Why is it I want a feat or proficiency system so much?

Why?

Is it that I want to have a way to mechanically differentiate two PCs of the same class?

Is it just that I was that impressed with ACKS's handling of familiars?

I kind of wish I could just let it go because it causes me more angst than I'd quite like.

Races for ACKS, part 1: The classics

I don't necessarily dislike race as class, and for sure ACKS has one of the best implementations of it. But you know, sometimes it isn't what I want. It's nothing wrong with me, and it's nothing wrong with ACKS, it's just good to have alternatives. So here's an alternative that I hope you'll find to your tastes. I'm not going to impose any class or level limitations on you because as far as I'm concerned, it's just not my place. Each race, in addition to their other benefits, has a list of proficiencies that they may treat as general or class proficiencies, whichever would be more beneficial at the moment.

Dwarves: Dwarves gain the effects (and extra XP cost) of having a Dwarf value of 0 added to their class. Due to their short stature, dwarves may never use two-handed swords or longbows, regardless of their Fighting Value.
Dwarven Proficiencies: Armor Training*, Caving, Craft, Dungeon Bashing, Dwarven Brewing, Engineering, Goblin-Slaying, Illusion Resistance


Elves: Elves gain the effects (and extra XP cost) of having an Elf value of 0 added to their class.
Elvish Proficiencies: Alertness, Beast Friendship, Familiar, Naturalism, Passing Without Trace, Swashbuckling, Wakefulness, Weapon Finesse

Halflings: Due to their short stature, halflings may never use two-handed swords or longbows, regardless of their Fighting Value. Few halflings are experienced in adventuring, so even player character halflings begin without the Adventuring proficiency and must purchase it at the cost of a single proficiency.

A halfling value of 0 adds an XP cost of 150

At Halfling 0, all halflings gain the following powers:

• Like dwarves, halflings are Hardy people and reduce the target values for saves vs. blast/breath by 3 and the target values of all other saves by 4. 
• Halflings are also strong-hearted and reduce the target values for saves against any sort of charm, fear, or mind-control effect by an additional 2 points.
• Halflings have Keen eyes and gain a +1 bonus to attack throws when using thrown or missile weapons.
• Outdoors, Halflings are tricky to spot, having the ability to seemingly disappear into woods and underbrush with a proficiency throw of 10+ on 1d20. In dungeons, a halfling who is motionless and quiet in cover can escape detection with a proficiency throw of 18+ on 1d20. 

Halfling Proficiencies: Adventuring, Alertness, Climbing, Combat Reflexes, Contortionism, Knowledge, Naturalism, Passing Without Trace, Skirmishing

Humans: Humans do not incur any additional XP cost, and furthermore they begin with one additional proficiency due to their natural capacity for learning. Humans do not have any additional racial proficiencies.

I dunno, this is just an idea I dashed off over the course of an hour for the hell of it so I wouldn't mind hearing some feedback about it.

New Monster: Concept Elemental

I hate the elemental planes.

There. I said it.

Now I don't hate them quite as much as the great wheel, but they still smack of a bunch of dumb symmetry to me. I just don't like it. The 4e Elemental Chaos is a little better, but even then it's not what I need.

So what are Elementals in my mind? Simple: animistic spirits. Nature kami. Which raises two questions. First, is there an elemental for the part of nature which is living? We'll come to that one in a moment. Second, is there an elemental for things that are part of the experience of sapient creatures? It is this which is the subject of my post. I found my answer in, of all places, Dungeon World, which just goes to prove that anything is a sourcebook if you have the right mindset. Here's the monster as DW presents it in its entirety.

Concept Elemental Solitary, Devious, Planar, Amorphous

Special Qualities: Ideal form

The planes are not as literal as our world. Clothed in the elemental chaos are places of stranger stuff than air and water. Here, rivers of time crash upon shores of crystal fear. Bleak storms of nightmare roil and churn in a laughter-bright sky. Sometimes, the spirits of these places can be lured into our world, though they are infinitely more unpredictable and strange than mere fire or earth might be. Easier to make mistakes, too—one might try calling up a wealth elemental and be surprised to find a murder elemental instead. Instinct: To perfect its concept

• Demonstrate its concept in its purest form

 So here's my attempt to give you the Concept Elemental. I will include a dozen subtypes as examples, following in the manner of Dyson.

• Lesser Elemental (Summoned by Staff) – 8 HD, AC 2, 1d8 damage
• Greater Elemental (Summoned by Devices) – 12 HD, AC 0, 2d8 damage
• True Elemental (Summoned by Spells) – 16 HD, AC -2, 3d8 damage
• Legendary Elemental (Summoned by Ritual) – 20 HD, AC -4, 4d8 damage

Standard concept elementals take forms both hard to describe and yet immediately recognizable as a symbol of the concepts they embody, 1′ tall and 1′ diameter per hit die. They move at a movement rate of 120′ (40′). Damage from concept elementals is increased by 1d8 points against targets who are currently experiencing that which they embody.

