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Rule of Cool's "Legend"
DrakeRaids
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Seems like a new group by the name of Rule of Cool has just finished work on a cool new RPG called 'Legend'. Its a d20 variant with some interesting twists, their classes and take on multiclassing is of particular interesting, I think. I hadn't really seen much like that before. Anywho, I hadn't seen any topics up talking about it, so I thought I'd throw a link up here. Its currently operating under a "Pay what you want", and it can be downloaded here if you're interested.
Also, all the money from it is going to childs play! Which is awesome!
Also, all the money from it is going to childs play! Which is awesome!
Thought of the Week: Incoming Fire has the right of way
~III ONLY A FOOL CLAIMS TO KNOW EVERYTHING BUT FEAR NOTHING III~
~III ONLY A FOOL CLAIMS TO KNOW EVERYTHING BUT FEAR NOTHING III~
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Plus, they've also got donation incentives, where free DLC is released at certain donation thresholds, such as new tracks, new settings, new adventures, and extending the pay what you want period.
First off, the unsettling sense of superiority throughout the book really turned me off, especially in the opening section, where they flat-out claim that their system can't be broken. (There's no way a system like this can be unbreakable, and people have to realize that it's okay.)
Second, the multiclassing system is actually less flexible than 3.5 or your typical d20 game. You're still stuck with the same hit point bonus, the same BAB, all you get to do is trade one of your class ability tracks out for one class ability track from a different class.
Third, the feats could REALLY stand to be named better. The 'On a Pale Horse' feat has nothing to do with being mounted, it simply lets you force some will saves onto nearby enemies when you kill a foe. There's some that are sensibly named, and some that are sensibly named and simultaneously mildly amusing, like Epic Flail(grants reach to your Flail attacks. Handy!)
It could really use some better formatting, but on the other hand, it's a searchable pdf, so hey.
I'd rate it a 5/10. It's a solidly average product with a couple of neat ideas, but it just doesn't stand out in any interesting way. I don't like 3.5 standard, but I'd probably play it over this,
I don't see it state anywhere that things can't be broken; just that there has been a conscious effort to make sure that people are relatively balanced and everybody at a given level is about the same strength.
I don't think that BAB, saves, or hit points are really all that relevant compared to abilities! While stats like BAB or hit die are by no means minor, there's a huge difference between a cleric and a druid in standard 3.5, and they've got the same BAB, saves, and attack bonus. Abilities are far more relevant to a character than their basic stats.
I may be wrong, but I believe "On a pale horse" refers to the fact that Death rides on a pale horse. So you're terrifying.
It fixes many of the issues of 3.5, especially balance, while reducing the complexity and increasing multiclass flexibility (especially for caster-type characters, who are relatively locked into their class+PrCs). Is there anything in particular you are unclear on, or think that 3.5 does better?
Yeah, I heard down the pipeline thats one of the things they're going to be trying to get out in the next round of edits. Its been brought to their attention, and they're going to do something about it. I noticed that a few times too, but I don't recall them calling it unbreakable.
~III ONLY A FOOL CLAIMS TO KNOW EVERYTHING BUT FEAR NOTHING III~
They actually just say that it is their paradigm that no character will be the "best" or "worst" overall. That's not quite the same thing, and is pretty obviously true if you read the system; there's almost no way to make a character that can do everything another character can do, but better (excepting if you do something intentionally silly, like copy another character's build but replacing a key feat with a feat for a different archetype.
Batshit. Crazy. Awesome.
It's like if D&D was made by going "How can we make this more awesomely ridiculous?" every step of the way. The game is pushed to eleven in the area of just accomplishing ridiculously big and amazing stuff, like running around with fast healing and whirlwind attacks at level 3.
Feats are done awesomely (they just give you something cool, and often big, instead of minor effects) the class track system is neat, as is multiclassing through it, plus racial tracks. I love how they handle items, giving you a limited amount of items with awesome powers, in addition to being able to replace 90% of your item use with ANOTHER track, giving you four tracks instead of 3. Combined with racial tracks and multiclassing, you can make some crazy shit with that with those 3 to 4 options. There's even a bunch of tracks that are independant of class, just to give you even more options.
Monster design is kinda cool, though it suffers from not having a bunch of premades. (You basically make monsters the same way you do as PC's, typically picking a racial track and a class) so while you can make neat stuff with it, it's a little harder to just whip something out on the fly.
