Variant Rules: D

Rerolling and Selecting

At your discretion, the players don't have to be bound by any results from the following tables. Depending on how your group wants to use deep backgrounds, players can reroll any result they don't like, or even select a specific option from a table that fits their emerging vision of their character. However, if you allow players to reroll or directly select options (and potentially even if you don't), you might want to exclude options that grant feats other than skill feats; these options are unusual enough that they might put too much pressure on players to select only these options. Note that the following tables reflect the Core Rulebook and the Age of Graemorutaeth setting—if your game takes place in a different setting, feel free to adjust the tables or allow players to select the options that best fit your setting.

Step 1: Family Background

The word family means something different to everyone. You might have a biological family, adopted family, stepfamily, or any other kind and combination you choose; family bonds come in all types. To determine the number of family members you grew up with as an active part of your life, roll 1d% on the following table. Use the medium family for most ancestries, small if you're a half-elf or half-orc, and large if you're a goblin or halfling. For ancestries other than those in the Core Rulebook, use the column that best suits the ancestry. It's up to you whether these family members are parents, siblings, grandparents, or other close relatives.

• If you grew up with no family, you had to learn to survive on your own. Add a Strength ability boost and a Constitution ability boost to your options.
• If you grew up with one or two family members, your closeness to them made you highly aware of their feelings, and you. Add an Intelligence ability boost and a Wisdom ability boost to your options.
• If you grew up with three or more family members, you had to mediate family conflicts and negotiate a crowded home. Add a Charisma ability boost and a Dexterity ability boost to your options.

Step 2: Homeland

Where you grew up is highly formative. Roll on the following table to determine the nature of your homeland. If your character is a dwarf, subtract 3; if an elf, add 2; if a goblin, subtract 4. For ancestries other than those in the Core Rulebook, apply a modifier that best suits the ancestry, if needed. Work with your GM to flesh your homeland out in further detail. With any of these options, you add a Lore skill based on your homeland's terrain to your background options, such as Forest Lore for a wooded frontier or Shoumeistai Lore if you grew up in that city.

Step 3: Major Childhood Event

During your childhood, you were influenced by a significant event that helped shape the person you became. Roll on the table below to determine the type of event that shaped you.

Step 4: Veibrund Associate

You may have had several people who played key roles in developing their skills and personality, but one likely stands out as the most influential. Use one of the results below as a template to develop an NPC in deeper detail. Work with your GM to determine the current fate of this NPC and whether you can still call upon the NPC for aid.

Step 5: Relationships

This aspect of background generation determines the relationships you have with the other PCs and why your character might choose to adventure with them. This step is best performed when the entire group is sitting together and can generate and discuss these connections with each other. You should select another character and roll on the first table to generate an inspiring connection, then determine a different character and roll on the second table to generate a challenging connection. You might choose these characters randomly, or the group might decide that each character has an inspiring connection with the character of the player sitting to the left and a challenging connection with the character of the player sitting to the right.

Other players can reject a relationship connection they don't feel fits with their vision of their own character; in this case, pick another character or a different relationship. Even though you and the other characters share a connection, only you add the skill feats from the relationships you roll to your background options.

Background Deviant Abilities

A background deviant ability is a core part of a character's concept—a character may simply have been born with the power to light things on fire by whistling, or they may have gained it as part of whatever incident set them down the road to adventure.

When using background deviant abilities, the player should get to decide what type of deviation they want and build their power. As the player grows, they should be able to improve their deviant ability, whether through special training, seeking out objects of power, or self-improvement, represented as taking additional deviant ability feats.

If everyone in your party wishes to make deviant abilities a part of their character, or for a setting where these abilities are more common, consider using a variant similar to the free archetype variant rule to grant each character an extra class feat at 2nd level and every even-numbered level thereafter that they can use only to take deviant feats. In most cases, they can gain every possible deviant ability feat by 16th level in this fashion, so there's no need to grant extra feats after that.

Campaign Deviant Abilities

A campaign deviant ability comes about as part of the story of your campaign. The party may find themselves with strangely expanded senses after taking shelter beneath an ancient monolith, or they might drink from a spring of pure magic in a grove and find themselves able to command the elements. As the GM, you should decide the specifics of the deviant abilities yourself, matching them to the event and themes of your campaign. The players might not discover the full capabilities or quirks of their new abilities immediately. Consider waiting for a dramatic moment to reveal that a player has gained a deviant ability, perhaps letting them unleash an unexpected blast of lightning right when they need it the most.

