Nasu/Only War - A WHRP homebrew

[ltfrankie]

Since July, I've been working on and off on a homebrew RPG that lets you play a game set in the Nasuverse. I know there's plenty of people who think a Nasuverse RPG would be better off with a looser system, but it's working out fine. Things I can't possibly stat will not be stat'd. For example, Noble Phantasms: I gave a rough crunch/fluff benchmark and suggestions. I could maybe do a generic weapon-creating system for a weapon profile that doesn't include made up abilities, but that's the furthest I could possibly go.


Nasuverse/Only War



Right now, I've been focusing on magic. The hardest thing about thinking up magic for the Nasuverse is actually thinking up the spells and keeping them vaguely close to the description of the magecraft/element. Since I need magic worked on before I can focus on Primate (term I use for Non-Servants since it's the closest term I can think of) generation/rules, which

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EDIT: Changed the first post somewhat. I've also long since decided to make this a Nasuverse RPG in general than just being Fate specific.

Updates since forever ago when I was last consistently working on it:
1. Earth & Metal Magecraft, along with more Boundary Fields, Petrification & some Flame Magecraft.
2. Added over 97 weapons from the antiquity to 15th century. No, I didn't make them. The translation from Italian isn't complete, but it's mostly leglible instead of being awful when you put it through Google/Bing translator. Yes, that's a shit-ton of weapons compared to primitive weapons being an afterthought to FFG.
3. Finally got around to doing shotgun ammo. I'm using the modern weapon stats based off what Alexander Deg-something did for that STALKER RPG.
4. Armor will be split between Magical, Trauma (melee attacks and arrows/bolts), Bulletproof and Natural Armor. The last one won't be a big deal, but certain weapons ignore the AP of certain armor. So a sword will fuck up a soldier without any trauma plates. I need to differentiate between magical armor that's vulnerable to normal attacks and ones that aren't, though. Maybe Enchanted vs Magical?

[Incarnite Azurnum]

Though I'm not that familiar with this system (so I'll largely ignore the acronyms and numbers), I think I may be able to help in the screening process.

1. Gandr

Why the hell does it have an xp cost? This is what equates to a Nasuverse standard spell.

2. Geas

Geas don't really shouldn't do damage. Rather, they should impose a penalty on the one who breaks the Geas. And when I say penalty, I mean one which really really stuffs the person over. e.g: Character takes a -15 penalty to all checks, the character is unable to use their spells. And so on.

3. Mana

A servant without independent action would burn through 14,400 units of mana a day based on the rules you have while a servant has a capacity ranging from 20-60 units. Unless I'm horrifically misunderstanding things (especially action economy and how long a round is), the Servant is going to burn through all his base mana points in around 30ish rounds. The Servant would be able to survive if the Master pretty much continually full-rounded mana and then fed it to the Servant.
I suggest making the mana drain lighter out of combat. Also, say something about materialisation, its mentioned in Independent action.

6. Mana Storing

Why is it a full round action to switch between mana tanks? In fact, why even have this mana tank system? It would be a lot easier just having the max mana dictated by the WP be the maximum mana the master can pour into the servant. Only external sources like killing people or a command seal can go 'over' that cap.

7. Servant vs Masters

Shouldn't the base stats of a Servant be great enough that they already pretty much always hit the master without imposing this extra penalty?

8. Luck

As you already know, luck is kinda a weird thing. I think the best way to represent it is with a certain number of re-rolls based on the number of fate points. (or is that what fate points are for?)

[ltfrankie]

1. Because a magus may not actually know that particular spell for whatever reason. Only War gave starting XP for Masters, and additional XP you can only spend on Psychic Powers (basically a warhammer 40k wizard). I did something similar. It really isn't alot of XP in game anyway.

2. Didn't it say F/SN Lancer died from breaking his Geas? And, mind you, -30 is the 'general' top tier of a difficulty modifier, with -60 being the highest except for the most extreme circumstances. So something stuffy would probably be -30 for a Servant, whereas it'd probably cripple a Master. Hmmm.

3. On average, a Servant would lose 480 mana in a day, assuming you fail the test. If you assume the Servant had a Target Number of 30, that's a 30% chance of passing. Right now, it's test toughness or WP every 5 minutes OR round of combat. If they fail, they lose 1d5 mana. Except that with E rank you last for '30 turns'. I just put that as the narrative time (3 minutes).

