Augmented Rules of which to Take Advantage (NOT spoilers)
Or, Making Things Harder
This campaign adds a few optional rules to the Pathfinder set to better represent thematically important activities. These include research, combat brutality, and technobabble. Include these provisions if you wish. I'll be doing so.
Hero Points
The d20pfsrd includes a whole article on these, but the main effect of hero points is to allow players to be more reliable when a single roll of the die could determine life or death. Each player starts with 1 Hero Point and may earn more for outstanding role-playing performance. No player can stockpile more than 3. A Hero Point can be cashed in at any time to cause any single die just thrown to be re-rolled or to provide a one-time +8 or -8 to a check just rolled.
Hero Points
The d20pfsrd includes a whole article on these, but the main effect of hero points is to allow players to be more reliable when a single roll of the die could determine life or death. Each player starts with 1 Hero Point and may earn more for outstanding role-playing performance. No player can stockpile more than 3. A Hero Point can be cashed in at any time to cause any single die just thrown to be re-rolled or to provide a one-time +8 or -8 to a check just rolled.
Earning a Nerd Bonus
Players are always encouraged to provide a little flavor text for their actions. However, if the player has an especially good idea which would function in the game but for the lack of a rule to mechanically manifest the inspiration, the GM may award a +1 or +2 on a roll more or less arbitrarily. This is intended to reward really smart flavor text, clever approaches to problems, and good understanding of the content and flavor of the setting. Each smart idea must be totally original; repeats are mechanically useless.
Bodily Harm
As you fight, different parts of your body may get injured or mangled up. This is to be expected, but it does disturb your calm and affect your ability to fight. Some parts of your body are easier for baddies to hurt according to the fantasyness of your armor or the stupidness of your anatomy. A big hit to a specific body part causes temporary or lasting penalties to certain actions on top of the HP loss.
A body part can be hit specifically in two ways:
- Called Shots: Combatants may make a Called Shot when attacking to attempt to injure a specific limb or other body part by taking the appropriate penalty to Hit as listed below in parentheses. A miss results in a total whiff as usual, but a hit means that the blow lands on the appointed area. If a body part is especially lacking in protection, the GM may suspend part or all the armor bonus and/or damage resistance when you attack that weak spot. If the body part is particularly well-protected by armor (i.e., a chest-plate pretty well protects your chest), the GM may apply the corresponding armor or natural armor bonus as damage resistance against the called shot when checking whether the part is Injured or Crippled.
- Critical Hits: When a Crit is scored, even if it's not confirmed, the GM will roll a d10 and consult the table below to determine where the fortuitous blow landed. If the target has run out of the appointed part, the die is rerolled.
Traumatic Damage
A body part is Injured when it takes a hit greater than 1/5 the creature's HP maximum, or Crippled when it takes 1/3 its max HP total. This damage must occur in a single attack or full attack, from a single source combatant. An Injured body part which is Injured again becomes Crippled. A Crippled limb which gets Crippled again, or an undamaged limb which takes twice the Crippling damage (2/3 of the creature's max HP) is broken off. If this would happen to your chest or stomach, instead increase the damage of that attack by half. If this happens to your head or neck, you are just dead.
The penalties are divided into Injured and Crippled by a semicolon below. Something which gets Crippled also takes the effect of being Injured at the same time. A standard penalty is -2, minor being -1 and major being -4.
- Eye (-10): Attacks and perception checks; Blindness.
- Head (-5): minor Reflex, Will, and BAB; 1 negative level and dazed for 1 minute.
- Neck (-6): Bleed damage equal to creature's base Con bonus (minimum 1) for 1 minute; 4 Con damage.
- Chest (-4): 1 Con damage; Staggered.
- Stomach (-4): 1 Str and Dex damage; Nausia and inability to hit clutch freethrows.
- Arms (-5): Major any weapon attacks using that arm; major CMB/CMD.
- Hands (-6): Cannot attack or use item with that hand; minor CMB/CMD.
- Legs (-4): Major Acrobatics checks and Stealth, and cannot run or charge; 1/2 movement speed
- Feet (-6): AC and Touch AC; 1/2 movement speed.
- Abdomen (arthropods only) (-4): Nausia for 1 round; Nausia.
When one of your body parts gets injured, you are Shaken for 1 round (Fear effect, Will DC 16 to resist). If something gets Crippled, you are instead Stunned and prone for 1 round (Fear effect, Will DC 20 to resist).
