The Exalted Hack
It is version that combines the simple rules of Black Hack with everything else I have liked about different versions of DND. So, the rules are explained in simple language and details are handled by the Gaming Table. This version was made in order to have what we like of old-school; simplicity and the toughness of a harsh world; and what we like of the new-school; multiple character choices and interesting abilities.
How do you play it?
The Dungeon Masters create scenes in a fantasy world where your characters must complete adventuring work. The DM sets the scene pieces and players do their part without script or real preparation, presenting dialogue or action on their part. In other words, the game is a constant conversation between narrator and the protagonists of a fantasy story. Now, when there is an obstacle, something uncertain happens in the middle or it is necessary to test players, we ask for checks. That is to roll 1d20 and roll under attribute to have a success over enemies, over the value for a failure, a 1 for a fantastic success or a 20 on the die which is terrible failure.
What die to use?
We use the die to determine the result of a check. 1d20 is the general resolution dice. Then, there is 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10 and 1d12 which are used to indicate damage, healing, a number of creatures summoned, or the result of a random table roll. The dice are used as indicated.
Protagonists and NPCs
Protagonists are the main characters interpreted by the players. NPCs are the other players controlled by the DM or the player. When someone is mentioned as a creature, it refers to protagonists and PCs.
Taking Turns, Scenes and a Session.
A turn is approximately 10 seconds of an action scene where two or more factions are struggling with each other. In moments such as that, every creature gets a turn when their group takes the initiative. In a turn, a creature can move its speed and do an action. Also, some complements are accepted such as taking out a weapon as part of an attack action or uttering some expressions as part of the movement. When taking turns there is the active creature who is the one taking the turn, and the reactive creature who is everybody else at that time. Whenever an active creature attacks, a reactive creature may attempt to defend herself using the proper attribute value to save.
A scene is a more abstract moment of the story where the situation or place does not change much, it can be use for creatures to do special actions such as preparing traps, have a long conversation, craft some particular items or take advantage of item given. Time may be handled different in scenes. They can be background events that happened in long spaces of times, hours when traveling or going around a city, or minutes when exploring a dungeon.
A session is a complete collection of scenes played on one sit game. It normally takes somewhere between 2 to 6 hours or more depending on the gaming group. They can be seen as chapters of a book or the episodes of a series.
Relative Time
When traveling or in town, the time may scale up to days or hours, the rule of a turn still applies, in that period of time they can do one action and movement, but what can be considered to be accomplished is greater. This keep scenes moving and avoids characters trying to up one another in scales done. Then, scene is passed and the creatures may engage. So turns here can be seen as an "acting turn". Anyhow, it is up to the DM how to divide narrative among players.
The DM Turns
The DM will respond to protagonist's actions by narrating consequences, describing scenes or taking turns for other creatures nearby. Of course, protagonist may try to protect herself from danger using her attribute saves checks or reactive abilities. DM Turns represent consequences of the player actions.
Resolving Actions and Attributes
In most parts, protagonists may do most of what they narrate they do. It is when dangerous moments, obstacles or challenges are present that a check may be needed. A check is done by a Protagonist rolling against its attribute value. The attributes are used in different contexts of the narrative:
- Strength: Used for physical prowess, athleticism, escaping bindings and carrying weight.
* Each point of STR gives you 1 carrying space.
* Roll it when attacking or parrying with melee weapons.
* It is a requirement for using certain weapons or armor.
- Dexterity: Proper for measuring agility, speed, moving silently, reflexes and hand tricks.
* Roll it to dodge range attacks.
* Roll it when attacking with precise melee weapons or range weapons.
* Your base speed depends on it:
DEX 8-9: 25 Speed
DEX 10-13: 30 Speed
DEX 14-16: 35 Speed
DEX 17+: 40 Speed
- Constitution: Represents how much damage you can handle, physical health and dying.
* Your HP is Constitution + 1 Maximum HD + Level
* Roll it when resisting poison, diseases, necrotic effects and similar.
