short while you can easily do enough damage to one hit kill many things (including most players, with exceptions to the strongest tanks), the chance that you will do so is rare as you need a low divider die combined with a high damage roll.

Quote from: Nomadic

Quote from: SurvivormanWow I just looked over the Celtricia website, and the weapons do alot of damage. Or is just the characters have alot of hitpoints?

Weapons CAN do alot of damage. However the damage curve basically looks like a hump with a long tail. In short while you can easily do enough damage to one hit kill many things (including most players, with exceptions to the strongest tanks), the chance that you will do so is rare as you need a low divider die combined with a high damage roll.

Actually, it is a very low-hp world.  
High damage and low hp.  Smaller weapons are faster and get in more attacks, but larger weaps have a lower dividing die.  something called the mass-effect means that larger creatures have lower dividing dice, so attacking ogres, giants, and larger creatures is very dangerous.

Armor is the main equalizer.  One of the orginal precepts of the system was to remove the chance of some guy getting hit by a crossbow bolt or a huge axe and dealing with it like it was nothing.

Much like reality, if you know you're a meat shield, you'd better be armored to take the punishment.

Magic Resistance

Magic resistance is one of the more powerful abilities in the Celtrician milieu.  It allows the protected to have a higher chance of creating a spell failure and also gives a higher personal chance of avoiding the effects of the magic.

Magic resistance is normally of two types.  The most common is resistance to a certain spell source.  An example of this would be '˜+07% MR vs. Fire'.  Rarer is a blanket resistance to all magic.

Magic resistance has 2 effects when a spell is cast.

The first only comes into play if the spell is cast with the user as a target.  It is the ability to affect the success of the spell, before it is even cast.  Therefore, this success of an area or passive spell cannot be affected.  So if a Minor kinetic blast is cast at a person who has 10% air magic resistance, 10% is taken right off the spell success at the time of casting.

The second effect is on the CC.  The protected person gains their Magic resistance added to their CC roll.  So in the above case, where Minor Kinetic Blast has a CC of reflex-15%, if the recipient has a 10% resistance to air, their CC is Reflex -5%.

Spells, spells, spells.

I see so many magic threads.  And I agree adding spells that would have naturally occurred is a great way to deepen the feel of the world.
When Magic has replaced technology, one needs to show a lot development!


Sophist (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Sophist), a spell affecting the spoken word.
Persevere (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Persevere), a spell to cast when you enter a melee.
Knot/Unknot (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Basic-KnotUnknot), a sailor's best friend, a cantrip.
Reverse Bond (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Reverse-Bond), a powerful spell that is the bane of the summoning druid.
Pushed Light (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Pushed-Light), an explorative specific version of a light spell.
Pushed Light, Combat (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Pushed-Light%2C-Combat), a combat variation.  

So, did you make that Reverse Bond spell just because of my talk about a Summoning PC?

OH, Good Lord, No.
just based on natural give and take.  Did you like the Pushed lights spells?

Could we get a longer ranged version of lemon? I want to squirt lemon juice in my opponent's eyes.

Quote from: FREAKIN' AWESOME SCOTCould we get a longer ranged version of lemon? I want to squirt lemon juice in my opponent's eyes.

lOL...NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT.  

Also I have a suggestion for a spell...

Kinetic Burst
Sphere: Air
Duration: Long (effect instant)
Description: This is a contingency spell. After it is cast it lays dormant upon the target until needed. When a ranged weapon is fired at the target, the spell unleashes in a blast of air flowing out from around them. This has the effect of lowering their avoidance vs the attack by 10%. In addition if the attack strikes them the physical damage is reduced by half due to the slowing and destabilizing effect it has on the missile.

It's probably going to be one more week before I can get in, as my band wants to get in an extra rehearsal this week.  But I should be around the chatroom some over the next few days if anyone wants to talk to me about character concepts and help me finish making him. :)

@nom--we'll stat that over the next few days...

@ish, Limetom is going to beat you to the punch...But ok.

Critical Hit Rewrite.  BIP 7.2.

This is still a '˜2 roll' system.  Roll 1 determines the type of critical and if there is a critical, roll 2 determines the effect onto the dividing die.  I have also added a new automatic skill called '˜Critical Bonus', which is 1/10 of a character's skill with a weapon.  So a character with a spear skill of 21% also has a critical bonus skill of 2%.

A normal chance to critical hit comes with a roll of 07% or lower.  This is enhanced by the critical bonus skill, so the above character has a 09% of a critical hit.  This may not sound like much, but this is a 22.9% increase in the chance of a critical hit.

Any critical hit hits an opponent, unless the hitter does not have the appropriate weapon type needed.  It also necessitates a second '˜to hit' roll.  A successful second hit gives the hitter a '"2 dividing die bonus.  Additionally, for every 25% rolled beneath the needed '˜to hit' roll; the dividing die is reduced by one more.  So a character that has a 75% chance to hit rolls a 25% on his second roll after critical receives a '"4 dividing die.  Additionally, anyone who rolls a 05% or lower on the second roll gains a '"6 dividing die bonus.

Some criticals are more rare than others.  Any first critical that is 04% or lower automatically reduces the dividing die of their weapon to a d4, unless it was a d4 or lower, in which case it reduces the dividing die type by one.  Note well that this is independent of the second critical roll, so a dagger or bow wielder can end up with no dividing die bonus, but with a much lower dividing die.  This is intentional.    Even a klutz with little hope can get pretty lucky even if they can't hit again.  You can't get double damage or such without a good second roll, but your chance of doing higher damage is always increased with a good first roll.

Moreover, if the initial roll is an 01%, there hitter is considered to have found, through dint of great luck, the '˜chink', or weakness in their opponent's armor.  This does not negate the armor, but the armor of the creature automatically protects it's minimum.  So if the armor protection is 30, that armor would protect (30-10) /6, or 3.3.  Note well that this is in addition to the dividing die type bonus from rolling an 04%.  So a schmuck who rolls an 01% may not get any higher damage than they could normally do, but they do get a much-increased chance of doing damage.  It is only for those characters that have a really good chance to hit that can fully take advantage of this rule.

Added the Smaller bec-di (clawed Hammer) to axes, added slings and bullets to ranged weaps, added smaller flanged mace, all to weap pages.

Started to stat in the FratrerCanis (Dog Brother) and half-Ograk.

Should have another parcel of spells coming soon.

Nice work Vreeg, the clawed hammer and flanged mace look pretty sweet.

Heck yes slings.  Upper Paleolithic here I come!

I may be crazy but while 1d10 is fine for a thrown lead shot. It seems a bit high for a sling fired shot. +2 damage seems a bit low (unless it's after the divider). You might consider doing with the sling what you do with the bow. The sling is the primary damage with the ammo as the secondary... this ammo just can be used as a thrown weapon as well.

Quote from: NomadicI may be crazy but while 1d10 is fine for a thrown lead shot. It seems a bit high for a sling fired shot. +2 damage seems a bit low (unless it's after the divider). You might consider doing with the sling what you do with the bow. The sling is the primary damage with the ammo as the secondary... this ammo just can be used as a thrown weapon as well.

I think you may be right.  I underpowered it a bit.   I also have to add a sling staff.

Circumstance Checks

 

Currently, Bip has 5 main 'Savings Rolls', or 'Circumstance Checks',
as they are also called.


Reflex
Reflex, which is a character's Intelligence +three times their
Coordination, determines how well they respond to sudden threat.
{IN+(CD*3)}

 
Surprise
This is a character's ability to avoid being surprised, or their unadjusted chance to surprise normally ready creatures.
{{IN+((CD*3))/3}  + surprise skill


Fortitude
Fortitude, which is a character's Strength, twice their Health, and
their Hit points, is used whenever their is a threat to their body's
immune system or how well their body reacts to damage.
{ST+(HE*2)+HP}

 
Will
Will is a character's Wisdom and Intelligence multiplied by 2.5.
This governs circumstances that affect or assail the mind. This
percentage is a little higher than the others due to the many
negative modifiers it faces.
{(IN+WI)*2.5}


Social Reaction
The fourth is 'Social reaction', and it is
replacing a pretty inadequate way that I have been governing first
and second impressions. The formula is ((CH+AP)*2)+(WI/4), or
Charisma plus Appearance plus a quarter of Wisdom. This is not used
when someone gets a brief look at a character or something, but when
a character meets an NPC for the first or second time.   Basic social skill will be added to it as well.
or
 ((CH+AP)*2)+(WI/4)+ basic social

We have mentioned quite a few times that we use a continuous initiative system...