Surgery
The HP loss is easy to repair with magic, but body parts remain injured or crippled until surgery is performed to correct deeper damage. The conditions listed above which don't have a listed duration remain indefinitely without surgical correction. First, you have to deal the patient 1/5 or 1/3 its HP total in damage to the chosen injured part using a tool at hand as appropriate for the level of damage. Then, you must perform a Heal check to fix the lingering problem; the DC is 18 for injured parts, or 22 for crippled. Such a procedure takes 30 minutes. A failure causes the subject 2 Con damage and doesn't relieve the condition. You can retry the check, but the Con damage and HP damage remain as normal.
Speedy Combat, or, Quarrel Time
When both sides have the option to escape and aren't resolved to fight for the death, securing the advantage early means everything. Whoever gains the upper hand starts a runaway trend of remaining strong and weakening the opponent. When every move counts, goofing around with the full move-attack-argue-roll cycle gets silly and tedious.
Speedy Combat runs in half-rounds, with each turn lasting about 2 or 3 seconds. That's enough time for a Standard action or a Move, but not both. Effects which have a duration measured in Rounds do indeed last for twice as many Speedy rounds. No game board is needed; just a diagram of who is on the front line (bogged down in melee combat), and who is Mobile. Everyone starts out Mobile, and for all purposes you are considered to be within 30 feet of everything else.
In Speedy Combat, each combatant has the chance to react to the actions of its enemies to aid teammates and further disadvantage the less tactical contingent. First, starting with the slowest combatant, everybody declares their action. The faster fighters get to specify their plans after they've heard what the slow pokes want to do. Then, the actions are resolved in order of speed, and those who successfully intercept their opponents impose a penalty on their activities.
The Speedy Combat Round:
- Initiative: Each combatant rolls initiative. That's right, there's a different order each turn.
- Declare: Starting with whoever rolled lowest and moving upward, each combatant describes its chosen action for the turn, using pithy details to amp up the tension, and then declares its action from the following list. Each combatant must have a written note visible to all players denoting the action and the target in order to be considered done with this step.
- Ranged Attack or Ranged Spell Attack: Declare a target first. If you are on the Front Line, one opponent there may change its action to a Melee Attack even if it's already declared a different action. If for some reason you need to be closer than 30 feet for your attack (but not necessarily within Melee range), you can draw that close to a chosen combatant without significant trouble. This has to be an attack or spell which takes a Standard action at most.
- Melee Attack or Melee Touch Attack: You declare a target and move to the Front Line if you aren't there already. Unless your target Backpedals this turn (whether before or after you, see below), it is moved to the Front Line too, and you can make your attack during the Resolution phase after its turn. You can try a Combat Maneuver instead of a regular attack. If the target Backpedals successfully, it eludes you this turn and your attack fails. This has to be an attack which takes a Standard action at most.
- Backpedal: If somebody tries to move you to the front line to melee your face, or if you want to leave the Front Line, you can attempt to get some distance. If no enemies are on the Front Line with you when it's time to Resolve, you back up without issue. If there's an opponent who wants to keep their hands on you, if your speed is higher than the opponent's, you succeed and become Mobile. If you are slower, you must succeed on an Acrobatics check with the DC being the difference in your speed and the opponent's +10. Failure means you stay on the front line.
- Intimidate: Declare a target and make a standard Intimidate check. This disrupts one combatant if successful; see below. You can intimidate from the Front Line or from range.
- Other: Whatever it is, ask the GM. It might provoke AoO if you are on the Front Line, just like using a ranged attack (see above). If it takes a full action, expect to be told it takes up two Speedy rounds, and you'd better make Concentration checks if martially molested during the process.
- Resolve: In order from highest to lowest initiative result, resolve the actions. If you successfully attack a target before its action is resolved and in some way damage or disrupt it, it takes a cumulative penalty on all d20 rolls during its resolution equal to either your HD or one-half the damage dealt, whichever is higher. This damage instead forces a Concentration check on castings. Each combatant must be detailed with a written note saying whether their action succeeded or failed in order to be considered done with this step.
- Morale: Each team in combat decides whether to run or fight. Each combatant may be frightened enough to lose its nerve if it and its allies are beat up. Each side has to add up its Oh Balls Factor (OBF), which is the sum of:
- Number of failed actions on your team this round minus the number of successes you guys had.
- 2 if at least half you are Bloodied.
- 2 more if everybody's Bloodied or worse.
- 2 more if at least half you are either disabled or have fled.
Throw 2d4, and if the result is strictly less than your OBF, your whole team suffers -2 to all d20 rolls for the following round due to demoralization.