*When your HP is gone, Constitution receives damage. This is called, lethal damage. Lethal damage creates shock incapacitating the character. When a character receives lethal damage, it starts receiving 1 damage per turn until healed or death. Constitution damage is only recovered 1 per long rest; certain magic and abilities may make this better.
- Intelligence: Values your memory, education, problem solving capacity and research.
* Your Intelligence determines your initial languages. You may speak common and another language fluently originally. On INT 12 gets you 1 extra language points; INT 14 gets you 2 extra language points; INT 16 gets you 3 extra languages points; 16+ gets you is 4 extra languages points. With 1 point, you speak and read the language with certain difficulty; with 2 you can speak and read the language fluently.
* Certain Arcane magic characters use Intelligence to cast spells.
* Your Intelligence is key to do research on spells, rituals, projects and other skills.
- Wisdom: Measures your perception, capability to do mundane jobs, discipline and mental fortitude.
* Base perception. Any act of being alert, discovering strange places, detecting and ambush and guiding depends on this attribute.
* Certain Divine magic characters use Intelligence to cast spells.
* Resist all mental effects such as insanity, low-morale, fear, pain or fatigue
- Charisma: Exposes your social skills, performances of the arts and capacity to lead.
* Social reactions rolls are made to make certain characters hostile, weary or unease by your presence, with a good roll, you may avoid violence and get to a truce.
* Certain Occult magic characters use Charisma to casts spells.
* Leadership governs company's moral and internal conflict handling.
The Protagonists are the ones what always check against her attribute value. 4 possible outcomes can come from this.
- Roll a 1. You achieve critical success your intention and something extra happens in your favor.
- Roll under the attribute target: You achieve your intention as expected.
- Roll over the attribute target: You fail wasting your turn in the process.
- Roll a 20: You fail spectacularly. You fail and the DM makes you lose gear quality, precious time, receive a counter-attack or something else DM will decide what.
Extra Rules: Your roll may have Advantage or Disadvantage, when this happens, you roll one extra die an use the better one for the first and the worse one for the latter. If you have any combination of both Advantage and Disadvantage, the roll is normal. This could also apply to any other die.
Attribute Limit: All attributes may go up to 18 when upgraded. 18 and 19 are always considered failures and 20 a mayor blunder. 18 on any attribute makes you a particular talented character. Still, a character may get 17/18 to avoid being affected by -1 values making penalties or getting some passive abilities with the score. In the same logic, no attribute through penalization or other means is rolled below 4. 3 and 2 are always successes, and 1 critical success.
+ or -: Value always affect the Attribute target in the number indicated. It never changes the result of the d20 die. The idea is that having a target determined is easier as a mechanic and let's the player what to do.
Other Rolls
There might be need of other type of rolls that befit better the narrative situation:
X or nothing: This is a high stakes roll that a DM may put out there for fun. A player may negotiate a final attempt to kill an epic boss, a way to send a genie to another world or any fun interaction. The DM may then say a X or nothing. Which means, beyond Players abilities, he is here to get a high danger, high reward situation. The DM may assign 1 or nothing, 5 or nothing, 10 or nothing; this means that any result over that results in a terrible blunder. Both DM and Players have to agree to roll that.
Elaboration Roll: Characters may have personal projects they are working as the narrative goes. This projects are called elaboration, it may be about romancing a character, crafting potions or fixing their armor. The DM gives a number of points based on the time it should take 1 if it hours, 3 for a day of work, 5 for a week, 20 for a month and many more for a year. The character then dedicates its time off many narrative or just in a fast scene, developing something of interest. Every success gives 1 point to accumulate in development, a critical success gives them 2. A blunder would be -1 or a price to pay. Also, there may be other requirements to complete them such as money, a reputation level or special actions. This is fast and loose rule for crafting, getting contacts, drawing a map, establishing a shelter and so on. When they get to their goal, they obtained what they worked for; and can keep working on something else.
Group Rolls: Instances where all the creatures in a company are together in the same check, they roll as a group against their own attribute. A result of half or superior number of successes gives the group a general successes. Critical success gives +1 successes and blunders -1. If the party gets more successes than members, it is a critical success. If the party gets more failures than member, it is a critical failure.