What does that mean? It means that combat initiative is kept continuously instead of stopping at the end of a round or a turn and starting again. A character in combat, after they have attempted a feat or action, will roll intitiative for their next action, and add it on from there. This can often mean a character with a fast weapon might attack two or three times before a character with a slower weapon. However, since smaller weapons normally do less damage and have higher dividing dice, they penetrate armor less...It also accounts better for moving and movement., as well as for other actions.

Basically, back when we broke from AD&D, we were changing all of our speed rules, adding different speed factors to weapons, etc.  And it made more sense for that guy with the dagger to keep swinging instead of waiting around for 10 seconds for the guy with the huge axe to make his move.  Or for the rate of fire with arrows.

As we mentioned above, each initiative roll is a roll of the dice+ the speed factor of the action.  The choice of dice is based on the proximity and effect of any local combat or encounter, martial or social.  The Speed Factor is based on the action itself.  Spells and weapons have speed factors, as do many actions.

Due to some events in game play recently, I have been asked to codify some procedures and set up some guidelines for certain common actions.

Declared  and Readied Initiative

For the procedural side, there are 2 issues, readied items and declared initiative.

Readied items must be declared at the beginning of every session. One cannot expect everyone else to accept a character claiming to '˜always have their scroll of '˜Water's Way' in their hand'. Unless the say so in the beginning of a session.

Declared initiative is more of a disclosure, what a character is planning to do and with what. In other words, the GM needs to know if a spell is being cast and what the initiative is, if there are reagents, if it is coming from a scroll, where that scroll is, and etc. If that information is not ready and prepared, there will be a penalty of 5 and I'll ask the same question then.

A target must also be declared when the action is readied.

Some standardization of penalties:
Unsheathing a weapon                                       +1
Taking more than ½ total HP in a blow               +1
Taking more than 75% of total HP in a blow       +3
Waking up                                                           +5
Getting something out of a pocket                       +1
Reading a scroll                                                   +3
Getting something out of a pack                          +7
Getting up from the ground                                  +2
Readied for a charge                                            -2
Redirecting an attack (reroll init)                           -2
Picking a weapon up from the ground                 +2
Uncorking a potion                                               +1
After being below 0 hp and healed                      +5
Every 3 feet of ground that has to be made up   +1

Dice rolls for Initiative.


Remember, that when rolling for initiative, the die rolled can be a d10, a d8, a  d6,  or a d4, depending on how deeply involved you are.

A d4 is rolled and added to the SF, and is used in the first round of a total surprise situation.

A d6 is rolled and added to the SF if the player is not affected by combat, is outside the combat and casting a automatic hit or group effect spell, targeting undead, etc.

A d8 is rolled and added to the SF if the character is out of combat but is affecting by combat, i.e. shooting a missile weapon into combat, timing an entry into combat.

A d10 is rolled and added to the SF I f the character is in combat or has to account for dodging blows while attacking.

So, how it works in practice:

You roll the appropriate initiative die, add in the modifiers above and any other initiative bonuses,  then add the current round and how fast your weapon is.  The resulting nunber is when you attack next.


So, its round 11 of combat, and my weapon has a speed of 7 I roll an 8 for iniative.

My next initiative will be  8 +0 (no modifiers) +7 (weapon speed) +11 which adds up to 26, which will be the next time I get to do anything.[/size]
(//../../e107_files/public/1268855288_392_FT39632_melee_.jpg) (//../../e107_files/public/1268855288_392_FT39632_melee.jpg)

New rules for sickness and disease.
and yes, llum, I am already almost finished with the appropriate spells.
 Sickness and disease (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Disease-and-Sickness)

So just to be clear, if you have a mild disease and you make your fort save, you move up one level (to very mild). After that you wait the full duration and make another save. Rinse and repeat until disease free?

Sounds cool, but man., one of those serious of life threatening diseases could keep a PC in bed for a long long time.

Quote from: LlumSo just to be clear, if you have a mild disease and you make your fort save, you move up one level (to very mild). After that you wait the full duration and make another save. Rinse and repeat until disease free?

Sounds cool, but man., one of those serious of life threatening diseases could keep a PC in bed for a long long time.

that's the idea, diseases kill people...wothout magic.  
I 'll have the newest revs of spell pages coming to you soon.

Current, updated list of skills.  Not done, but geting there.
376 skills as of now.
 Skill list and attrib mods (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Skill-Master-spreadsheet)

Spells are critical for creating in-game logic and verisimilitude.  Why?  Because one definition of a ruleset is the physics engine of the world/setting.  So using a generic spell list and spell system is injecting genericism into your setting, missing a chance to create a deeper implied cause and effect.
Guildsschool was made for Celtricia, obviously, though pretty flexible. Magic (the Woo) is avialable to about 1/20th of the population, but the % that can do more than the simple stuff is more like 1/200, and any level of upper-middle level spells at all tales multiple spell types and a decent amount of points.  Even with the Scroll use rules, moderate power spells are out of the reach of all but the powerful and wealthy[spoiler]  The Steel Isle Group, on session 42 last night, spent what would be considered a years income for a pretty wealthy family to buy and have written in their books some 5 or 6 low and moderate power spells[/spoiler].

This set is an example of spells fitting fitting game logic.  Read the Disease page in the above post.  I created diseases and their mechanics with the ideas of magic being somewhat avaialble.  Plagues happen, death magics happen, but magic is what has mainly replaced technology in Celtricia, what makes it more of an Age of Enlightenment analog to earth in terms of the social mores, business mechanics and philosophical outlook.

The spells are designed to allow minor sicknesses to be treated easily, but more severe ones to require some heavy casting.

[ooc]
Spell Name Cure Very Mild Sickness
Major Sphere Restorative
Spell Source
Initiative 15
Range touch
Duration inst
Save none
Save effect none
Spell Success 0
Area of effect target
Counter

Spirit cost 3
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 0
Death cost 0
Law cost 0
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 2
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 0
Total cost 5

Description
This minor, baic spell toatally removes a very mild sickness (qv) from the target.
In addition, this spell will move the severity level of a Moderate or Mild sickness (qv)
down one class immediately
Lastly, this spell provides a +10% bonsu to avoiding any sickness for 24 hours.
[/ooc]

[ooc]
Spell Name Cure Minor Sickness
Major Sphere Restorative
Spell Source
Initiative 15
Range touch
Duration inst
Save none
Save effect none
Spell Success 0
Area of effect target
Counter death

Spirit cost 6
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 0
Death cost 0
Law cost 0
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 4
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 0
Total cost 10

Description
This minor, baic spell toatally removes a very mild sickness or Mild(qv) from the
target.
In addition, this spell will move the severity level of a Serious or Moderate (qv)
down one class immediately
Lastly, this spell provides a +10% bonus to avoiding any sickness for 48 hours.
[/ooc]

[ooc]
Spell Name Cure Moderate Sickness
Major Sphere Restorative
Spell Source
Initiative 25
Range 5 feet
Duration inst
Save none
Save effect none
Spell Success 10
Area of effect target
Counter dath

Spirit cost 11
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 1
Death cost 0
Law cost 0
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 7
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 0
Total cost 19

Description
This minor, baic spell toatally removes a very mild sickness ,Mild, or Moderate
sickness(qv) from the target.
In addition, this spell will move the severity level of a Serious or Very Serious
Sickness (qv) down one class immediately
Lastly, this spell provides a +10% bonus to avoiding any sickness for 1 hawaak.
[/ooc]

[ooc]
Spell Name Cure Serious Sickness
Major Sphere Restorative
Spell Source
Initiative 30
Range 10'
Duration inst
Save none
Save effect none
Spell Success 0
Area of effect target
Counter death

Spirit cost 19
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 2
Death cost 0
Law cost 0
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 11
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 0
Total cost 32

Description
This powerful spell toatally removes a very mild sickness ,Mild, or Moderate, or
Serious sickness(qv) from the target.
In addition, this spell will move the severity level of a Very Serious Sickness (qv)
down one class immediately
Lastly, this spell provides a +20% bonus to avoiding any sickness for 1 hawaak.
[/ooc]

