A Through Sunken Lands playbook: the Cursed Tomb Raider

 

This is my first creation for Through Sunken Lands: the Cursed Tomb Raider. It's about a character who started his career as a tomb raider, but fell under a curse that gave him unsuspected magical abilities. The character is therefore a rogue-mage from distant lands who does not know the precise ins and outs of his curse.

You like the playbook? You think something can be improved? You can leave me a comment!

You can download the Cursed Tomb Raider here!

Another take on weapon and armor degradation

I won't go too far in saying that dungeon crawling in D&D is basically as much a game of exploration and interaction as it is a game of resource management. Indeed, the more time passes in a dungeon, the more turns are accumulated, and the more torches burn, fatigue lurks, spells are exhausted, and the pressure of wandering monsters is strong.

Weapons and armor are not part of this resource management, so here are two simple rules that allow weapons and armor to get damaged with time. 

Damaging armors

Each time an attacker roll a natural 20 against a player character, the PC's armor lose 1 point of AC until repaired by a competent craftsman.

Damaging weapons

Each time an attacker roll a natural 1 when attacking, his weapon suffers some damage and is down to the previous dice type. A d8 sword become a d6 sword; a d6 mace become a d4 mace, and a d4 dagger is broken. A competent craftsman can repair the weapon for 20% of his base price by dice type lost.

And if it's a magic item?

Maybe the magic items cannot be broken that way? GM choice! If they can, roll a d6. If the result is less or equal than the magic bonus of the item, there is no loss. If it's superior, the item is damaged.

Another take on shields

In Dungeons & Dragons, shields usually only add one point to the AC. This can be a problem when you want to play in an ancient style. Indeed, in ancient times armor was generally lighter and less covering than in the Middle Ages, which made the shield even more important to make up for the weakness of the armor.

Think of Roman armies, Celtic warriors, and Greek hoplites: they all rely heavily on their shields, and the rules don't allow it.

Based on the principle that the lighter the armor, the more important the shield is to a fighter's fighting style, it would be possible to adjust the bonus to AC that a shield provides based on the armor worn.

Worn armor: Shield AC

• No armor: +4
• Leather armor: +3
• Chain mail: +2
• Plate armor: +1

Thus, a fighter wearing lighter armor will still be able to get away with it, even if he is less protected than a fighter in heavier armor.

My review of Further Afield

Further Afield is the first supplement to Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures, by Flatland Games. It's the largest and most ambitious supplement to date.

The collaborative sandbox campaign

Further Afield offer a very interesting and easy way to manage a collaborative sandbox campaign. In the continuity of the basic book, his objective is to allow the GM to generate with the players a campaign setting with the least possible preparation. The book therefore propose to involve players in the creation of a campaign by allowing the characters to present two major places of interest that they have heard about, and to place them approximately in the region. Each player then describes what their characters thinks they know about it, and the GM makes a secret roll to see if the information is right or inaccurate. Players can incorporate elements who interest them into the campaign, while leaving the GM in control, and it's a very good idea.

Further Afield therefore offers some tables to generate major and minor locations and to place them on the map. The major locations are generated by the players' ideas, the minor locations only by the GM.

New Threat Pack: The Bandit King

The Bandit King is a new Threat Pack for Beyond the Wall, inspired by the Threat Packs presented on Further Afield. The Bandit King can be a Pirate King if you prefer (I use the Pirate King version on my Caribbean style campaign).

The Bandit King is a charismatic chief who have rose in power in the last years. He has gathered around him more and more men, filthy rogues, thieves, robbers or scums to form a real threat for the all region. The Bandit King has appointed some officers, and each officer has created his own band of bandits who serve the Bandit King.

The Bandit King begin with 3 bands of several bandits (2d10+20 bandits HD1), with some veterans bandits (1d6+2 bandits HD2) and an officer (HD4). One of this bands is the Bandit King's band (double all the results, but the officer is the Bandit King HD6).

Each band is named by the name of his officer, for example Rothar "Silver Hand" band is an appropriate band name.

At the beginning of the campaign, the Bandit King has an Imminence Rating of 4. If chosen at the beginning of the campaign when the character creation occurs, you will need to use this table below. At least one player character need to roll on this table during creation.

New Cantrips: Imbue Feelings (intelligence)

This new cantrips is often possessed by the Faes. To use it, the caster must be close to the target and have visual contact with it. The caster can amplify or mitigate a specific feeling in the target, for example fear, love, courage or despair. He cannot create it from nothing.

The target can resist thanks to a saving roll against the spell, with the possible bonus of wisdom allowing him to resist mind control. The effect lasts a whole scene, and the target does not realize that his feelings are affected in a strange way (witnesses of the scene, on the other hand, may notice it).

The magician can amplify the feeling to the extreme (or reduce it to nothing) by taking a malus of -3. The caster can, with a malus of -5, make the spell last a full day.

A Beyond the Wall playbook: The Revenant

Originally created by Ralph Lovegrove for his campaign Beyond the Waves, this is the Revenant Playbook, a rogue-mage tied to the sea and the deads.

Sometimes the Dead fail to make the crossing to the Far Ocean. Instead they sail on and on, finally washing up on a shore where no-one knows them in a new form. The Wise will say that it’s because they have an unfinished life, and that the Ocean has granted them a second chance to make it whole before they voyage again. Ghosts appear as young children on a beach or shore, with no explanation as to who they are or how they arrived there. They will have eyes from violet to grey, the color of a storm. The ghost child will wander the beach until the villagers adopt it, which is usually immediately and without question — to do otherwise invites bad luck such as storms, drownings and poor fishing yields. Often ghost children are regarded as some judge-ment from the Ocean for misdeeds, though they are also a blessing for childless families.

You can download the PDF here