Secret Rolls: A way to play the game is keeping certain rolls in secret. This creates a more natural environment and avoids Protagonist working with meta knowledge. This should be rolled by DM. Other rolls may be considered in secret if the context deems it necessary.
PVP: Player (Protagonist) versus player (Protagonist) situations are determined by rolling against each other. The active player must have at least a success. The reactive player must The winner roll is the lowest result that is a success. Two failures result with nothing changing in the outcome, just a loss of time. Two critical rolls count as a regular success for the active player.
NVN: When there is a need of rolls between NPCs, just assume the difficulty is 10. The NPC needs 11 or more to have a success. If the NPC is a follower, they roll the Charisma of their leader when she is present or just 10 - level beyond 1 of the follower, whichever is better.
Powerful NPCs: When you consider there is a really fearsome enemy due to its power, experience or any narrative element is represented by dividing the attribute value of the throw is halved. This means that the creature is beyond the simple powers of the players. This is perfect for Big Bad Evil, demi-gods, epic characters and so on. Characters on level 20 are considered epic and do not suffer this penalization.
Surprise
When there is an encounter, the first thing to do is to determine surprise. The player's company and any other enemy number are divided in battle groups, if a battle group can do an assault from either stealth or because an fast ambush, they get a surprise turn which is really deadly. The surprising battle group gets a turn for all the members of the party.
On a turn, you get an action and a move. An action is an attack, use of skills, use of items or any relevant interactions. Many small interactions have the descriptor as part of ..., this means you can do that as well as your action, attack or etc.What can you do as part of an action? You may pick up an item,
Initiative
To see who how first, the company rolls a group Wisdom check, on a number of success equal to half the team. The players start the round. On failure, you go after them. Initiative is check every round until the encounter ends. This is meant to vary the order of actions and represent the chaos of combat. When the protagonist company goes, they either go in the order they want or simply go from the highest DEX score to the lowest. All characters must finish their action and move before another can go.
Movement and Distance
A creature moves its speed as a move, and may dash by adding her action to move again her speed. Humanoid speed is considered basic overland speed. Swimming, climbing or crawling can be done by humanoids, but it is limited, non-natural so speed is halved by taking 10 feet instead 5 feet per square or step.
Special creatures may have actual flying, swimming, climbing, crawling or even teleporting value. When a creature has a speed, it means the creature can actually move naturally in that way.
Distances are adjacent (melee, 5ft), close (reach, 10 ft), half-move (15 ft), a move (30 ft), distant (60 ft), faraway (90 ft) and beyond (95 ft+). There are more distances than in the original, but they are understandable and related to the narrative. DM may choose to handle any detailed in beyond distance combat, as in cover, target-ability and so on.
Attacking, Defending and Damage
To attack, a creature must be in the appropriate distance of the weapon. For a regular melee weapon, the enemy would have to be adjacent. For a throwing weapon, half a move. An bows up to faraway.
Protagonists roll their attack with the respective attribute. Melee and throwing weapons use Strength, bows (and precise weapons may) use Dexterity, magic attacks use their magic attribute. When protagonists attacks, they have 4 possible results:
- Roll a 1. You critically hit doing your regular damage + one maximum weapon damage die; ignoring any other extra damage dice.
- Roll under the attribute target: You hit and do your damage.
- Roll over the attribute target: You fail losing the action.
- Roll a 20: You fail spectacularly. You may be counter-attacked, lose your guard, fall down or something bad happens.
To defend, you must be on-guard which means you are on your two feet and you can defend yourself, other wise you receive automatic damage. As a defense, you can parry using your melee weapon with Strength, or Dexterity if you use a precise weapon. You dodge range attacks with Dexterity, or Constitution if you are wielding a shield. Other magic means may use a different roll. When protagonists defend, they have 4 possible results:
- Roll a 1. You defend from the attack and may counter-attack once. Other 1s do not trigger more counter-attacks.