[ooc]
Spell Name Full Healing  
Major Sphere Restorative  
Spell Source  
Initiative 11  
Range touch  
Duration perm  
Save none  
Save effect none  
Spell Success -11  
Area of effect target  
Counter necromantic

Spirit cost 41  
Earth cost 0  
Water cost 0  
Fire cost 0  
Air cost 0  
Life cost 5  
Death cost 0  
Law cost 0  
Chaos cost 0  
Restorative cost 24  
Necromantic cost 0  
Mentalist cost 0  
Artificer cost 0  
Animist cost 0  
Total cost 70
Description

This spell heals any damage a target has suffered, from any past wounds. As long as  
the target is still tecnically alive, it will bring them back to their full hit point value.  
This can be done up to 4 times a day.  Note that this does not cure poisons, etc, but it does include disease up to very Serious.  It also reduces the CC on any sickness rolls by 20% for 1 hawaak aftre being cast.
[/ooc]
 

Choosing a Guild or school.
 Almost all beginning characters try to qualify for one major faction to belong to, and a minor one.  This is why each guild has a chance to join, with an attribute modifier.   It is not ensured, in most games.  Gm's will allow the Player to roll for membership in major guilds until they succeed, then the same for minor guilds.  This means a player who fails to join a guild as a major can try to join it as a minor, as well.

A beginning character can usually use their secondary school for up to 4 skills, the rest come from the Major school.  Some GMs use 2 or 3, while GMs who are allowing their PCs to create characters with more experience may allow 4-6.  Note that the minor school does not signify less membership, but a school that less time in total has been spent learning from.  It could mean that the character grew up at the first school, and recently joined the minor school, or the minor school can be one that the player first studied at.

The point of choosing a guild is two-fold.  The first is creating the character story and background, and the second is to gain access to skills.
Also understand that in terms of the classical Durkheimian divisions, Sacred and Profane, God, Guild, and Country are pretty much the ordinators of the sacred in Celtricia.  

A character's guild(s) should be chosen with care.  Almost all guilds have skills they are good at and a few they are great at.  Many small, specialized guilds have a few great skills and many bad ones, while larger, more mainstream guilds are normally 'pretty good' at a great many things.

All characters do start with +200 exp in Guild Lore of their main guild.  There are also many bonuses from the starting acquisition chart.

Make sure that when choosing a guild that it is not too limited for  future prospects.  There must be room for improvment.  Also, make sure that the guild is not opposed to the guilds of future friends.  This is in line with the old school gaming ideas of alignments; make sure your character will be able to play with the group in question.

 

Starting EXP guidelines
Guildschool offers tremendous flexibility in the type of campaign or game a GM wants to run.   Both in terms of starting a game or adding a player into an existing game.  And obviously, this holds true for creation.

A GM should look at 2 things when deciding how close to the normal model to cleave.  The aggregate amount of experience they want to start a character with, and if they want to set up any restrictions.

A traditional GS game starts PC's with 5000 real EXP +any gotten from social charts.  No less than 5% of the total real exp amount can be put into a skill[2], so no more than 20 skills can be chosen in the beginning (and no one should every do that anyways.)  Also, a beginning character may only choose commonality 1 (basic) skills, not sub skills and dropdowns.  Those are advanced, 'graduate' level skills.

This is based on a normal commoner having 3k-5k total experience, with maybe 1-4k in artisan skills.  Obviously, an expert/mastercrafter in the potter's Guild probably has more like 6-8k exp, with perhaps 4-6k IN THEIR AREA OF SPECIALIZATION (making them probably a 8th-11th level potter/glazer/kilnworker/artist).  This is a big departure from most games, where adventurers are a different breed than the rest of the world.  

A GM has to think of starting exp as how much time and exposure the character has had put into their skills.  A young character might have less, an older character, more.

Now, in an old Miston Game, Brian wanted to push the system a bit and create a real commoner.  So we decided that since he was young, he'd have only 4k starting exp, no magic skills, no more than level 1 in any combat skill, and no esoterics.  Basically, he ended up creating Drono Biddlebee the hobyt Commoner, a simple peasant of the Turniper's Commune (which is was and is a playable school).  We let him do L2 HP (I think it was 10 he ended up with), L1 basic Spear (he used a pitchfork, literally), l1 Bow, l1 basic defence.  The rest (about 2200exp) went into Farming, Cooking (he was hired by the Miston group as a porter and cook), basic Outdoor (tracking was useful), etc.

We also had Cassius, an escaped Omwo~ slave from the Argussian Empire, only 29 years old (very young for Omwo~).  Similarly, he was allowed 3700 starting EXP, no magic, and very basic weapon trainging, but allowed l2 HP as he had been toughened up by the slave life.  He asked if he could take basic ettiquite, saying he had served in a wealthy house, I allowed him a will save +20%, which he succeeded in, so I gave it to him.  But almost all the skills were menial and artisan, though I will say he played that basic ettequite to the hilt...

Characters that come into a group later can be given similar bonuses to starting exp, to account for the group going out and finding a peer or at least someone more useful to them.

 

Common Mistakes

The first mistake beginning players make in guildschool is spreading their experience too thinly.  They see the ability to do almost anything and confuse it with the fact that they need some directino at first.  Take magic.  To be a decent (not good, but decent) beginning practicioner, a beginning character might want to spend a few levels in sprit spell points, as well as 2-3 other areas.   For a beginning character, after EXP mods, this can be a thousand exp spent.

This holds true for most areas of expertise.  Make sure your character is going to be al least good at any one area before worrying about any other skills.  A level or 2 does not make you good at something.  2 levels of Hit Points, for example, average 8 HP.  That is not enough for a starting front rank character, let alone the levels needed in the basic weapon and Basic defence.

Going back to spells again, it is even harder being a flexible spell caster at low levels.  There are 13 different basic spell skills in Guildschool.  So not only do you have to decide if you want to be a caster, you have to choose a focus.  More on that later.

 

Guildschool characters are supposed to be recently graduated apprentices, maybe talented, maybe exceptional, but still, just starting out in the world.  They are not superhuman, nor will they ever be.  Character growth is not just the improvement of the skills, but the acquisition of subskills and of new skills.  It is widening the base of the foundation, building new wings, as well as building upwards.   Knowing how subskills function is critical for seeing the long view of character creation.   Base skills may allow for a number of subskills, but the rate of growth is slower, and the sub skills all have more advanced skills that are only applicable by learning the sub skills.

 

Many GMs also ruke that only commonality one (basic) skills can be chosen during creation.  This is very common and actually makes sense, so ask your GM if there is a commonality 2 skill that you feel makes sense.  Don't forget that a dropdown skill must always be a level below the parent skill.

 

Give yourself a few levels in HP no matter what, no matter how crappy your health is.  This is another common mistake, equating Hit Points in Guildschool to other games.  Though protection soaks up some damage, weapons and spells also have a capacity for more damage, thanks to the dividing die.

Very insightful write up Vreeg. I'd like to throw in my two cents.

Now I understand you've got decades of experience on me, but in the common mistakes section you worry about people spreading themselves too thin. I've personally found the opposite to be true (at least for me, and I think others in the SIG).

I find somewhere around 14 skills is a good starting number, this can vary depending if your character is a caster or not, as casting skills usually require several SPs. It's also very slow to learn new skills (and I believe the people in the SIG are learning skills quite fast compared to normal, or at least the Igbar group), so make sure you have a lot of different basic skills you want.

I'll agree that HP is important, and anything less than two levels is silly. Combat skills should also all each have at least one level (Defense and at last one weapon-group skill, Curved Swords is great for people because it has the highest XP mod of any weapon-group. However in some circumstances Bows also have a high mod, if you have very high 16-17+ Coordination and lowish strength. Spears are also fairly decent if you have equal mid-range strength and coordination.)

A more in depth look at casting makes having at least level 3 Spirit SP essential, as well as two other SPs. Personally I'd say that at least 3 or 4 other SPs are essential, even if a couple of them are only level 1.  Something me and jomalley were talking about one day as well is how prevalent Artificer and Mentalist SP are, they're by far the most common SPs mixes so it would be a very good idea to have at least level 1 in one of these two SPs.