Because a campaign deviant ability is normally only present for a level or maybe two, you usually don't have to worry about advancing the ability or adjusting campaign rewards to take stock of your PCs' additional powers. Rather, simply keep in mind that the players might have an extra source of damage or utility ability up their sleeve while they are in a given town or dungeon. Be clear with your players that their newly acquired abilities are temporary; for instance, it might be that the powers the players gained from the ancient monolith will fade once their journey takes them too far. If a player enjoys their deviant ability and wants to keep it even after the moment in the campaign has passed, work with them to develop a story that fits their character—maybe they take a piece of the monolith with them, letting them keep their powers. In this case, you can give them the opportunity to retrain some of their existing feats into deviant ability feats or let them take those feats again in the future.

Deviation Saves and Attack Rolls

Many deviations allow for a saving throw or have other abilities that change as you go up in level. The DC for any saving throw called for by a deviation is the higher of your class DC or spell DC. The attack modifier of a deviation is 10 lower than that DC, unless the deviation calls for a Strike, in which case the attack modifier is the normal attack modifier of the Strike. A deviation's counteract modifier is equal to your counteract modifier.

Backlash

The same blood that lets one of the dragon-descended spit out a gout of flame is precisely what keeps the inside of their mouth from being singed in the furnace. Deviations, unfortunately, lack these safeguards, their powers coming from haphazard circumstance and interactions rather than intentional design. A character using their deviation always risks the chance of backlash.

Whenever you attempt to use a deviation, roll a DC 5 flat check. On a success, you use your deviation and the DC for subsequent checks increases by 5, to a maximum of 20; on a failure, you use your deviation and then suffer a backlash effect, after which your flat check DC resets to 5. Backlash progresses from mild, to moderate, to severe. When you have already taken mild backlash in a given day, the next time you would take backlash, you take the moderate backlash instead, and if you have already taken moderate backlash, you take the severe backlash instead, and your deviation can't be used for the rest of the day—attempting to use it simply brings pain. When you make your daily preparations, your flat check DC returns to 5 and your next backlash returns to mild.

Any effects from backlash can't be reduced, prevented, or otherwise bypassed. Conditions and damage you take from backlash can't be reduced or prevented by resistance or immunity, but still triggers any weakness you have to it.

Awakened Powers

A deviant ability's unstable nature means it can grow in power at a later point, responding to a stressful moment or continuing to evolve along a mysterious path. "Awakening" lines in deviant feats represent possible paths the power's awakening can take. You don't gain the awakening unless you take a feat that grants you those benefits. You can gain only one awakening for a given deviant feat.

Universal Feats

These feats are useful for any deviant ability user. If you're using the background approach, you can select these feats regardless of your classification.

• Awakened Power
• Greater Awakened Power

Dragon[–]

Deviant abilities often trace their origin to massive concentrations of energy, such as being at ground zero of a detonating magical artifact. These energies can linger within an individual to grant them deviations falling under the dragon classification—gouts of flame, electrical breath, and the like—projecting and absorbing it to great effect.

When you gain a dragon-type deviation, choose a type of damage, from cold, electricity, fire, or sonic. All abilities you gain from this deviation deal this type of damage and add the corresponding trait to the ability. You also use this damage type for the damage and weakness from your backlash.

• Blasting Beams
• Consume Energy
• Storming Breath
• Propulsive Leap

Troll[–]

Especially common when a deviant ability is born of scientific experimentation, the troll classification connotes improved physical abilities. While often thought of as biological mutation, clockwork implants and personal magical enhancements are equally likely mechanisms.

• Bone Spikes
• Titan Swing
• High-Speed Regeneration
• Tectonic Stomp

Wraith[–]

Wraith-type deviations often result from contact with otherworldly presences or artifacts, comprising a strange assortment of abilities that involve realms beyond our own.

• Eerie Flicker
• Ghostly Grasp
• Enervating Wail
• Distant Wandering

No two deviant abilities are exactly alike, and even when two characters gain the same ability in the same event, individual factors like age, ancestry, and personality alter how their abilities manifest. Every deviant ability has one or two quirks, determined when the ability is gained. If playing with background deviant abilities, collaborate with your player to decide the quirk, maybe each suggesting one. If playing with campaign deviant abilities, simply pick quirks that fit the story or roll randomly.

You can also use the quirks on Table 5 as a guide to invent new ones for your players. These quirks don't normally have any mechanical effect, since their purpose is only to alter minor details of a power to make them stand out, though they may have narrative implications on occasion. If you want to give a quirk a mechanical effect, it should never grant more than a +1 status bonus or –1 status penalty, and even then the statistic or check it applies to should be narrow and not in the direct control of the character with the quirk.