- Roll under the attribute target: You defend from a single attack or half-damage from area attacks.
- Roll over the attribute target: You fail losing the action. Receive the creature's damage.
- Roll a 20: You fail spectacularly. The attack gets +10 damage if it is single and +5 if it is an area attack.
Whenever a creature receives damage, they resist being incapacitated using their HP. It represents the capacity to handle a beating, pain and being over-whelmed. When HP hits 0, the character receives lethal damage that reduces Constitution and is in shock, incapacitated. If Constitution hits 0, a NPCs dies or incapacitated, depends on the DM or attacker's objective; for a Protagonist you lose Constitution with any extra damage and 1 extra per turn that the objective is not healed. Healing restores HP, not Constitution. Constitution 0 equals dead.
Weapons: Give character a better damage dice. There are three types of weapons: light, martial and heavy. Light weapons can be used by anybody. Martial weapons require training and adds +1 damage to the die. Heavy weapons require training and adds +2 damage to the die. No training in the weapon results halved attribute value to hit.
Armor: Equipment may give you protection. It is a value that reduces a value from each different attack. Regular armor reduces weapon damage, it does not reduce magical damage. Magical armor, however, does. Critical hits may reduce armor's quality instead of doing extra damage. Up to the DM.
Damage and Dying
Your HP represents your capacity to avoid lethal damage. HP combines toughness, blocking incoming damage, knowing how to survive situations and luck. When it falls to 0, you are incapacitated and out of game. You are stable, and knocked down for 1 hour. After that, you can recover 1 HD to recover.
If the damage goes beyond 0, you receive lethal damage. This damages your Constitution points. You are here dying and receive 1d4 damage until your are healed. The same with effects like bleeding, they require a healing action to stop the effect.
If your Constitution hits 0, you die. The same with any attribute, any attribute 0 means losing the character, but in each attribute it means something different. Strength 0 means dead of starvation, hunger or disease. Dexterity 0 means you are paralyzed permanently or too clumsy to move by yourself. Intelligence 0 means you become a character with cognitive limitation. Wisdom 0 means you are now possessed, controlled, under a charm or no longer follow your own will. Charisma 0 means you hideous or a personal trauma does not let you go in public.
Recovery
Superficial wounds, most damage received, can be healed by common magic, medicine or rest. You heal 1 HD per hours rests.
Deep wounds, damage done with critical or special attacks, can only be healed with treatment. This damage affects your attribute values reducing them. You recover 1 Attribute point per 8 hour's rest, 2 if you are receiving proper care. Some extremely expensive potions, spells or effects may help you beyond that.
Other Actions
Actions during an encounter can be any relevant interaction. Most common actions are attacks, using items, casting a spell, opening a door, activating a lever, using a skill or similar. As part of an action you can change one light weapon, martial weapon or shield. Heavy weapons require an entire action.
The DM may switch these rules as needed per setting.
Maneuvers are attacks that instead doing damage, they create limitations effects to other enemies. There is no limit but what you can come up with narratively. The most common are disarming, take down, push, pull, slow or grapple. All maneuvers are roll with disadvantage, unless the character has it trained or the objective is off guard.
Inventory and Usage
In this hack, the usage dice is checked to see if the quality of an item is reduced. The quality of an item goes from 1d4 to 1d12. It can also indicate the bulk of a potato bag. The two mechanics here are spend and use. When you say spend, just reduce the value of the item automatically. If it says usage, you check its die value, in a 1 or 2, the quality is burned. Depending of the item, it is spent or used.
A character can carry a number of spaces equal to its Strength value. Similar objects may share same spaces if they are smaller. This simple measurement serves to determine how many things can be carried. A 100 silver is 1 space. Having more items than spaces, penalizes the character with -5 feet speed and can be fatigued every hour. Clothes do no take spaces. Bags, bandoliers, pockets and other containers serve for the process of protecting the items, but it does not give more space. Certain animals and transportation can handle even heavier containers. Warehouse, deposit and houses can handle a big number of spaces. Containers are limited for units of big cargo like units of wood, coal and other materials or objects.
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