Quote from: LlumVery insightful write up Vreeg. I'd like to throw in my two cents.

Now I understand you've got decades of experience on me, but in the common mistakes section you worry about people spreading themselves too thin. I've personally found the opposite to be true (at least for me, and I think others in the SIG).

I find somewhere around 14 skills is a good starting number, this can vary depending if your character is a caster or not, as casting skills usually require several SPs. It's also very slow to learn new skills (and I believe the people in the SIG are learning skills quite fast compared to normal, or at least the Igbar group), so make sure you have a lot of different basic skills you want.

I'll agree that HP is important, and anything less than two levels is silly. Combat skills should also all each have at least one level (Defense and at last one weapon-group skill, Curved Swords is great for people because it has the highest XP mod of any weapon-group. However in some circumstances Bows also have a high mod, if you have very high 16-17+ Coordination and lowish strength. Spears are also fairly decent if you have equal mid-range strength and coordination.)

A more in depth look at casting makes having at least level 3 Spirit SP essential, as well as two other SPs. Personally I'd say that at least 3 or 4 other SPs are essential, even if a couple of them are only level 1.  Something me and jomalley were talking about one day as well is how prevalent Artificer and Mentalist SP are, they're by far the most common SPs mixes so it would be a very good idea to have at least level 1 in one of these two SPs.

Well, write up Llum's view from the player's Pit...and we'll attach it on.  I agree with you.

Big Picture, and also kind of as an aside...

What Llum, I and the rest are talking about is an issue of class vs skill based, and the fact that while the skill-based system is more fluid and more flexible, there is also a lot more player responsibility involved, and this does not get addressed very much.  

Please notate Llum's comments about what is needed, and mine, as well as the comments that almost every first character has some flaws.  There is a very important subtext going on here, and that is that a class-based system gives all of this up front, and the choices are in the fiddly-bits.  Lllum talks about how much experience to place into HP, where that is a fixed amount for most class based systems.  This means the player is Responsible for that choice, whereas in a class-based system, the player is not, the system is repsonsible.

SO a skill-based system, especially one like GS, depends on PLayer responsibility and player involvement.  If the PCs are pretty casual, a class-based system may be easier.  If the PCs are wont to complain or don't like to take responsibility, a class-based system may be better for that group.

I love our system, and what it does.  But I wanted to point out this difference, since it is a 'behind the Curtain' difference.

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Attrib EXP modifiers and base amounts in skills
 

At the heart of the Guildschool system is the idea of an EXP modifier.  In Guildschool, we keep experience and levels in every skill, with the raw amount earned multiplied by the EXP modifier.  Higher EXP modifiers mean faster skill learning.

 

In the skills chart, there is something called Attrib mod, and it will look like 'IN10-.02'.  This means in addition to whatever base EXP mod the character has gotten from their guild in a skill, they get an additional .02 for every point of intellignce over 10, and a subtraction of the same amount for every point under that.  Some Attrib Modifiers use multiple attributes.  Remember, this amount is what you add to the EXPmod of the school/guild you've chosen.


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The total attribute modifier is also used as the base amount that starts in a skill.  You multiply the base number on the skills sheet by the total attrib mod to get that.  But this only takes place if it is a positive total, as we have decided to double penalize (base amount and total EXPmod) characters really is unmotivating.  "You're weak as heck...you have a -2% to hit from attributes for your dagger skill, on the off-chance you ever manage to break a level and gain any points in it".

 So in the above example, if a person had a 16 intelligence, they'd have a +.12, and if the Base for this skill was 20, youd do 20*.12 for a base bonus of +2.4 to the skill amount.  There is an exception, HP has a base of 2+ any attrib bonus.  

This amount derived from the base is a bonus to the actual skill.

 

This base amount is only available to a character if they have the parent skill, or for skills that are level one commonality.  Thus, this Base amount becomes the attribute bonus for using any commonality 1 skill without levels in it.

 

Let's take an example here.  Joe Paisan is an orcash warrior of the Scarlet Pilums of Igbar, and also a wederlouse member of the Church of Irony and Black Humor.  ST15/IN12/WI15/CD11/HE15/CH11/AP10.


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He's a seargant in the pilums, and has made some good moves, as well as been part of a few punative expeditions against the Frenel Tribes East of Igtiche.  The problem is, he's supposed to go to a dance given by the Homintworth family in the honor of the Scarlet Pilums, and he has no idea what to wear (let alone how to act).  He asks the GM what he knows of the latest fashions.  The GM asks what skills he is using, and he asks to use basic social.  The GM looks it up, and based on the subs and what it does, it really does not suit the issue (basic etiquette would have done it).     So the only thing he can think about may be basic clothier, since it has Fashion as a sub.

Basic Clothier 0.3 Wi9-.02/Cd 11-.01 70 2-12

Joe has no experience in this, he is just hoping to get a little attrib bonus out of it.   His attrib EXPMOD is .12 for WI, and 0 for CD, *70 for the attrib base of +8% for his wisdom.  The GM rules that this is pretty easy, and he gains another +20%, so he has a 28% to know what clothes would be applicable for the dance.  he rolls a 62%, and realizes he is still drawing a blank.   If he does not find another skill option as time runs down, he's going to embaress himself.  

Now, Joe gets a little clever here.  he's got level 1 basic social,

Basic social 0.5 WI10-.004/CH11-.02/AP13-.001 30 2-5

Which gives him an attrib EXPMOD of (WI.016, CH0, AP-.003)+.013.  His guild EXPmod is .50, so his total EXPMOD is .513.  He has 240 exp in the skills, so his adjusted EXP is 123, level 1.  He rolled a 4 for his skill for the level he has, and his Attrib Base is (.013*30)=.39, so he gets no attrib bonus.  His total skill is 4%

Now, one of the dropdaowns for Basic Social is Contact, with a full dropdown, so he has a 4% dropdown.

The stats for Contact are

Contact 0.6 WI13-.01/CH 12-.04 35 2-8

so since he has Level one contact, he can use the attrib base for conatct.  However, his attrib EXPMOD is (WI.02+CH-.04) -.02, so he gets no attribute bonus.  He asks the GM if he can use the 4% dropdown to see if he knows any clothiers of fashionistas to help him.  The GM adjuducates a +20% bonus (Igbar is a city, after all), and so he has a 24% chance.  He rolls a 77% (probably on Isobot), and looks like he's going to make a fool out of himself.

Cauis Rastelius, and Omwo~ priest of Irony and Black Humor (ST10/IN15/WI16/CD11/HE14/CH16/AP15 6400rawEXP) sees Joe in a quandry.  Cauis has 470 raw exp in basic social.  

Basic Social 0.5 WI10-.004/CH11-.02/AP13-.001 30 2-5

His attribEXPMOD is (WI.024+CH.06+AP.002) of.086, and he gets his basic soc from the same guild, .5, so his total EXPMOD is .586.  470 raw exp*.586=275 modified EXP, second level.  He rolled 4 and 3, for 7% in the skill.  Moreover, his attrib mod is 30*.086=2.58(rounded to 3, barely), so he has 10% in basic soc.  

Again, Cauis is pretty new, so he has not gotten Contact as a skill, but he, too, can use the attrib mod since he has Basic Soc, which is the parent skill.  

Contact 0.6 WI13-.01/CH 12-.04 35 2-8

So his attrib EXPMOD is (WI.03+CH.16) .19*35=6.65, rounded to 7, so he has 10% from the dropdown in Basic Social + the 7% from the Attrib Base in Contact, for 17% in contact skill.  The GM allows the same bonus of+20, and he has a 37%.  Isobot is merciful, rolling a 11%, so Cauis knows of a clothier in the Unicorn Vex district.

Well, Milestone time

I'm uploading spells....and Guildschool will pass 600 individual, game specific spells as I finish this update.  I sometimes can't believe myself how it has grown; but the magic has always been one of the expressions of the campaign.

 Ritual Spell Casting (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Ritual-Magic) casting, redone.

Here is the hard text.


Ritual Magic

 

Ritual Magic
Witchcraft, or ritual magic, is another facet of the Celtrician world. Due to the very steep ramp up of skill needed to cast even lower power spells, and the many types of spell power sources needed for higher powered spells, there comes a time when the pc's, and even more when the NPC's need a little crutch for casting. For casters, it is a critical skill that allows them to cast spells that cost a little more.