Maybe I should make it every 10 or 20 minutes? I have no idea how fast it is you can last without a Servant, honestly. Or give a bonus to toughness/WP when not materialized.

Where is #4-5?

6. I figured it'd be a good system that would allow people to use some really crazy Noble Phantasms (A+++ or EX) in exchange for some preparation that could give Masters a chance to react.

7. NOPE. That isn't how the WHRP system works at all. The attacker rolls to 'hit' by testing their Weapon/Ballistic Skill (accuracy), and then the defender tests Dodge or Parry to not have the hit connect. So you can have 100BS, but if someone passes their Dodge test, they dodge it. This isn't keeping in mind anything like additional talents or the Skills/Abilities I made up. Or rules for multiple attacks and weapons that are AoE.

8. Fate Points can be spent in game for re-rolls, yeah, in addition to a few other things. I took away the "burn a Fate Point to not die" in exchange for giving everyone 2 "Lives". Which is why I can't think up how to make a Luck stat matter outside of things like Gae Bolg.

[Incarnite Azurnum]

Bah, my bad on the numbering, too tired at that time.

Gandr:

Ah, so XP is the learning cost.

Geis:

F/SN Lancer got screwed over because he broke a geis (don't eat dogs). This debuffed him for the oncoming fight where he died.

Mana:

The wording for the description of mana loss for Servants suggests that the Servant loses mana each round all the time.
And in truth, it isn't really described how screwed a Servant is without a master. Saber, when cut loose by Shirou was able to survive for 2 Hours with a mana pool of 1200~1300 - 250. The Archers are Archers, they don't give a good measuring stick due to independent action. Zero Caster got blown up before mana became an issue and Fate caster was apparently getting screwed over fairly quickly [Somewhere from a day to a few hours]. Granted, this was most likely because she started got command sealed to a mana pool of lower than an average magus [Less than 25].

Mana Storing:

Hmm, I see where you're going with that idea. The main issue I see with it is the paper management. Might be easier to make the activation of NPs with a certain rank take at least a certain number of rounds to 'arm' and then an action to 'activate'. Alternatively, you could make it that the NPs with + modifiers can extend the number of rounds and mana they use to make the NP more powerful.

Luck:

Hmm, you could make it that the Luck points can be expended to add xd# to a certain roll before they know the result. Another option (and one which is a lot more dangerous) is that the players can expend certain amount of luck points to immediately make an action.
(Out of curiosity, what dies are used in this rpg and how many actions can one take in a turn?)

[ltfrankie]

-30 sound good, then? If only -30 because Servants will obviously minmax, and there's Skills to resist magic effects.

Make Mana Drain every half hour, then? That'd make it an average of 80 mana, assuming you fail the test every time, and that's only assuming they have a 30% chance of passing.

Mana Storage..eh, you can still mark your charsheet as being over the limit. I mean each tank will just have a capacity in multiples of your Mana. Sp if your Mana is at 81/40 it's 40, 40, 1. The modifiers things is really iffy since anything after A rank increasingly gets more ridiculous.

Luck...the first one does remind me of something similar. Perhaps the first digit of your Luck gives you as many D10s. Can only use once per session. Can be done after rolling, though. It's not TOO amazing, but it can make the difference.

WHRP is a 1d100 roll under system. Damage is in D10s/D5s for things like knives.

[ltfrankie]

So, I've made a lot of changes but it's still very much in development still. https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B3...uX_t9Mw_ubPdhk Atm, I'm mulling over magecraft

[ltfrankie]

Been working on it again. ATM, there's around 30 spells. Right now, I'm focusing on adding more magic. After that, I"ll focus on Primates (it's the best term I could find for non-Servants) and finish up the armory (which is a low priority since it's mostly complete anyway).

[ItsaRandomUsername]

As per OP request, thread title has been a-change'd.

[AggroAnnabelle]

Hey, this looks pretty cool. Great job! Have you tried out any experimental games yet? I find that is often the best way to test balancing and find out what needs to be tweaked or adjusted.

[ltfrankie]

Sorry for the late response.

I've added more since then, but magic casting itself needs to be streamlined for sure so its less bean counting.

I"ll be doing a playtest campaign in a few weeks. You're free to spectate at the IRC channel.