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 Post subject: Secondary Skills
PostPosted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:35 am 
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I’ve been working on additional secondary skills trying to use the basic/intermediate/expert levels as per the Players Guide.

I wanted to make use of material in the Dragon Warriors rules that is normally not available to the character (although the player may know it well) to represent those from a more scholarly background such as priests and sorcerers.

The secondary skills I have come up with so far are:

Bestiary
Gives knowledge of chapters in the Dragon Warriors Bestiary book depending on the skill level. This represents study of such renowned tomes as the scholar-monk Ecgirc’s Entire Compendium of Creatures Malign & Mischievous.

Basic: Animals Tame & Wild
Intermediate: Men & Man-Like Creatures, Monsters of Legend
Expert: The Supernatural, Creatures of Sorcery, Infernal Creatures, The Undead. Knowledge of Demons from the Demonology Profession will require an intelligence test even at expert level unless this knowledge is gained using the rules as per a Demonologist. This knowledge is extremely rare even for the well-read!

Lands of Legend
Grants knowledge of the contents of chapter 14 in the Dragon Warriors Rule Book depending on the skill level.

Basic: Knows details of own country
Intermediate: Knows details of own and neighbouring countries. The GM may rule that countries that are a short distance apart may count as neighbouring even if they do not share a common border.
Expert: Has read many books on geography and the Lands of Legend so has full knowledge of chapter 14.

Lore of Legend
The player is well read or has heard many amazing tales from those well learned on myths and legends. This gives knowledge of chapter 15 of the Dragon Warriors rulebook and artifacts from chapter 13
Basic: Knows details of six items
Intermediate: Knows details of an additional 10 items (16 in total).
Expert: Is well versed in the Lore of Legend so has full knowledge

The GM may allow knowledge of additional Lore to suit their campaign.

Edit: Artifacts from chapter 13 may also be selected.


So what do people think of these? Would you do them differently? Also what other secondary skills have you come up with? Share them here so we can build a repository of additional secondary skills!


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 Post subject: Re: Secondary Skills
PostPosted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 8:55 am 
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In my own games, I've already introduced a Heraldry skill (and will soon be introducing a Herbalism skill). The Heraldry skill is based around these levels:

Basic: Can identify if a shield (or complete coat of arms - much rarer) follows the rules of heraldry and is therefore likely official. Can identify the device of their own nation and major nobles within it, and also the devices of neighbouring nations. Will also additionally be aware of the arms of the noble of the area they were raised in, and their most immediate neighbours. Can identify a primary mark of cadency (denoting an elder son). No particular familiarity with heraldic language, will tend to describe shields by the vernacular. I know that the green snake on the blue and red background is Montombre's arms. I've no idea what the bird in the nest is, but this person is probably related to the Montombres - or the son of somebody who is.
Intermediate: Can identify the arms of all major families in their own Kingdom and of the major orders. Familiar with all augmentations and abatements in standard use in their Kingdom, can identify all marks of cadency (although may get confused with the lower ranking ones). Familiar with basic heraldic terms. He's related to Montombre, obviously but the Pelican is the mark of a southern Baron... Cranwell. He can't be that closely related to the Earl - at most some sort of cousin./
Expert: In addition to the above, will be able to identify the arms of all noble families (minor and major) in their own Kingdom, as well as any well known Knight, Guilds, and minor Orders. Will be able to identify accurately any information contained on the coat of arms (ie, will be able to decipher impalements or quartering to determine relationships quite precisely) May even be able to identify individuals if they are bearing their own arms. "His grandfather was a Montombre, who married a Cranwell.... No - it must have been his great grandfather because of the label. Without that, those are the arms of Sir Gristen Cranwel - this is his eldest son. Good Knight! My name is Sir Aradian Foxworthy and my mother is your father's cousin - as you can no doubt see from the scallop argent on my shield!'

(Bear in mind, in my games, Heraldry can be very important!) and tends to get worked out in a lot of detail.

I haven't yet decided exactly how i am going to handle Herbalism.