A Chase may ensue if one side chooses to run and the other to pursue. Your team may then discuss (in character, of course) your prospects, the perversity of random chance, the similarity of this situation to the pit under an outhouse, and whether you ought to break and run or dig in for the long haul. A Chase is variant Skill Challenge, but we'll dash madly across that bridge when we reach it.
- Break and Run: If your team tries to leave and the opponent doesn't want you to, before you enter a Chase scene or move on with your lives, you must get all your Front Line teammates Mobile through additional rounds of Speedy Combat.
- Dig In: You guys pile in and start moving tactically. The enemy team may see what's happening and attempt to run; in that case, resolve the attempt as detailed under Break and Run. If they are amenable to digging in as well, switch from Speedy Combat to regular combat after rolling initiative at the top of the next round.
Library Research Minigame
Researching involves the pursuit of specific data which cannot be exhaustively proven to be absent from a library until every book has been thoroughly read. As the players explore a library, they must consider that the chance of successfully finding clues about their research goal decreases as they run out of likely sources and move deeper and deeper into the shadowy obscurity of the stacks. However, hidden gems of specific knowledge cannot be found in the promulgated textbooks on the subject; one must delve into more obscure and niche works for such secrets. Wonder and mystery and cobwebs lurk in the bowels of any edifice of learning, and the desparation needed to propel students thence is more often rewarded with labyrinthine detours than with final success.
Per subject, the specificity of a book is inverse to its scope of topics, and its specificity is proportionate to its rarity. You can find very vague info in an encyclopedia, or very useful info in a dedicated book on the topic, but it's way unlikely to find the latter compared to the former. Now, different weak clues can come together by synthesis to form a new conclusion, so that checking a new encyclopedia may still be valuable. You can exhaust a library beyond any likelyhood of remaining data by searching for logically-related titles. The value of continued searching per time decreases as you go along.
Order of Play
Each round of the Research minigame represents 4 hours of in-game work. Other researchers may conduct concurrent researches.
- Each researcher selects a Research Goal to work on. You can either seek general knowledge about a subject, or seek the answer to a specific question.
- Each researcher selects a valid Category for his research goal, and then chooses a remaining die in that category from the dice pool for that goal. All researchers sharing the same project have the same basic books at hand, and so they share the same dice pool. See Dice Pool below.
- Each researcher performs their Research roll. If you are just seeking general knowledge, the GM will provide you with an explanation of the topic with a depth of detail appropriate in obscurity for your check. If you seek to answer a specific question about a topic, the GM will either tell you the answer to your question if your check result was high enough, or he will give you a clue of appropriate value to lead you closer. See Research Rolls below.
- Resolve any Encounters in the Stacks. These may be pointless or perilous, intricate or straightforward. Nobody can tell what's lurking in The Stacks until they encounter it and remind it to keep it down for the students. What might you find? Probably weird aliens. And demons. Like a million demons. And undergraduates in varying states of insanity and decay, lost for years in the dread dusty jungle where knowledge replaces nature.
Dice Pool:
The capacity of a library to provide leads on a research topic is represented by a dice pool. Each die represents one
level of specificity within one subject field or category.
Categories: There is a category for each type of Know check except the stupid one: Arcana, Engineering and Mathematics, Geography and Trade, History and Culture, Nature and Science, Nobility and Politics, Planes, and Religion. Now, for any research topic, only certain few of the categories bear a chance at giving a hint toward your actual goal; the DM will decide on 4, 3, 2, or even just 1 of the categories to be valid for any given goal.
Level of Specificity: In each category, every library can be searched in each level of specificity assuming that you can't reasonably just read every scrap in the whole place. Each level of specificity is represented by a die of one of the standard sizes:
d4: Encyclopedias. d6, d8: Primers or textbooks. d10, d12: Treatises or research papers. d20: Manuscripts.
Research Roll:
When a Research check is made, it expends one die from the library's dice pool of a chosen category and level. That die cannot be rolled again in that library for that specific research goal for 1 year. For every 4 hours of searching, each player may make 1 research roll either as part of the investigation or as a supporting search. Select a category, and then select a die size which hasn't yet been expended from the pool. Successes in other categories can add used dice back to the pool for the valid categories (see Support, below). Roll a die of the chosen size. A success is achieved if you roll exactly a 1, and the value of that success is determined by the dice size. If you get a roll of 8 or higher, you may have an Encounter In the Stacks (GM's discretion) and waste time. On a success:
- Investigation: Add 20 + the library's Library Bonus (see below) to the size of your chosen die, and consider that you've just passed a Know check of the chosen category with that result. You learn a detail of appropriate obscurity about the subject.