Definitely recommend taking a look at this, at least while you can look for free. Or just buy it, it's for a good cause and the more people donate, the more bonus content is released! Every $250 donated gets the "free look" date pushed back two days, so be sure to check it out while you can!
When I read the concept section and it had "Wizzard who constantly runs away" I had to go back and up my contribution by 10 bucks.
They've struck a pretty good balance between 3.X's exhaustiveness and 4e's conciseness. I feel like this is a good middle-of-the-road approach.
I'll be running a playtest on the forum here, I believe I already am full up on interest for players, it will be a quick silly romp.
Stay tuned~
Question!
Why didn't Wizards just hire you guys to begin with?
Seriously, it looks like a great game. Honest question: Do you folks have any plans for major distribution, or a schedule of when a final product will be available for sale (if the full book(s) are already for sale, I missed that).
Well, basically until Legend, I'd never designed anything at a professional level before. In many ways, working for Wizards on D&D is akin to working on core map/reduce infrastructure for Google, as they represent something of an apogee for a career.
We'll eventually work something out with DTR or RPGNow, and we expect to leave Beta for RC1 by early February, and commit to a 1.0 around mid March. At the moment, the full(ish) book is what's available.
Hmm, guess I'll run through the other random questions
Looking for playtesters?
At all interested in user-developed content?
Any ideas on things you want to add to the game with future products (like a race or class that you guys want to do but feel needs more development time)?
User-developed content is a thing we love, and some of it has already ascended to canon-status. There's even a conversion of the famous Red Hand Of Doom module in the works.
Combat Alchemist has been under works for a while now, so that counts.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around some of the mechanics as far as multiclassing and all that. Just gotta read through it enough times (while not distracted by other things).
Also, in the bonus Legendary ability article, there's a power (Summoner) that lets you summon a single minion at a level lower than you. Is this the same kind of minion as the later Legendary Power, "Minions" or is it a minion in the style from the Mooks bonus article?
Basically you get 3 slots for ability tracks medium slow and fast. Each class has default tracks in those three slots.
When you multi-class you choose one of those slots and replace it with a track from another class. The new ability progression is then at the same rate as the replaced track even if it is different from the new one.
Special races choose a track to replace with their racial track and have attack and defense abilities chosen by race not class, but they still chose a base class.
For example you could replace the medium pace Rage power of a barbarian with the slow paced Bag of Tricks from the Tactician. Bag of Tricks would then progress at the medium pace.
At a higher level you could use a feat to even triple class by replacing another ability slot.
As a note though that would fundamentally change the barbarian class.
Also you can give up magical item progression to get a fourth slot if you do not want to give up any powers.
I think these are valid player characters:
Orc Barbarian-Sage
Level 1
KOM (Str) +4
KDM (Con) +2
Hitpoints 12
str 18 (16) (+4)
dex 14 (+2)
con 14 (12) (+2)
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 12 (14) (+1)
Path of Rage (Medium)
Rage +2 str +2 Max hps -1 armor +1 fort/will Lasts 5 rounds
Arcane Lore (Slow)
Black Tidings (level 2) 1d4+4 damage in two shapes
Path of the Ancestors (Fast)
Lesser Resillience +1 healing from others
Feats
To Iron Married(Racial) Critical strike on 18, 19, 20
And My Axe: Bonus damage with Axes
Abilities
Darkvision
+1 to Athletics(Racial)
Skills
Intimidate (Cha) 1+1=2
History (Int) 1
Ride (Dex) 1+2=3
Athletics (Str) 1+1 +4=6
Nature (Int) 1
Items
Heavy Armor +2 armor -1 reflex
Shield +1 armor
Battleaxe 1d8+4 damage
Shortbow 1d8+4 damage
Lesser Items
Trained Riding Wolf (Negotiated with GM, bonus movement?)
Silver Dragon
Level 1
Str 14
Dex14
Con 10
Int 12
Wis10
Cha 16
KOM (Str) +2
KDM (Cha) +3
Hit Points 10
Esoteric Radica (fast)
Playing it right: bonus to bluff and stealth
Spellcasting (Tactician) (medium)
Cast 1st circle spells
Fortune's Friend (slow)
A little to the left: avoid death blow once per encounter (level 2)
Dragon (medium)
Agility- Wings of War, Natural Weapons 2d6+2
Special Abilties
Silver Dragon
Darkvision
Feats
Wings of War - Flight at normal movement speed
The Earth Cracks - Tremmorsense
Deft Strike - Larceny check to ignore damage reduction
Skills
Bluff 1+3=4 (+10)
Arcane 1+1=2
Stealth 1+2=3 (+10)
Larceny 1+2=3
Acrobatics 1+2=3
Items
Light armor +1
Natural weapons 2d6+2 damage
And for some reason a Skeletal Champion Paladin using Cold Elemental attacks.