It also makes the world more believable that the more powerful spells can be used, it just takes preparation and time.  And when people try to understand the complex magical achievements of the ancient Omwo~, the Vicorians, and others, ritual fills part of the gap[1].

Witchcraft is a casting skill that uses ritual to allow a caster to cast spells that would be beyond their level, or to add that skill onto their spell success %

Ritual magic is a skill[2]. Using it requires basic reagents, and tripling the reagent's needed for the spell. It also takes a minimum of 1/2 an hour, or 10 minutes per segment the spell actually takes to cast. So if the caster is trying to cast Vernidale's Hold, which has an initiative of 3 (6 secomds), it would take 3* 10 minutes, or a thirty minute ritual. A write magic spell has an initiative of 20 (40 seconds), so casting it as a ritual would take 10 min*20, 200 minutes, so 3 hours, 20 minutes.  Create a Potion is very difficult, but used a lot by witches.  As a spell, it takes 50 segments (100 seconds).  To cast this as a ritual takes 10 min *50, 500 minutes, or 8.33 hours to create a potion.  This is kind of in keeping with how we see our alchemists, etc.

 
 

If used as a ritual, the care and time taken add the ritual magic ability to the spell success ability of the caster, increasing the likelihood of success. In addition, the caster's abiliy is added to the spirit spell points of the caster, allowing spells with higher spell points than normally possible to be cast, though the caster is reduced to zero points available in Spirit where the ability is added to spell points after spell completion.

Since the extra spell points from the skill go to spirit, normal rules of spellpoint conversion apply.  A caster must have at least 5 spirit points available to be able to use a ritual

 

Witches often come from areas where the teaching of the different spell types is somewhat weak, so that to augment their weaker abilities, they are strong in ritual magic.   Please note that a ritual can be cast with a scroll, as well, though the normal rules of scroll casting must be observed.  Within those rules, however, the ritual caster using a scroll can cast a spell 2.5 times the caster's normal ability.

 

There is a subskill of ritual magic, hard to learn, called 'true Ritual' This is the abilty to have multiple witches come together to cast.  All the particiapants must have the ritual magic spell skill, and the leader must have the true ritual skill, to use this.

There is another sub-skill, called blood-magic, that allows a caster to use pain and blood to reduce the amount of spell points needed.

 

Obviously, this skill must be learned before it can be used.

 

In Gameplay
Ritual magic is loud, and very structured.  While the ritual versions of spells are normally encoded with the data for the nomal casting, the ritual versions use rote incantion and positioning to increase the power.  In terms of gameplay, it falls to the GM the unenviable task of creating pieces of the ritual to increase versimilitude.

 

Footnotes

1.The Raising of CoomIsle, for example, and the Creation of the Herb Lands (with 666 Druids casting) can actually be explained using the rules for ritual. –²
2.It is a commonality 3 skill, under 'Spell Success'. –²
Ritual Magic Celtrician Rulebook

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


 

It's always interesting when you use your own system.

Conversations and debates with the players can have a lot of emotional charge to them.  Everyone of us is older, expert in their field, experienced, with years of playing.  And all those in the major throwdowns have been playing for a while.

And honestly, I am not used to really being challenged, in most venues in my life.  So I am argumentative, as well as protective of my game and system.  I try to keep the game a 'living document', and envision it that way.  Doesn't mean I don't get cranky sometimes.

Recently, a few debates came up, with both Mistonian and Igbarian players weighing in.  And inevitably, much of the debate centers around their personal experience or solutions they are not aware that I have already tried and discarded.  However, as with the best group experiences, the spirited debate does have ramifications.

1)   The old '˜5% minimum starting EXP' rule is going away.  It was a response to players just grabbing a ton of skills with a minimum experience dump early on.  However, it has been called too restrictive.  So the compromise is a minimum of 99 adjusted exp in a starting skill.  This means that the cost is not restrictive to learn artisan things that a guild is good at, but stops players from sleazing every spell type.

Character Creation  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Character+Creation)[/list]

2)   The critical hit rules have been modified.  And this is partially due part of this rule still being in an older, -pre-wiki format.  But the chance to critical cannot ever exceed ½ the chance to hit.   And some of the modifiers go away at a certain point.  

Critical Hits  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/Critical-Hits)[/list]

3)   I need to write up more of the rules.  I actually yelled back a lot on this, as the wiki is closing in on a thousand pages, so I don't exactly feel bad about it, and I made it clear that most of the folk arguing actually had editing privileges.  But some rules have a great effect on gameplay if the players only know about them.  I recently realized that the PCs did not understand how to use skills to gain experience in them.  And it's a critical part of the game.  When every player is ignorant of the exploding bonus for succeeding in a skill with a negative environmental penalty, it means I have failed in expressing it.  

Skill use and EXP rewards  (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/How-skills-are-used-and-played-in-game)[/list]

4)   Similarly, I need to be more explicit in my Roleplay bonuses.  These need to be more clear in what they are rewarding/reinforcing.

Now, on the other side, the enthusiasm for the game (at least in my live folks) is at a good place, and all of the debate is based on wanting to play more.  I can't complain about that.  I look forward to reporting more on it, and I can't wait to get my desktop back tonight and play the SIG!!!

I think you need to post the discussion/argument between you and Clark somewhere. Because as interesting as part of it is, reading through 84+ emails sucks.

Quote from: LlumI think you need to post the discussion/argument between you and Clark somewhere. Because as interesting as part of it is, reading through 84+ emails sucks.

Hey, you want me to complain about having a bunch of players caring enough about the system?  Matt, Brian, Joe, Scott, and a few others all chimed in...lots of different groups.  So I thought it was cool.

I distilled a lot of it above.  But there was more.  
The rules are a living document.  

Magic Enhancers
The second most common type of ensorcelled item is the 'Magic Staff' and it's variations.   These are items that help focus the casters person Spirit and the Void-Borne energies that are woven together to cast spells.  The most common type reduces the amount of personal energy, or Spirit.  This makes all casting easier, and obviously is a huge help to all casters.  There are other types that increase the ability to succesfully cast a spell, and these are sought after by combat mages in particular.  Most of these are linked to a particular type of magic, but not all are.  The last type of enhancer increases the rate a caster regains the ability to reach the void, but these are very rare.

More powerful versions are often also linked to other Void-Borne power sources, so the more rare versions reduce the amount of Spirit and other power sources needed to cast a spell.  The Torcs of the old Arcanic Table (the old Orbian government) reduced all types of spell points by one of a spell cast.

Staffs are, however, the most common variation.  Whether it be for a good reason or merely following the old prototype, staffs are the most common variation of this type of artificed item.  The Collegium Arcana's internal name for a member is 'Tamp doen', which is arcanic for 'Staff-bearer', and most of their ceremonial offices include an actual staff.

Whether it is a Torc, a ring, a staff, or a nose piercing, this type of item is almost assumed with any wealthy caster.  Spell-weavers are always scared of running dry their resources, so a tool they delays this and allows them to cast more is worth a hefty price[2].

Magic Staffs are very, very difficult to make, and luckily, very hard to destroy.  The most simple versions will cost over a thousand electrum goodwives, and better versions can costs tens of thousands.


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added more spells  here (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956149/Spell-List), the spells page of Guildschool.  SHould be 615 seperate spells.

Added a few water, including the horrible Emma's Boiling Acid Sphere.  Added some Necromantic, and some animist, and some restorative, especially the 'Vernidale's Shield' variations.

Evercoal was added, so that players understand how that stuff is made.  There is also an entry in the idex page now.

Nice, would the Canine Soul affect werewolves?

Summon Cresh is badass, how much water do they need to be mobile?

Quote from: LlumNice, would the Canine Soul affect werewolves?

Summon Cresh is badass, how much water do they need to be mobile?

If anyone ever asks me to publish this game, you'll be hired as the editor.

Cabine soul wopuld probably have a 1/2 effect (soc cc) on werewolves or werepuppies.

Summon cresh needs a cecile source of water, or at least 3 bathtubs full.  But I'mk glad you like it, i did as well.

up to 626 total spells for the GuildSchool system.
Hamish Haldane can't wait!  Dispelling included
Spell Link (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956149/Spell-List)

Parry Skill
The Parry skill is a dropdown of the weapon skill.  The theory here is that the more skilled the combatant with a weapon type, the better they are with this skill.  As with other skills, one can learn the skill itself and become even better in it.
 