- Supporting Search: You may return one expended die of your chosen size or smaller to one of the other Know categories so that it can be rolled again on a subsequent round. This represents opening a linked path of inquiry to support the main search. To use this, the player must make up the details he found in his category and how they bear on the main search subject.
Library bonus: +1 for each volume of library equivalent to a large-size house. +1 per full-time librarian who keeps the place organized. Township libraries may have a bonus of 0-2. Municipal libraries may reach 2-4. Universities come in around 4-6. If a library has a couple of areas of specific interest, bonuses on those categories may be higher by 1 or 2.
Getting Help: Finally, each Librarian on duty can be accosted for their help; you may attempt a Diplomacy check (DC 15+half the chosen dice size) to get help on one research roll. This can only be used on rolls of d8 or larger. That roll succeeds on a 1 or a 2, instead of 1 only. Each librarian will only help this way once per research topic or once per day, whichever is less time-consuming. Failing your diplomacy check blows your chance for the day and topic as if you had succeeded. You may have to wait until another day for different librarians to be on duty.
Bodily Harm
As you fight, different parts of your body may get injured or mangled up. This is to be expected, but it does disturb your calm and affect your ability to fight. Some parts of your body are easier for baddies to hurt according to the fantasyness of your armor or the stupidness of your anatomy. A big hit to a specific body part causes temporary or lasting penalties to certain actions on top of the HP loss.
A body part can be hit specifically in two ways:
- Called Shots: Combatants may make a Called Shot when attacking to attempt to injure a specific limb or other body part by taking the appropriate penalty to Hit as listed below in parentheses. A miss results in a total whiff as usual, but a hit means that the blow lands on the appointed area. If a body part is especially lacking in protection, the GM may suspend part or all the armor bonus and/or damage resistance when you attack that weak spot. If the body part is particularly well-protected by armor (i.e., a chest-plate pretty well protects your chest), the GM may apply the corresponding armor or natural armor bonus as damage resistance against the called shot when checking whether the part is Injured or Crippled.
- Critical Hits: When a Crit is scored, even if it's not confirmed, the GM will roll a d10 and consult the table below to determine where the fortuitous blow landed. If the target has run out of the appointed part, the die is rerolled.
Traumatic Damage
A body part is Injured when it takes a hit greater than 1/5 the creature's HP maximum, or Crippled when it takes 1/3 its max HP total. This damage must occur in a single attack or full attack, from a single source combatant. An Injured body part which is Injured again becomes Crippled. A Crippled limb which gets Crippled again, or an undamaged limb which takes twice the Crippling damage (2/3 of the creature's max HP) is broken off. If this would happen to your chest or stomach, instead increase the damage of that attack by half. If this happens to your head or neck, you are just dead.
The penalties are divided into Injured and Crippled by a semicolon below. Something which gets Crippled also takes the effect of being Injured at the same time. A standard penalty is -2, minor being -1 and major being -4.
- Eye (-10): Attacks and perception checks; Blindness.
- Head (-5): minor Reflex, Will, and BAB; 1 negative level and dazed for 1 minute.
- Neck (-6): Bleed damage equal to creature's base Con bonus (minimum 1) for 1 minute; 4 Con damage.
- Chest (-4): 1 Con damage; Staggered.
- Stomach (-4): 1 Str and Dex damage; Nausia and inability to hit clutch freethrows.
- Arms (-5): Major any weapon attacks using that arm; major CMB/CMD.
- Hands (-6): Cannot attack or use item with that hand; minor CMB/CMD.
- Legs (-4): Major Acrobatics checks and Stealth, and cannot run or charge; 1/2 movement speed
- Feet (-6): AC and Touch AC; 1/2 movement speed.
- Abdomen (arthropods only) (-4): Nausia for 1 round; Nausia.
When one of your body parts gets injured, you are Shaken for 1 round (Fear effect, Will DC 16 to resist). If something gets Crippled, you are instead Stunned and prone for 1 round (Fear effect, Will DC 20 to resist).
Surgery
The HP loss is easy to repair with magic, but body parts remain injured or crippled until surgery is performed to correct deeper damage. The conditions listed above which don't have a listed duration remain indefinitely without surgical correction. First, you have to deal the patient 1/5 or 1/3 its HP total in damage to the chosen injured part using a tool at hand as appropriate for the level of damage. Then, you must perform a Heal check to fix the lingering problem; the DC is 18 for injured parts, or 22 for crippled. Such a procedure takes 30 minutes. A failure causes the subject 2 Con damage and doesn't relieve the condition. You can retry the check, but the Con damage and HP damage remain as normal.