Unlike other elementals, all concept elementals have a subtype reflecting just what state of being or thought that they are born of. A spellcaster can learn (typically via a quest or magical tome) how to summon a particular subtype of elemental. In this case, if the proper environment is present, the summoning will always bring forth the desired subtype, but otherwise the kind of concept elemental called upon will be completely random. A spellcaster can learn how to summon a number of subtypes equal to 1/2 his level.

Unless otherwise indicated, any spell-like abilities are treated as being cast by a spellcaster with a level equal to the elemental’s Hit Dice. Some spell effects are from the Advanced Edition Companion (in bold) others are from the ACKS Player's Companion (underlined). In parentheses will be listed the circumstances in which a creature takes extra damage for them

• Wealth: Create objects as an Efreet (Carrying more than 100 GP/level in money, precious metals, or gems on their person)
• Murder: Death attack after three rounds of study, target must save vs. death. (Creatures that have killed in cold blood or for selfish reasons)
• Dream: Hallucinatory Terrain, Phantasmal Forces, or Sleep 1/round. (Creatures that are unconscious or asleep)
• Terror: Fear or Phantasmal Forces 1/round (creatures that are afraid, whether magically or because they failed a morale check)
• Peace: Sanctuary 1/round (Creatures who have made an attack in the last turn)
• War: Weapons used against it may stick to it, as an Iron Living Statue. (creatures wielding weapons)
• Madness: Attacks cause Confusion (Creatures that are Confused, charmed, or under the effects of an illusion, or are actually insane)
• Truth: Dispel illusions 1/round (Creatures that have broken their word in the last year)
• Time: Attack randomly ages or de-ages target 1d10 years (Creatures that have been outside of or traveled in time-- or creatures that experience time at all if you want to be a killer DM about it)
• Size: Attack randomly increases (as Growth) or decreases size (as a potion of dimunition)
• Love: Charm Person or Charm Monster 1/round (creatures that are charmed or in love)
• Community: Allied creatures within 50' need never make morale checks and are immune to fear (People who are not members of the community it represents)

Monster Lore

An adventurer that doesn't know the first thing about monsters isn't a very qualified adventurer. At the same time you don't want your players to have the ability to game the system with knowledge their character isn't likely to have. So here's a rule I propose:

Monster Knowledge: Upon encountering a monster for the first time, have each player roll a die... the exact size is up to you but I'd say that it oughta be at least a d6 and probably no more than a d10. They know a number of important facts about that monster equal to the number they rolled. Start with the players who rolled lowest (come up with your own method of breaking ties), then keep going until you reach the person who rolled highest. Everyone who rolled the same or higher has a 4 in 6 chance of already knowing the same fact. Important facts equal things like one special attack or defense ability (troll regeneration, for instance), the number of them that tend to group together, basically any statistical thing that can be rationalized in terms of actual in-character knowledge. Creatures that have a reason to be obscure (for instance because they're extraplanar, very rare, or newly created) might grant a penalty to the roll.

If a character has a particular reason to know a lot about a given creature you might give him a bonus to the roll. If he's intimately familiar you might even let him ignore the "common knowledge" roll. This way your players are unlikely to go into an encounter completely ignorant of what they're facing. I mean surely they're not complete newbies, right? They've heard the campfire stories or read a few bestiaries or something. If you like you can have a chance of them knowing something false or trivial, but I wouldn't make it too high of a chance, the whole point is that PCs are reasonably informed about their own world.

Of Matters Divine and the Three Alignments

Tonight after pain keeping me from sleep, watching Excalibur of all things, somehow shotgunning all three Pathfinder bestiaries in a single night, and revisiting previous discussions with my brother, I think I might have finally cracked some things that have been weighing on my mind.

Gods: Both Law and Chaos have gods. Gods have a physical presence in the world. They are possible though difficult to take down (and it's harder still to bring down a god permanently). They are certainly beings of enormous power, but are neither omnipotent nor omnipresent.

Law: The gods of Law are reasonably consistent in form and power, and not entirely unlike the mortals that are their charges. Some mortals believe the gods of law created the world, others believe they created or bestowed sapience and free will on mortals, others believe they are merely self-appointed guardians of it. Not all lawful gods are nice or good, but many are at least one or the other. The ultimate goals of law are the continued existence of the world and the flourishing of civilization. To be lawful can mean to be cooperative or individualistic, to be rigid or flexible, to be authoritarian or liberated, but ultimately all Lawful beings wish for life as we know it to continue existing in a recognizable form.

Chaos: The gods of Chaos are more protean and singular than their opponents, though generally they have icky tentacles and slimes and things like that and are just nasty all around. Few wander free. It is possible that they are more powerful than the gods of Law, but as they are both rarer and unlikely to present a united front they are dismayed in their efforts to unmake creation. The ultimate goals of chaos are to reduce mortals to savagery or worse and to reduce the world to a blank slate the gods of Chaos may do as they please with. To worship chaos is to be destructively insane and evil on some level.