The combatant declares the use of the parry skill when they roll weapon initiative.  If this skill is declared, they can choose to take points from their base chance to hit with a weapon and add them to protection.  The combatant can only transfer as many points as they have parry skill points.  The Combatant can change this amount the next time they declare initiative.

So the Parry Skill can be looked at as a flexibility skill, one that allows a skilled fighter the ability to make strategic choices based on the type of battle they are fighting.   A Heavily armored tank fighter may decide, when fighting a huge creature that deals massive damage to take away points from their chance to hit because they are not going to miss the giant much, but if they get hit, they want as much protection as they can get.  A skilled fencer in town may find themselves outnumbered, and may want to reduce the chance of taking damage.  Or an outclassed fighter may want to fight a defensive fight waiting for help.  These are choices the parry skill enables.

 

The protection added only affects melee attacks, and only those the combatant can see (the 180 degree in front of them).  It does not add onto protection against magic at all.

Players gaining experience in protection while using this skill can choose to add some into parry as well as defence.

I have added quite a bit to this.


1.Initiative
i.Declared and Readied Initiative
ii.Some standardization of penalties:
iii.Rolling the Dice
iv.Action Speed




We have mentioned quite a few times that we use a continuous initiative system...

What does that mean? It means that combat initiative is kept continuously instead of stopping at the end of a round or a turn and starting again. A character in combat or in another initiative situation[1], after they have attempted a feat or action, will roll intitiative for their next action, and add it on from there.

This can often mean a character with a fast weapon might attack two or three times before a character with a slower weapon. However, since smaller weapons normally do less damage and have higher dividing dice, they penetrate armor less...It also accounts better for moving and movement., as well as for other actions.

Basically, back when we broke from earlier games, we were changing all of our speed rules, adding different speed factors to weapons, etc. And it made more sense for that guy with the dagger to keep swinging instead of waiting around for 10 seconds for the guy with the huge axe to make his move. We also removed the rate of fire with arrows (or anything outside the scrum)  to be tied to the speed of melee weapons.

That dagger or small sword will normally have an Action initiative of two to four, while a halbard has a 10.  But when the Halbard hits...watch out.

As we mentioned above, each initiative roll is a roll of the dice+ the speed factor of the action. The choice of dice is based on the proximity and effect of any local combat or encounter, martial or social. The Speed Factor is based on the action itself. Spells and weapons have speed factors, as do many actions.

Due to some events in game play recently, I have been asked to codify some procedures and set up some guidelines for certain common actions.



Declared and Readied Initiative


For the procedural side, there are 2 issues, readied items and declared initiative.


Readied items must be declared at the beginning of every session. One cannot expect everyone else to accept a character claiming to 'always have their scroll of 'Water's Way' in their hand'. Unless the say so in the beginning of a session.   Many weapons also have lower 'readied speeds', as well.


Declared initiative is more of a disclosure, what a character is planning to do and with what. In other words, the GM needs to know if a spell is being cast and what the initiative is, if there are reagents, if it is coming from a scroll, where that scroll is, and etc. If that information is not ready and prepared, there will be a penalty of 5 and the GMwill ask the same question then. This is also when a player (or NPC, from behind the screen) mentioned any applicable skills they are using during this time, like Parry or quickdraw.

A target must also be declared when the action is readied, if it is a targeted action.  If a player says they are getting out a potion from their sack, a target is not needed yet. 


Some standardization of penalties:

•Unsheathing a weapon +1
•Taking more than ½ total HP in a blow +1-4
•Taking more than 75% of total HP in a blow +3-9
•Being damaged in the same or contiguous segments +1
•Waking up +5
•Getting something out of a pocket +1
•Reading a scroll +3
•Getting something out of a pack +7
•Getting up from the ground +2 (often added to waking up)
•Readied for a charge -2[2]
•Redirecting an attack (reroll init) -2
•Picking a weapon up from the ground +2
•Uncorking a potion +1
•Reading a scroll +5 to the spell init
•After being below 0 hp and healed +2-12
•Every 3 feet of ground that has to be made up +1, running to attack (or advanced every 20% of max speed)
•Every 2 feet of ground that has to be made up, while sneaking or casting +1
•Facing attack from a weapon with a 6" or more shorter reach...use readied speed for first attack[3]


Rolling the Dice

In that when rolling for initiative, the die rolled can be a d10, a d8, a  d6, or a d4, depending on how deeply involved in a melee a character is .

•A d4 is rolled and added to the SF, and is used in the first round of a total surprise situation.[4]
•A d6 is rolled and added to the SF if the player is not affected by combat, is outside the combat and casting a automatic hit or group effect spell, targeting undead, etc.
•A d8 is rolled and added to the SF if the character is out of combat but is affecting by combat, i.e. shooting a missile weapon into combat, timing an entry into combat.
•A d10 is rolled and added to the SF If the character is in combat or has to account for dodging blows while attacking.


So, how it works in practice:

You roll the appropriate initiative die, add in the modifiers above and any other initiative bonuses, then add the current round and how fast your weapon/spell/action is. The resulting number is when you attack next.

So, its segment 1 of combat, and my weapon has a speed of 7, and I roll an 8 for iniative.
My next initiative will be 8 +0 (no modifiers) +7 (weapon speed) =15.  I attack on segment 15 of combat.  After I try to hit, Maybe the next round I have to attack a target 10 feet away.  So I roll my d10+the speed of the weapon, 8, + 3 for every full 3 feet of distance.  So if I rolled a 5, +8, +3, I get 16 that I add to my earlier 15, which means I dash across and attack on segment 31 next.


It should be noted that no skill, magics, or attibute bonus is every subtracted from the roll. These are always applied to the weapon action speed.



Action Speed
This is the speed of the weapon, spell or action that is being attempted. Larger weapons are slower, so they have a higher action speed.


Please note that coordination, skills, and magic can adjust the Action Speed. However, the lowest Action Speed allowed is 1, unless specially adjudicated or in a few very specialized situations.


[/size] Footnotes

1.Often in pre-combat situations, we start using initiative. The casting of spells, people moving into place, etc. ▲
2.This position also reduces the dividing die by 1. ▲
3.If a smaller weapon is attacking a larger one, the larger weap uses readies speed; and if the larger weap has already rolled init, the difference between melee init and readied init is subtracted before the smaller weapon is allowed to attack. Also remember that both a succesful charge and a succesful readied attack against a charge recieve a -1 dividing dice bonus. ▲
4.Remember that a succesful surprise attack recieves a -1 dividiing die for damage; and that bonus can be increased upwards with the backstab skill. ▲

Are you familiar with Exalted's Combat Ticks system, that sounds a bit like what you're proposing. It's not a bad idea in theory. In practice, I've found it slows down combat a bit more than I like, but it's a really neat concept.

Quote from: Light Dragon
Are you familiar with Exalted's Combat Ticks system, that sounds a bit like what you're proposing. It's not a bad idea in theory. In practice, I've found it slows down combat a bit more than I like, but it's a really neat concept.

Thanks for dropping in!

Well, I'm not proposing anything...this is what I've used since 1985.  When Celtrivcia started, I was using a round based version of the same thing.  But this is not really proposed, it is the current system...I added a few things on lately, so I reposted.

And someone pointed out a few years ago that Hackmaster and Exalted have both gone the way of continuous initiative in the past decade.  All of us do it slightly differently, but we all use a continuous system.  I also enjoy that the increase of flexibility in getting rid of combat segments. 

Also, the way we use different dice based on the situation as the random part seems to be unique.  '
Have you used t in exalted?  many people cop[lain about some of the mechanics of that system...   
 

Ah, I didn't realize that was what you are currently using. When you stated that you "have added quite a bit" I thought you were just introducing the concept. Apologies.

Yes, I have used the system in Exalted; and yes in IRC we've had a few discussions about the bogginess of the system. The Ticks only work, I think, if you have a computer program or an excel document that everyone can read and see at once. Otherwise either the GM keeps the notes for everyone and has to remind them constantly (the index card system can solve this partially, but it takes time to write out and sort everything), or the players keep shouting "I'm next" and stepping over each-other's words. Also, given the complexity of some of the Tricks players can pull off, when combat is more than just swords, daggers, etc., the time players use to determine what to do slows things down even more.