Speedy Combat, or, Quarrel Time
When both sides have the option to escape and aren't resolved to fight for the death, securing the advantage early means everything. Whoever gains the upper hand starts a runaway trend of remaining strong and weakening the opponent. When every move counts, goofing around with the full move-attack-argue-roll cycle gets silly and tedious.
Speedy Combat runs in half-rounds, with each turn lasting about 2 or 3 seconds. That's enough time for a Standard action or a Move, but not both. Effects which have a duration measured in Rounds do indeed last for twice as many Speedy rounds. No game board is needed; just a diagram of who is on the front line (bogged down in melee combat), and who is Mobile. Everyone starts out Mobile, and for all purposes you are considered to be within 30 feet of everything else.
In Speedy Combat, each combatant has the chance to react to the actions of its enemies to aid teammates and further disadvantage the less tactical contingent. First, starting with the slowest combatant, everybody declares their action. The faster fighters get to specify their plans after they've heard what the slow pokes want to do. Then, the actions are resolved in order of speed, and those who successfully intercept their opponents impose a penalty on their activities.
The Speedy Combat Round:
- Initiative: Each combatant rolls initiative. That's right, there's a different order each turn.
- Declare: Starting with whoever rolled lowest and moving upward, each combatant describes its chosen action for the turn, using pithy details to amp up the tension, and then declares its action from the following list. Each combatant must have a written note visible to all players denoting the action and the target in order to be considered done with this step.
- Ranged Attack or Ranged Spell Attack: Declare a target first. If you are on the Front Line, one opponent there may change its action to a Melee Attack even if it's already declared a different action. If for some reason you need to be closer than 30 feet for your attack (but not necessarily within Melee range), you can draw that close to a chosen combatant without significant trouble. This has to be an attack or spell which takes a Standard action at most.
- Melee Attack or Melee Touch Attack: You declare a target and move to the Front Line if you aren't there already. Unless your target Backpedals this turn (whether before or after you, see below), it is moved to the Front Line too, and you can make your attack during the Resolution phase after its turn. You can try a Combat Maneuver instead of a regular attack. If the target Backpedals successfully, it eludes you this turn and your attack fails. This has to be an attack which takes a Standard action at most.
- Backpedal: If somebody tries to move you to the front line to melee your face, or if you want to leave the Front Line, you can attempt to get some distance. If no enemies are on the Front Line with you when it's time to Resolve, you back up without issue. If there's an opponent who wants to keep their hands on you, if your speed is higher than the opponent's, you succeed and become Mobile. If you are slower, you must succeed on an Acrobatics check with the DC being the difference in your speed and the opponent's +10. Failure means you stay on the front line.
- Intimidate: Declare a target and make a standard Intimidate check. This disrupts one combatant if successful; see below. You can intimidate from the Front Line or from range.
- Other: Whatever it is, ask the GM. It might provoke AoO if you are on the Front Line, just like using a ranged attack (see above). If it takes a full action, expect to be told it takes up two Speedy rounds, and you'd better make Concentration checks if martially molested during the process.
- Resolve: In order from highest to lowest initiative result, resolve the actions. If you successfully attack a target before its action is resolved and in some way damage or disrupt it, it takes a cumulative penalty on all d20 rolls during its resolution equal to either your HD or one-half the damage dealt, whichever is higher. This damage instead forces a Concentration check on castings. Each combatant must be detailed with a written note saying whether their action succeeded or failed in order to be considered done with this step.
- Morale: Each team in combat decides whether to run or fight. Each combatant may be frightened enough to lose its nerve if it and its allies are beat up. Each side has to add up its Oh Balls Factor (OBF), which is the sum of:
- Number of failed actions on your team this round minus the number of successes you guys had.
- 2 if at least half you are Bloodied.
- 2 more if everybody's Bloodied or worse.
- 2 more if at least half you are either disabled or have fled.
Throw 2d4, and if the result is strictly less than your OBF, your whole team suffers -2 to all d20 rolls for the following round due to demoralization.
A Chase may ensue if one side chooses to run and the other to pursue. Your team may then discuss (in character, of course) your prospects, the perversity of random chance, the similarity of this situation to the pit under an outhouse, and whether you ought to break and run or dig in for the long haul. A Chase is variant Skill Challenge, but we'll dash madly across that bridge when we reach it.