Spells

Dual-class spellcasters get full access to all the spells of any spellcasting classes they have. For instance, a sorcerer/wizard gets five cantrips in their spell repertoire from sorcerer, five prepared cantrips from wizard, three spontaneous 1st-level spell slots from the sorcerer (with three 1st-level spells in their repertoire), and three 1st-level prepared spell slots from wizard (or four, for a specialist). They keep these spells entirely separate and get the full benefits of both spellcasting class features, even if both classes use the same tradition.

Classes with focus pools get all the Focus Points granted by all of them. These share one focus pool as normal, with the standard cap of 3 maximum Focus Points.

Character Advancement

A dual-class character gains the class feats and class features for both classes at each level as they advance, with the exception of ability boosts, general feats, skill feats, and skill increases—the character gets each of these benefits only once per level, since both classes would provide the same benefit. (A dual-class rogue/ranger still gets the extra skill feat and skill increase at levels where the other class doesn't provide them.)

If a character gains the same proficiency rank in a statistic more than once, they still use only the highest rank. In the example above, when the cleric gets Alertness at 5th level, they wouldn't change their Perception rank, since it was already expert due to the ranger's initial proficiencies.

Compete Alone

It's customary that each participant must compete alone and may receive no help from outside sources.

However, some duels pit pairs of combatants against one another (either all together or as tag teams)

Limited Tools

The participants agree to the tools, including weapons and magic items, before the duel starts. Most combat duels that don't involve magic limit participants to melee weapons and prohibit the use of poison. Some duels forbid the use of polearms and other reach weapons. A spellcasting duel might agree upon a roughly equal number of magic items, and a cap on the power (in game terms, the level) of the items. Some spellcasting duels might prohibit certain types of spells, such as summoning or necromancy.

Duration

Combat duels typically last either until first blood (hitting and dealing damage) or until one of the duelists is knocked out. Most duels allow a participant to yield, which means they concede victory to their opponent, though sometimes this could diminish their social standing. Duels of talent usually involve several equal turns in which the duelists display their ability.

Adjudication

Most duels are overseen by a third party who ensures the duelists don't break the duel's rules—inadvertently or by cheating. Where duels are legal, this is typically a constable or magistrate. In other places, a cleric or other respected figure serves as judge. Typically the GM plays the judge.

Initiative and Dueling Actions

Unlike in typical combat, the duelists roll initiative checks at the beginning of each round of combat. Each round the combatant can choose to use Deception, Intimidation, or Perception when they roll initiative. Because a duelist might act twice in a row, durations that last until the beginning of a duelist's next turn might function oddly. A duelist acting second can choose to avoid such abilities that turn, or can choose to act second if they win initiative on the next round.

If the duelist is at least trained in whichever initiative choice they pick, they gain the corresponding dueling reaction that round: Bullying Press for Intimidation, Deceptive Sidestep for Deception, or Sense Weakness for Perception. Neither duelist is aware of what type of roll the other used for initiative—surprise and the use of dueling actions are a part of dueling strategies. Familiars and companions, even when allowed in the duel, can't use these actions, nor can bystanders.

Ending the Duel

The duel ends when the duel's judge confirms the victory condition, when the judge determines one of the duelists has cheated, or when one of the duelists yields. Note that if either of the combatants attempts to continue the duel after its end, the combatants should roll initiative and proceed with normal combat.

Initiative and Dueling Actions

In most cases, each duelist rolls initiative normally and proceeds in that initiative order throughout the duel, unlike in a combat duel. Each duelist can roll an Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion check instead of Perception. If they are trained at that skill, they gain the tradition focus of that skill, which allows them to hone in on a certain magical school corresponding to the check they made for their initiative roll. They also gain the Dueling Counter reaction, which enables a duelist to counter their opponent's spell if their tradition focus matches the tradition of that spell.

They also gain the Change Tradition Focus action, which changes the duelist's tradition focus to a different tradition.

Familiars and companions, even when allowed in the duel, can't use these actions, nor can bystanders.

When mixing a spellcasting duel and a combat duel, use the initiative rules for combat dueling, but allow the duelist to roll Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion for their initiative checks. They still gain the Dueling Counter reaction and Change Tradition Focus action, though Change Tradition Focus is less useful in combat duels.

Ending the Duel

Just like a combat duel, a spellcasting duel ends when the duel's judge confirms the victory condition, when the judge determines one of the duelists has cheated, or when one of the duelists yields. As with a combat duel, if either of the combatants attempts to continue the duel after its end, the combatants should roll initiative and proceed with normal combat.