Your experience with a Tick system may very well have been more smooth, since you've been using it for a long time and you are apparently pleased with the results.

The concept, I agree, is a good one.  But the execution of the concept concerns me in general (not specifically to your situation).

Quote from: Light Dragon
Ah, I didn't realize that was what you are currently using. When you stated that you "have added quite a bit" I thought you were just introducing the concept. Apologies.

Yes, I have used the system in Exalted; and yes in IRC we've had a few discussions about the bogginess of the system. The Ticks only work, I think, if you have a computer program or an excel document that everyone can read and see at once. Otherwise either the GM keeps the notes for everyone and has to remind them constantly (the index card system can solve this partially, but it takes time to write out and sort everything), or the players keep shouting "I'm next" and stepping over each-other's words. Also, given the complexity of some of the Tricks players can pull off, when combat is more than just swords, daggers, etc., the time players use to determine what to do slows things down even more.

Your experience with a Tick system may very well have been more smooth, since you've been using it for a long time and you are apparently pleased with the results.

The concept, I agree, is a good one.  But the execution of the concept concerns me in general (not specifically to your situation).

Well, I'd be interested how the other IRC people feel about it.  They might be better able assess the playability.  I've been using it for decades, so I am too close.  Though I do still use a hybrid round system in my Accis OSR D20 game.

The continuous thing does what what I want it to do.  Ot allows me to use range and length and skills, with a random element, but it allows small fast weapons a certain advantage...Llum's Hamish and Nomadic's Kellick both used rapiers. because of the speed advantage. 

Ok. I was discussing the system with Coyote Camouflage and Sparkletwist, so they may be able to provide more insight.

>>The continuous thing does what what I want it to do.  Ot allows me to use range and length and skills, with a random element, but it allows small fast weapons a certain advantage...Llum's Hamish and Nomadic's Kellick both used rapiers. because of the speed advantage. 

And that's why it's an attractive system.

...Okay, Vreeg, I have an honest question here and I'm not trying to be rude, but this has been bugging me and I'd like to understand, so I apologize if this comes out wrong:

What kind of feedback are you looking for on these?

Most of your posts about either Guildschool or Celtricia are a ton of interesting information, but a lot of the replies that are not either simply asking for clarification or stating a like or dislike for the post are met with an "this is something I've already established, I just tweaked it a bit and am posting it." Which is totally fine, but for those of us with little to no experience in either makes it impossible to respond unless you highlight the areas that have changed, and in this exchange with LD I'm still not sure what changed.


On an overall response to the system: I love the idea. I really, really do - weapon speed should matter, and doing that at all is difficult. I dislike the execution. A large part of the problem I have with guildschool is I feel like I need to take a 4 week correspondence course in the system to be able to intelligently comment on it, which is saying quite a bit because I typically pick up new systems very fast. While this way of handling it likely works amazingly for groups that are familiar with the system, for someone like me that knows nothing about it, I'm having a huge problem even understanding it, which is a major turn-off for me.

This system is something you've been working on since 1985, and the amount of effort, energy, thought, and experience put into it shows in a system that seems to be beautifully cohesive and wonderfully thought out, not to mention absolutely revolutionary for the time - in 1985, coming up with the idea of leveling the skills you use was something that I don't know if anyone had done, and doing so on your own is absolutely brilliant. However, the downside to its age is the system is large and intimidating and cumbersome to learn - if I were to play in a game you were running, I'd pretty much have to constantly be asking "how do I do this" for the first several dozen sessions. This isn't intended as an insult, but an observation, and is leading into a suggestion:

As refined as Guildschool is, it seems that most of what's going on now are very, very minor tweaks. Have you considered a Guildschool LITE or Guildschool 2E, something new and more "new person" friendly? I'd love to see what you could come up with if you were to reboot and trim down the system for people like me. :)

Quote from: Xathan Of Many Worlds
...Okay, Vreeg, I have an honest question here and I'm not trying to be rude, but this has been bugging me and I'd like to understand, so I apologize if this comes out wrong:

What kind of feedback are you looking for on these?

Most of your posts about either Guildschool or Celtricia are a ton of interesting information, but a lot of the replies that are not either simply asking for clarification or stating a like or dislike for the post are met with an "this is something I've already established, I just tweaked it a bit and am posting it." Which is totally fine, but for those of us with little to no experience in either makes it impossible to respond unless you highlight the areas that have changed, and in this exchange with LD I'm still not sure what changed.


On an overall response to the system: I love the idea. I really, really do - weapon speed should matter, and doing that at all is difficult. I dislike the execution. A large part of the problem I have with guildschool is I feel like I need to take a 4 week correspondence course in the system to be able to intelligently comment on it, which is saying quite a bit because I typically pick up new systems very fast. While this way of handling it likely works amazingly for groups that are familiar with the system, for someone like me that knows nothing about it, I'm having a huge problem even understanding it, which is a major turn-off for me.

This system is something you've been working on since 1985, and the amount of effort, energy, thought, and experience put into it shows in a system that seems to be beautifully cohesive and wonderfully thought out, not to mention absolutely revolutionary for the time - in 1985, coming up with the idea of leveling the skills you use was something that I don't know if anyone had done, and doing so on your own is absolutely brilliant. However, the downside to its age is the system is large and intimidating and cumbersome to learn - if I were to play in a game you were running, I'd pretty much have to constantly be asking "how do I do this" for the first several dozen sessions. This isn't intended as an insult, but an observation, and is leading into a suggestion:

As refined as Guildschool is, it seems that most of what's going on now are very, very minor tweaks. Have you considered a Guildschool LITE or Guildschool 2E, something new and more "new person" friendly? I'd love to see what you could come up with if you were to reboot and trim down the system for people like me. :)

It's an awesome Post, Xathan, and an issue that I, myself, have raised.  The issue of big threads, big system, etc, and the walls of text.

I'm not going to apologize for being at the 'tweaking' stage/  I've worked hard to get here.

I am going to apologize for the poor writing and organization, and for the lack of a, " This is what this game is about/ Core Concepts area".
(though as Llum will tell you...this IS Guildschool lite)

I mean, I've made it to the point that people who have never met me before can play it online.  But there IS a lot of "How or why do I do this, or more, what is your mechanism for 'X' common RPG effect?"  So you are not wrong.  And I appreciate the heck that you bothered to write it.

From the outside...what are the first questions you'd want answered?

Glad the post was appreciated. :) And didn't expect you to apologize for anything, but I always feel bad for skipping over your thread because I just don't know what to say, so felt the need to explain why I don't know what to say. :P

As for what I'd want answered...is there a good way to find out what the game is about/core concepts? In other words, if I wanted Guildschool boiled down to its essentials so I could understand them, where would I go? Because until I'm able to grasp that, I'm not even sure what questions to ask. :P

I do think every game has some of this denseness upon entry.  I remember being introduced to d&d , when it was more like a cult....rolling dice when I was told, having a great time, even while not really understanding.

At it's heart, the real differences are the magic system...that really is different than anything out there...and how different people's ability in skills is derived, since it comes from attributes and the guild the character is from.   Other than those, it's a damn d100 roll under to succeed skill based rpg.

I'll admit my initial response was a bit more inflammatory than this one – I took a bit of umbrage at the "damn d100 roll under to succeed skill based RPG" comment. It seemed there was a bit of a "Duh, how can you NOT get that?" implied in that statement – and to make matters worse, at first that sentence made as much sense to me as telling me it was a "d20 roll plus poker card draw based RPG", and I had to get clarification in the IRC. In hindsight, I was probably more irritated because not understanding what a d100 roll under to succeed skill based RPG was made me feel like I should know immediately what that means. (Incidentally, it means you roll d100, and if you get under your skill total, it works, right? Or am I still baffled)

I think the problem here might be that you are too close to it and I'm too distant. The setting makes perfect sense to you, and while it obviously does make sense to other people or you wouldn't have a long-running IRC game using it, I'm certain I'm not alone in finding Guildschool to be as tricky and incomprehensible as four-dimensional Rubik cube. I'd like to understand it, but starting on the page is going to be the task of weeks of time, and I don't have the time needed to start an in depth journey to figure out the system – and it seems there is some difficulty in you explaining it, since when asked for something that would be of assistance in understanding it, I was told the magic system was different (how?) and then the aforementioned d100 roll comment, which brought me no closer to comprehension than no answer would have. So, with all intent of wanting to understand the system:

Quoteis there a good way to find out what the game is about/core concepts? In other words, if I wanted Guildschool boiled down to its essentials so I could understand them, where would I go? Because until I'm able to grasp that, I'm not even sure what questions to ask.