- Break and Run: If your team tries to leave and the opponent doesn't want you to, before you enter a Chase scene or move on with your lives, you must get all your Front Line teammates Mobile through additional rounds of Speedy Combat.
- Dig In: You guys pile in and start moving tactically. The enemy team may see what's happening and attempt to run; in that case, resolve the attempt as detailed under Break and Run. If they are amenable to digging in as well, switch from Speedy Combat to regular combat after rolling initiative at the top of the next round.
Library Research Minigame
Researching involves the pursuit of specific data which cannot be exhaustively proven to be absent from a library until every book has been thoroughly read. As the players explore a library, they must consider that the chance of successfully finding clues about their research goal decreases as they run out of likely sources and move deeper and deeper into the shadowy obscurity of the stacks. However, hidden gems of specific knowledge cannot be found in the promulgated textbooks on the subject; one must delve into more obscure and niche works for such secrets. Wonder and mystery and cobwebs lurk in the bowels of any edifice of learning, and the desparation needed to propel students thence is more often rewarded with labyrinthine detours than with final success.
Per subject, the specificity of a book is inverse to its scope of topics, and its specificity is proportionate to its rarity. You can find very vague info in an encyclopedia, or very useful info in a dedicated book on the topic, but it's way unlikely to find the latter compared to the former. Now, different weak clues can come together by synthesis to form a new conclusion, so that checking a new encyclopedia may still be valuable. You can exhaust a library beyond any likelyhood of remaining data by searching for logically-related titles. The value of continued searching per time decreases as you go along.
Order of Play
Each round of the Research minigame represents 4 hours of in-game work. Other researchers may conduct concurrent researches.
- Each researcher selects a Research Goal to work on. You can either seek general knowledge about a subject, or seek the answer to a specific question.
- Each researcher selects a valid Category for his research goal, and then chooses a remaining die in that category from the dice pool for that goal. All researchers sharing the same project have the same basic books at hand, and so they share the same dice pool. See Dice Pool below.
- Each researcher performs their Research roll. If you are just seeking general knowledge, the GM will provide you with an explanation of the topic with a depth of detail appropriate in obscurity for your check. If you seek to answer a specific question about a topic, the GM will either tell you the answer to your question if your check result was high enough, or he will give you a clue of appropriate value to lead you closer. See Research Rolls below.
- Resolve any Encounters in the Stacks. These may be pointless or perilous, intricate or straightforward. Nobody can tell what's lurking in The Stacks until they encounter it and remind it to keep it down for the students. What might you find? Probably weird aliens. And demons. Like a million demons. And undergraduates in varying states of insanity and decay, lost for years in the dread dusty jungle where knowledge replaces nature.
Dice Pool:
The capacity of a library to provide leads on a research topic is represented by a dice pool. Each die represents one
level of specificity within one subject field or category.
Categories: There is a category for each type of Know check except the stupid one: Arcana, Engineering and Mathematics, Geography and Trade, History and Culture, Nature and Science, Nobility and Politics, Planes, and Religion. Now, for any research topic, only certain few of the categories bear a chance at giving a hint toward your actual goal; the DM will decide on 4, 3, 2, or even just 1 of the categories to be valid for any given goal.
Level of Specificity: In each category, every library can be searched in each level of specificity assuming that you can't reasonably just read every scrap in the whole place. Each level of specificity is represented by a die of one of the standard sizes:
d4: Encyclopedias. d6, d8: Primers or textbooks. d10, d12: Treatises or research papers. d20: Manuscripts.
Research Roll:
When a Research check is made, it expends one die from the library's dice pool of a chosen category and level. That die cannot be rolled again in that library for that specific research goal for 1 year. For every 4 hours of searching, each player may make 1 research roll either as part of the investigation or as a supporting search. Select a category, and then select a die size which hasn't yet been expended from the pool. Successes in other categories can add used dice back to the pool for the valid categories (see Support, below). Roll a die of the chosen size. A success is achieved if you roll exactly a 1, and the value of that success is determined by the dice size. If you get a roll of 8 or higher, you may have an Encounter In the Stacks (GM's discretion) and waste time. On a success:
- Investigation: Add 20 + the library's Library Bonus (see below) to the size of your chosen die, and consider that you've just passed a Know check of the chosen category with that result. You learn a detail of appropriate obscurity about the subject.
- Supporting Search: You may return one expended die of your chosen size or smaller to one of the other Know categories so that it can be rolled again on a subsequent round. This represents opening a linked path of inquiry to support the main search. To use this, the player must make up the details he found in his category and how they bear on the main search subject.