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Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide


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 Post subject: Re: Secondary Skills
PostPosted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 9:36 am 
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Herbalism is an interesting one. If I may make a humble suggestion I would suggest something along the following.

Basic: At this level the potential herbalist can identify various types of herbs growing in the wild areas and have a good idea of each herb can do to the bodies of humans and livestock. Herbs could be found, identified and cultivated successfully. "Oh a Wyrmwort, it is said that it gives ye' great stamina if you knows wots I mean"

Intermediate: After learning more about cultivating or harvesting herbs the herbalist has now the ability to know how to prepare the plants to get the best out of them. "Ye gots to boil that wyrmwort for a few hours so ye can then drink the infusion" This level of proficiency would know whether the herb could be ingested, distilled or any other manner of preparation in which the items can be best readied for consumption.

Advanced: This level of proficiency could deal with manufacturing simple salves, ointments, unguents and distillations which actually have some form of practical use from one or more harvested herbs. For example -1d4 days before the natural healing process kicks in for recuperating. Slight bonus to first aid in the form of an extra HP gained or even negative effects could be attained like temporary blindness or paralysis which would fit in with the poison rules if some adventurer wandered into an inn that liked to rob it's potential customers. Suffice to say, at this level the herbalist can actually make something that has a mild effect. "Ye were up all night with that wyrmroot brew, weren't ye!"

Just a humble suggestion that may give you some ideas, please disregard or subsume at will.

Kindest regards.


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 Post subject: Re: Secondary Skills
PostPosted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 10:20 am 
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Marn wrote:
Just a humble suggestion that may give you some ideas, please disregard or subsume at will.

Kindest regards.


It certainly looks like a workable approach in general - but in my own game it's probably going to be different. That's mainly because back in the 1990s I wrote a 'netbook' on Herbalism for RPGs (mostly D&D variants) that is still floating around the web and has a surprising number of people still using it in AD&D and D&D games. I also produced a sort of version of it for Dragon Warriors.

And in the near future, I am planning on redoing it - almost from scratch (a necessity to avoid Copyright issues which didn't matter much in a free netbook, but would matter in something I actually intend to sell) - for publication, and I'll be using it in my games as well (the 'Dragon Warriors' version will be free, of course).

I think it's far too complex for most DW games, and I like your idea as a general approach - but in my own campaign, some of the players have got used to the complex herbalism rules and seem to like them.

There is also a Herbalism skill (which I wrote) in Cadaver Draconis that I think could be reasonably adapted to a Secondary skill.

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide


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 Post subject: Re: Secondary Skills
PostPosted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 10:33 am 
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Aye that's fair enough. Maybe someone will get some use out of it. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Secondary Skills
PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 1:56 am 
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One of my players is using the Herbalist rules from the wiki as a secondary skill. They have none of the extra abilities just the identify plants and brew concoctions part.

I've suggested to make it work with the new system that basic is you can identify plants from the climatic region of your country of origin. Intermediate add another region, expert you can identify plants from any region.

I'm not sure if that will work but it seemed a fairly simple approach to me.


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 Post subject: Re: Secondary Skills
PostPosted: Thu Sep 17, 2015 4:37 am 
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Dreadnought wrote:
(Bear in mind, in my games, Heraldry can be very important!) and tends to get worked out in a lot of detail.


I've been persuaded to mention this here - I'm not entirely sure I should 'advertise' my non-DW writing on here, but as people can get this for free if they want to (although it would be really nice to get paid for some of my writing at some point...) I have just put a 'Guide to Heraldry for Roleplayers' up on DriveThruRPG.

I would have liked such a guide to be available when I first started getting interested. I've tried to produce something that is detailed enough without getting too detailed (which, initially, was the problem I had when I started learning all of this).

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/156791/A-Guide-to-Heraldry-for-Roleplayers

In the relatively near future, I intend to start producing some adventures that will be statted for either Pathfinder or D&D3.5 but which are based on some of the DW adventures I've run over the years, so should be pretty easily useable in DW games. The main reason I haven't done this so far if not being sure what to do about cover art - I've no money for that. I'm hoping that maybe some of these other projects will give me a little spare money that can be used for that.

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide


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