Level 1
KOM Str +3
KDM Dex +1
Str 16
Dex 12
Con 12
Int 10
Wis 16
Car 10
Protection: The seven Circles of Bastion(Medium)
The Shield - Any beneficial spells effect effect all allies within 10 feet
Undead (Skeleton Champion) (slow)
Consumption - On a Pale Horse - Fear checks from deathblows (level 2)
Judgement(fast)
The Knowing
Elementalist (Cold) (Wis) (Medium)
Elemental Burst 1d6+3 cold damage t a 5ft square at [close] range
Feats
Skeleton Champion - Bonus to attack and defense with swords
Master of Swordplay - Use the feat Simply Smashing with a sword
Skills
Perception (Wis) 3
History (Int) 1
Athletics (Str) 4
Arcana (Int) 1
Riding (Dex) 2
Items
Heavy Armor +2 armor -1 fortitude
Greatsword
Longsword
Tower Shield
Longbow
Skeletal Steed (normal horse)
That last one is terrible since healing effects will damage him while healing living allies. But whatever.
I'm toying with Full Buy-in and Multiclassing. As I understand it, if you're MC'd from the start, you can use Full Buy-In to gain a track from your MC'd class. Is that correct? I'm using this concept to toy with effectively dual-classed characters. Trying to see how I like the combinations.
Or I could just play a Paladin MC-Sage with Full Buy-In Vigilante. Magically summoned sword and armor!
The more powerful races being balanced by use of the tracks is a clever idea, but there's inelegant about how it's done. It might just be the race determining the attack and defence stats, which is just odd as I don't see what it achieves other than muddying the waters between class and race a bit more than was necessary.
I agree that it still could use some work in explanations and presentation. While I don't recall running into anything yet that was "okay, this is just vague/inconsistent" there are some parts that aren't rock solid. Things like "okay, I am pretty sure I know what they mean but..."
I'm really not sure how to feel about the racial MC tracks. On the one hand it's very interesting, but on the other hand it can be a bit confusing.
Also I'm not sure I love the core setting, but it's definitely interesting and unique.
According to the developer who posted above, it's still not finished yet. Sounds like they're aiming at March for a finalized version.
We just brought two more editors on board, actually, and we're adding a master table for the idea of tracks. Race-as-class isn't really necessary, but it does win us a lot of the monster books. By marrying multiple sets of racial stats to a single racial track, we can define whole families of monsters. It's really worth it.
Could I get some page examples of what you found unclear so we can zero in on this?
That's accurate.
Another question that came up during character design: The Legendary ability "Indestructable" says it halves all damage taken: is that before or after Damage Reduction? DR says "when you would take damage from a physical or untyped source, it is reduced by a specific amount" while the Legendary ability says "You take half damage from any non-elemental source" so which do you apply first?
We are working on it, I'm just not terribly happy with the design of modern-day forums.
It's a Mook.
Oof, we don't seem to have a formalized precedence here for operations, which is super bad. As it sits, DR gets applied after, which leads to many Indestructibles being just that. I'll have to do some math, but I think maybe is not so great.
The donation counter doesn't seem to have been updated for awhile: I hope it's a glitch and not a result of people not donating.
Well, from what I've read so far. Now I just have to play this thing somehow.
From response to my quick offer, I have you, @Undead Scottsman, @Silas Brown, @Tox and @Solar so when I put up a thread it will be your opportunity first.
EDIT: Here's another question I noticed, for the Consumable Item Gloss Armor, it says it gives you 2 damage reduction per "circle you possess". Is that supposed to be per level of circle, or per total circles? Because a full buy-in character would wind up with more damage reduction than an item-using character.
EDIT2: I guess 2-14 extra damage reduction isn't giantly huge if you're already getting 6-42.
@JakeKurzer: I noticed in the multiclassing section it said that certain tracks cannot be traded for multiclassing, but I didn't see a list of forbidden tracks anywhere. Also on the point of multiclassing, are you able to swap multiple tracks? As in I make a Paladin, swap out Dedication for Battle's Tempering and replace Oaths for Path of the Ancestors?
Plus being an Alaskan is it's own punishment. It's -9 with the windchill at the moment.