Library bonus: +1 for each volume of library equivalent to a large-size house. +1 per full-time librarian who keeps the place organized. Township libraries may have a bonus of 0-2. Municipal libraries may reach 2-4. Universities come in around 4-6. If a library has a couple of areas of specific interest, bonuses on those categories may be higher by 1 or 2.
Getting Help: Finally, each Librarian on duty can be accosted for their help; you may attempt a Diplomacy check (DC 15+half the chosen dice size) to get help on one research roll. This can only be used on rolls of d8 or larger. That roll succeeds on a 1 or a 2, instead of 1 only. Each librarian will only help this way once per research topic or once per day, whichever is less time-consuming. Failing your diplomacy check blows your chance for the day and topic as if you had succeeded. You may have to wait until another day for different librarians to be on duty.
The Speedy Combat Round:
- Initiative: Each combatant rolls initiative. That's right, there's a different order each turn.
- Declare: Starting with whoever rolled lowest and moving upward, each combatant describes its chosen action for the turn, using pithy details to amp up the tension, and then declares its action from the following list. Each combatant must have a written note visible to all players denoting the action and the target in order to be considered done with this step.
- Ranged Attack or Ranged Spell Attack: Declare a target first. If you are on the Front Line, one opponent there may change its action to a Melee Attack even if it's already declared a different action. If for some reason you need to be closer than 30 feet for your attack (but not necessarily within Melee range), you can draw that close to a chosen combatant without significant trouble. This has to be an attack or spell which takes a Standard action at most.
- Melee Attack or Melee Touch Attack: You declare a target and move to the Front Line if you aren't there already. Unless your target Backpedals this turn (whether before or after you, see below), it is moved to the Front Line too, and you can make your attack during the Resolution phase after its turn. You can try a Combat Maneuver instead of a regular attack. If the target Backpedals successfully, it eludes you this turn and your attack fails. This has to be an attack which takes a Standard action at most.
- Backpedal: If somebody tries to move you to the front line to melee your face, or if you want to leave the Front Line, you can attempt to get some distance. If no enemies are on the Front Line with you when it's time to Resolve, you back up without issue. If there's an opponent who wants to keep their hands on you, if your speed is higher than the opponent's, you succeed and become Mobile. If you are slower, you must succeed on an Acrobatics check with the DC being the difference in your speed and the opponent's +10. Failure means you stay on the front line.
- Intimidate: Declare a target and make a standard Intimidate check. This disrupts one combatant if successful; see below. You can intimidate from the Front Line or from range.
- Other: Whatever it is, ask the GM. It might provoke AoO if you are on the Front Line, just like using a ranged attack (see above). If it takes a full action, expect to be told it takes up two Speedy rounds, and you'd better make Concentration checks if martially molested during the process.
- Resolve: In order from highest to lowest initiative result, resolve the actions. If you successfully attack a target before its action is resolved and in some way damage or disrupt it, it takes a cumulative penalty on all d20 rolls during its resolution equal to either your HD or one-half the damage dealt, whichever is higher. This damage instead forces a Concentration check on castings. Each combatant must be detailed with a written note saying whether their action succeeded or failed in order to be considered done with this step.
- Morale: Each team in combat decides whether to run or fight. Each combatant may be frightened enough to lose its nerve if it and its allies are beat up. Each side has to add up its Oh Balls Factor (OBF), which is the sum of:
- Number of failed actions on your team this round minus the number of successes you guys had.
- 2 if at least half you are Bloodied.
- 2 more if everybody's Bloodied or worse.
- 2 more if at least half you are either disabled or have fled.
- Break and Run: If your team tries to leave and the opponent doesn't want you to, before you enter a Chase scene or move on with your lives, you must get all your Front Line teammates Mobile through additional rounds of Speedy Combat.
- Dig In: You guys pile in and start moving tactically. The enemy team may see what's happening and attempt to run; in that case, resolve the attempt as detailed under Break and Run. If they are amenable to digging in as well, switch from Speedy Combat to regular combat after rolling initiative at the top of the next round.
Library Research Minigame
Researching involves the pursuit of specific data which cannot be exhaustively proven to be absent from a library until every book has been thoroughly read. As the players explore a library, they must consider that the chance of successfully finding clues about their research goal decreases as they run out of likely sources and move deeper and deeper into the shadowy obscurity of the stacks. However, hidden gems of specific knowledge cannot be found in the promulgated textbooks on the subject; one must delve into more obscure and niche works for such secrets. Wonder and mystery and cobwebs lurk in the bowels of any edifice of learning, and the desparation needed to propel students thence is more often rewarded with labyrinthine detours than with final success.