WEll, you're not wrong that there was some 'Duh, this is the easy part that I should put out there' meant in that statement.  I don't want to deny it.  And what it means in the parlance is that it is a d100 based game, where you use d100 to roll under a % to succees in a task, and that is is skill based as opposed to a class-based system.  I think that line comes from me spending too much time on RPG sites.  But I really appreciate taking the time to come back to me on this.  Giving me a lot to think about.

But maybe that is one of the problems.  I say 'one of the probelms' as this back and forth nas been rolling around the back of my head a lot lately.   Communication is something I teach at work, for god sake.  But I can see multiple issues with what I am trying to transmit, sometimes in how I am doing it.

Quote from: XathanThe setting makes perfect sense to you, and while it obviously does make sense to other people

This is another huge issue.  I try to post setting notes seperately from System notes.  This is specifically a mechanics thread, for example.   The setting threads are a whole (larger) grouping, since there is a lot more setting stuff (Celtricia) written than there is for the mechanics (GuildSchool).  But the mechanics are written expressly to support the game I want to play in Celtricia.

I am working on trying to boil down some some really core concepts, and produce them in exclusive threads.  How  does that sound?

And BTW, Xathan, I am not ignoring the issue you and I have been grappling with.  I have been writing about it, and I think I am going to start a few threads for each issue.  This is the latest page on the wiki, which is formalizing some tactics used regularky.


Tactical Moves



In Guildschool, there are a number of tactical moves a player or GM can use to increase their chance of success in combat situations.  Many of these can be made more effective with the use of skills, creating fighting styles that are hard to beat.

These also can aid to the immersion of the situation.

From the GM perspective, many of these need the PCs (or creatures) to expressly mention what they are doing.  While in reality some of these would happen somewhat automatically due to sheer physics, in terms of gameplay, they need to be mentioned.


•·       Full Parry
A character using this may forgo their attacking initiatitve to fight purely defensively.  This adds 20% of their weapon skill (or a minimum of 3, if they have no little skill or no skill) to their protection for that initiative phase, until they roll again.  This can be added onto the parry skill, making a character a formidable fortress.


•·       Riposte
This move requires a character to have an initiative the same or better than the person they face, and this action must be declared before rolling initiative.  A riposte assumes a parried attack and a quick counter attack.  A player making this choice adds 10% of their weapon skill to protection, but their attack is delayed until the segment after their opponent's attack.  The riposte attack gains no bonus to hit, but subtracts one from the damage dividing die.

•·       Charge
This tactic requires a user to have at least 10' of run up to use properly.  A charging attacker uses their impetus to increase the force of their attack.  A charging user uses readied initiative if their weapon is longer than a defenders.  In either case, this attack allows an attacker to reduce their damage dividing die by 1.

•Set to Receive
This move requires the user to have a longer weapon than the attacker, or using the move against a charging opponent, or it fails.  Period.   If a client declares this move and the conditions are met, they use their readied initiative-2, and gain a +2 to damage before the dividing die, and a -1 to dividing die if their opponent is charging.

•Full Shield cover
Obviously, this tactic requires a shield...

If used, the target does not make any attacks, but merely covers up 100%.  Initiaitve is rolled normally, but the attack is forgone.  This spell does add 10 to protection.  A user can move 1/3 normal, and this bonus only applies to attacks the shield would be valid for.

•Partial shield cover
This skill is similar to Full shield cover, but it does allow an attack.  The user attacks at -10% to hit and this applies to critical hits as well.  The protection bonus gained is 5.  Movement is 1/2 normal when using this.  This action simulates moving forward into combat in a guarded position, as well as a fighting retreat.


•Split defence
A player using this must be able to outnumber an opponent.  They must be able to engage a combatent that is already engaged, and have range to get close to 180 degrees from the other person engaging.  The affect of this is to negate the shield of the defender and add one to damage before the divider.  PLease note the attacker declaring it can continue declaring it until conditions change.

•Flank Attack
This is a single attack, similar to a split defence, where the attacker comes at an angle to the side or rear side of the target.  This is not a total surprise back stab, but still an advantageous attack, in that shields do not come in.  Shields do not com into play in terms of preotection, and the attacker has a +15% to hit, +1% to critical and adds 2 to damage before the divider.

•BackStab
Some skills or situations allow for a total surprsie backstab.  This attack, if the skill rolls or extreme circumstance are succesful, mean that surprise was gained, and a the attacker was able to hit an advantageous area.  If the backstabbing attempts are ussuccesful prior to the attack, it is considered a flanking attack.   If it is sucessful, the attacker has a +20% to hit, +2% to critical, +2 to damage before divider, -1 to the dividing dice and their backstab skill is added to their chance of critical. If the attack is a critical, the -1 to the divider is on top of this.

I've made some changes to the costing of skill kits.  The idea behind the changes are to make lesser and artisan skills much easier to acquire.  I have noted that while players take a few artisan skills on creation and while they fulfil a game mechanic need, so that I can have fth level bartenders, I want to make the more mundane skills easier to acquire.

I attached the PDF of the web page (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955580/General%20Costing%20of%20Skill%20Kits) on the Celtrician wiki to this.  The basic idea is to make the EXPMOD the basic for how fast one can pick up a skill, in that this simulates deeper and more difficult skils being harder to learn.  

SIG and other players can be grandfathered if they choose, or use the newer system for any kits currently being worked on.

One of the ideas of this mechanic, the 'skill kits' mechanic, is to support the in-game fluff of gaining abilities.  Back in them olden days, when I had a character break level who broke a level and suddenly had a new ability, it was sort of weird that one day, they did not have an ability, the next, they did.
In D&D, when they added in the concept of having to study, when breaking level, it was a pain in the ass, but we used it, because it made sense.
So the skill-kit mechanic is there to support the fluff of learning new abilities, while formalizing and setting. Reliable, quantifiable limits.

The reason for tweaking it, above, was so that more role-play-specific skills, artisan style skills, would be much easier to acquire.  Players certainly use a lot more artisan skills in town, though I swear some players somehow use the strangest skills to gain an advantage...
Which is the way I want it.

Since it came up recently, I dug up some of my old GS advanced rules (that are in a notebook, I no longer have the original (wrtten on a program called Volkswriter I believe. much as the original spreadsheet stuff was on Lotus 1-2-3) on Combat, whioch include a lot of hit location, etc.  You might nor believe it, but as early as 1985-86, one of our guys created a initiative/hp tracker. 
But I found my old rules on Subdual/physical HP, and it is interesting how topical they still are. They are at the bottom of this PDF.

The shield use skill has been redone, the full text is here (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/48219366/Shield%20Use%20Skill).

The Shield use skill allows a character to add their skill ability directly to their protection when using a shield.  It simulates the fact that the proper use of a shield was, in fact, an art, and that a skilled user could get a lot more mileage out of a shield.

When a character uses this skill, it adds directly onto the protection skill, up to 'doubling' the amount of protection a shield has.  After that, it moves to a 1/10 ratio, in that every 10 full points a character gets in the skill adds an additional point into the protective ability of the shield.


It does not apply to surprise attacks or situations where the shield's protective value does not come into play.


This simulates the need for a cerain amount of shield to gain a benefit, as well as working with the power curve to aid lower level characters more, similar to the curve in spells.  The same character gains different amounts of benefir from different sized shields.  A skill of 40 in Shield use, for example, can be used in these two illustrative examples. 


With a shield with a 7 protection, that character uses the first 7 points in the skill to add 7 points right to protection (doubling the shield).  The character gets another point for 17, 27, and 37 (the character has 40 points of skill, remember).  This gives a total shield protection of 17 for this shield.


Take the same character with a bigger shield with 15 protection, and that character uses the first 15 points in the skill to get to 30 protection with the shield, then another at 25 and 35, for a total protection of 32 points of preotection for the shield.