Neutrality: Neutrality is the alignment of nature. There are no neutral clerics or neutral gods. There is only the land, and The Dragon, and the druids. Unlike the gods, the Dragon cannot be said with certainty to exist (some even believe it to be more of a metaphorical being than a literal one), except inasmuch as the land and sea that its being suffuses is clearly real. Neutrality cares for life, but has no special allegiance towards civilization or to the mortals that make it up, seeing them as things that can (and indeed must) gradually change and adapt like any other thing that wishes to endure. There is a tendency towards belief in natural selection in Neutral philosophy. Neutral people see the Dragon as both creator and creation, the world and its maker are one to them. They teach that the world is defined by the interaction of opposite forces which exist in concordant balance. While they bear Law and civilization no ill, will they also hold that the Dragon maintains itself regardless of the comings and goings of mortals and gods alike (so long as they do not attempt to conquer it outright), and that Law has an overinflated sense of its own cosmic importance. Druids by and large do not show Chaos such tolerance, as the gods of Chaos have proven time and again that they have no regard whatsoever for the Dragon.

Unaligned: Most people are not in fact aligned with anything bigger than themselves or their friends and family. If the gods were to make war, Lawful beings would fight to protect civilization and mortal life, Neutral beings would fight to protect the world and the Dragon, and Chaotic beings would fight to eradicate all other things, but unaligned people would keep their heads down and hope that whoever survives the battle would just let them live their lives. Unaligned people tend to worship whatever gods or spiritual powers hold sway over the place they are in, whether that means singing hymns and passing around a collection plate at a lawful church once a week, or offering Cthulhu space in their dreams before a sea voyage.

Clerics: The very fact that they are not omnipresent is why the gods of Law and Chaos imbue representatives among the mortals, to go where they are not, see what they do not see, and act when they cannot act. The clerical orders of Lawful gods are set up not unlike a sort of feudal system, in which divine authority is delegated down through the ranks, along with the knowledge of magic necessary to fill the needs of a cleric's station. Adventuring clerics, then, are the knights-errant of this system, taking on more power and responsibility as their prove themselves. Many gods of Law emphasize that a cleric's fealty must be as much to the people as it is to their Lord, though others demand absolute, jealous loyalty to themselves. As to the gods of Chaos, they seldom form a hierarchy. Instead each Chaotic cleric is directly the servant of his god, granted power in exchange for the sacrifice of lives to feed their master's horrid appetite or quests undertaken to hasten their awakening. Chaotic clerics are encouraged to take all they can and keep for themselves what the gods do not demand for their own.

Druids: Holy people of Neutrality, known as druids, seek to exist in harmony with the Dragon. Druids are highly individual, though they afford wary respect to more powerful ones than themselves. Most druids are solitary, but not truly hermits, as they periodically enter settlements or tribal communities to attend to whatever matters they feel merit the visit. They view their magic not as a reward for service to the Dragon, nor a tool to do the Dragon's bidding, but merely the natural consequence of existing in harmony with it. Magic is an intuitive thing for druids, they just know it when they do it.

NEXT: Astral beings and those who serve them, Arcane Magic, and maybe Witchery

So I got Blood and Treasure.

A couple days ago actually, but I wanted to read the whole thing before I talked about it.

It's not bad. There are some very, very solid ideas in it. But oh my god there is so much of 3.5 in some places that it stressed me out to read. This is not likely to become my game of choice but there are plenty of things from it that I can make use of in a system that is closer to my needs-- some of which will probably result in a weird hybrid of that game and this one.

It's not D&D Mine, but it's about as close as something so descended from the SRD will get. If I spent a week or two taking a scalpel to it I might be able to get it the rest of the way, though, and there were many little bits of advice or charts that I'll pluck for my own games. So good work, Matt.

On hidden treasure

So I'm sure that if you read this blog, you've seen Wayne's post about hiding unguarded treasures. I sort of wanted to have a chart to go with, so here's d20 places to hide treasure. These are designed to be fairly straightforward ones that can be recovered with basic searching-- crazy stuff like being dissolved in acid ala Bohr's nobel prize is cool but we're going for simple and functional here, I believe in leaving truly unique stuff up to individual information, not random charts.

d20	Location	d20	Location
1	Behind a brick or stone in the wall	11	In the base of a statue
2	Behind a mirror, painting, or tapestry	12	Inside of a hollow statue or decoration
3	Bottom of a barrel, pot, or chest full of nonvaluable objects	13	Inside of a sufficiently bulky piece of furniture
4	Buried in a refuse pile	14	Invisible, but otherwise just out of the way
5	Disguised as something else by illusions	15	Lining the bottom of a pool or fountain
6	False bottom of an empty container	16	Loose floorboard or flagstone
7	False bottom of a drawer	17	Under a (false) pillar
8	Hollowed-out book or books	18	Under the seat of a privy
9	Hollow spot above a panel of the ceiling	19	Up the chimney of a stove or fireplace
10	In a room behind a secret door	20	Up the spout of a fountain

8/15: Well, who knew? Dyson had something similar a while back. I'm surprised none of these occurred to me. Told you lot he was cleverer than me.