Per subject, the specificity of a book is inverse to its scope of topics, and its specificity is proportionate to its rarity. You can find very vague info in an encyclopedia, or very useful info in a dedicated book on the topic, but it's way unlikely to find the latter compared to the former. Now, different weak clues can come together by synthesis to form a new conclusion, so that checking a new encyclopedia may still be valuable. You can exhaust a library beyond any likelyhood of remaining data by searching for logically-related titles. The value of continued searching per time decreases as you go along.
Order of Play
Each round of the Research minigame represents 4 hours of in-game work. Other researchers may conduct concurrent researches.
- Each researcher selects a Research Goal to work on. You can either seek general knowledge about a subject, or seek the answer to a specific question.
- Each researcher selects a valid Category for his research goal, and then chooses a remaining die in that category from the dice pool for that goal. All researchers sharing the same project have the same basic books at hand, and so they share the same dice pool. See Dice Pool below.
- Each researcher performs their Research roll. If you are just seeking general knowledge, the GM will provide you with an explanation of the topic with a depth of detail appropriate in obscurity for your check. If you seek to answer a specific question about a topic, the GM will either tell you the answer to your question if your check result was high enough, or he will give you a clue of appropriate value to lead you closer. See Research Rolls below.
- Resolve any Encounters in the Stacks. These may be pointless or perilous, intricate or straightforward. Nobody can tell what's lurking in The Stacks until they encounter it and remind it to keep it down for the students. What might you find? Probably weird aliens. And demons. Like a million demons. And undergraduates in varying states of insanity and decay, lost for years in the dread dusty jungle where knowledge replaces nature.
Dice Pool:
The capacity of a library to provide leads on a research topic is represented by a dice pool. Each die represents one
level of specificity within one subject field or category.
Categories: There is a category for each type of Know check except the stupid one: Arcana, Engineering and Mathematics, Geography and Trade, History and Culture, Nature and Science, Nobility and Politics, Planes, and Religion. Now, for any research topic, only certain few of the categories bear a chance at giving a hint toward your actual goal; the DM will decide on 4, 3, 2, or even just 1 of the categories to be valid for any given goal.
Level of Specificity: In each category, every library can be searched in each level of specificity assuming that you can't reasonably just read every scrap in the whole place. Each level of specificity is represented by a die of one of the standard sizes:
d4: Encyclopedias. d6, d8: Primers or textbooks. d10, d12: Treatises or research papers. d20: Manuscripts.
Research Roll:
When a Research check is made, it expends one die from the library's dice pool of a chosen category and level. That die cannot be rolled again in that library for that specific research goal for 1 year. For every 4 hours of searching, each player may make 1 research roll either as part of the investigation or as a supporting search. Select a category, and then select a die size which hasn't yet been expended from the pool. Successes in other categories can add used dice back to the pool for the valid categories (see Support, below). Roll a die of the chosen size. A success is achieved if you roll exactly a 1, and the value of that success is determined by the dice size. If you get a roll of 8 or higher, you may have an Encounter In the Stacks (GM's discretion) and waste time. On a success:
- Investigation: Add 20 + the library's Library Bonus (see below) to the size of your chosen die, and consider that you've just passed a Know check of the chosen category with that result. You learn a detail of appropriate obscurity about the subject.
- Supporting Search: You may return one expended die of your chosen size or smaller to one of the other Know categories so that it can be rolled again on a subsequent round. This represents opening a linked path of inquiry to support the main search. To use this, the player must make up the details he found in his category and how they bear on the main search subject.
Library bonus: +1 for each volume of library equivalent to a large-size house. +1 per full-time librarian who keeps the place organized. Township libraries may have a bonus of 0-2. Municipal libraries may reach 2-4. Universities come in around 4-6. If a library has a couple of areas of specific interest, bonuses on those categories may be higher by 1 or 2.
Getting Help: Finally, each Librarian on duty can be accosted for their help; you may attempt a Diplomacy check (DC 15+half the chosen dice size) to get help on one research roll. This can only be used on rolls of d8 or larger. That roll succeeds on a 1 or a 2, instead of 1 only. Each librarian will only help this way once per research topic or once per day, whichever is less time-consuming. Failing your diplomacy check blows your chance for the day and topic as if you had succeeded. You may have to wait until another day for different librarians to be on duty.
Table of Contents
Hero Points Earning a Nerd Bonus Bodily Harm Speedy Combat Library Research MinigameRemove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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