Misc
Attribute Damage
Attribute damage takes points off the score of an attribute. If someone takes 4 points of Strength Damage, and had an 18 in strength. Their strength will temporarily be 14, which changes the modifier. Attribute damage is healed every day by a number equal to the affected person's constitution modifier. The modifier is used as a pool to heal multiple types of attribute damage. So if someone has lost 2 points of Dexterity, and 2 Points of Charisma, they would need a constitution modifier of 4 to heal both. The player can choose which attributes are healed. If a character has a zero or negative constitution modifier, they can recover 1 attribute point.
Base Speed
Base speed is whatever a creature's natural speeds are. For example a human only has a base speed for ground speed. As such, A human's base speed is 30 ft. A winged elf has two base speeds, 30 ft. ground speed and 60 ft. fly speed. As such both of those are base speeds. If an affect increases base speed, it increases all of them. If a species doesn't have a speed listed for something like climb, swim, burrow, or fly... they have no base speed and thus gain no bonuses from affects that increase base speed.
Damage Reduction
A value that subtracted from incoming physical damage, except bleed and crush, per hit. It is organized like X/- or X/Thing. Thing is what bypasses the damage reduction, and /- does not get bypassed by anything.
Damage reduction is notated by the value reduced / what penetrates it. For example 15/silver will reduce 15 damage from every hit, unless it comes from a source made of silver. If the damage reduction is noted 5/- this will mitigate 5 damage from any physical source of damage, except crushing and bleeding.
Definition Master
The Definition Master is the member within a table/group that builds, writes, and runs the game. They might use prebuilt stories or simply mediating a simple dungeon dive. Either way the Definition Master runs the game. Their word is final.
Delusion
Delusions only affect the target creature(s). Anything that helps defend against mind-affecting spells also applies to delusions. Figments can fool the senses enough to make someone hurt themselves in the process of dealing with it.
Dice-Categories
| Dice Category | ||
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Stable | Variable |
| 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 1d2 | 1d2 | 1d2 |
| 1d3 | 1d3 | 1d3 |
| 1d4 | 1d4 | 1d4 |
| 1d6 | 1d6 | 1d6 |
| 1d8 | 1d8 | 1d8 or 2d4 |
| 1d10 | 2d6 | 1d12 |
| 2d8 | 3d6 | 2d10 |
| 3d8 | 4d6 | 3d10 |
| 4d8 | 5d6 | 4d10 |
| 5d8 | 6d6 | 5d10 |
Sometimes there are effects, definitions, abilities, or designs that require the dice category of a weapon be increased or decreased for one reason or another. Below are how to increase the dice category for weapons and natural attacks. Most weapons will fall within the Standard line. It is possible to tell which category the weapon is, but seeing how it grows within the weapon chart. When designing a monster, pick the best one for the creature's design, but try to stick with these standards.
Spells can also have dice category increases, when this happens increase the number behind the 'd'. So if a spell normally does 1d6 per CL, it would increase to 1d8. A spell's damage cannot be increased beyond d12's.
Difficult Terrain
Sometimes an area is difficult to traverse for one of many reasons. In these areas a character moves at half speed.
Disposition
Disposition is the opinion and willingness of a character to listen to another character. There are a lot of skills that are affected by disposition. If someone likes you they are easier to convince, fool, or work with in general. If the skill is being used on an NPC the DM will silently add or subtract modifiers based on the NPCs disposition. See the chart below for how the bonuses work. If you are working to improve disposition with a character this is best done through in game action or by the DM setting an DC and applying the current disposition modifier.
| Roll Modifier by Target's Disposition | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostile | Hateful | Dislike | Apprehensive | Neutral | Warmly | Liked | Respectful | Adoring |
| -50 | -15 | -10 | -5 | 0 | +5 | +10 | +15 | +50 |
Exertion
An exertion is a standard action that reduces the remaining duration of a spell or ability effect to an instantaneous duration. In turn there are often damage or other affects detailed in the entry. Energy charge is a good example of this.
Element Types
Energy types come alongside their associated elements, see below. Most elements have another that they are vulnerable to, and take 50% more damage from the associated energy type. This vulnerability would apply to any spell or creature that has the associated element as a descriptor.
| Element Type | Opposite |
|---|---|
| Air (Electric) | Ice (Cold) |
| Death (Negative) | Life (Positive) |
| Earth (Desiccation) | Sonic |
| Fire (Heat) | Water (Corrosive) |
| Force | Void (Entropic) |
| Ice (Cold) | Fire (Heat) |
| Life (Positive) | Death (Negative) |
| Void (Entropic) | Force |
| Water (Corrosive) | Earth (Desiccation) |
Death: A self-explanatory element that represents the draining of life. Channeled death is Negative energy and directly sucks the life out of the user. The opposite of death is life.
Earth: The solid ground beneath, crystals, and loam. Earth is the element that is channeled into desiccation damage. Any creature affected by desiccation damage becomes dehydrated. Earth has no opposite, but is uniquely affected by sonic energy.
Fire: Cleansing, destructive, and every shifting, fire is what it is. Heat is the energy type for channeled fire. Dry objects can combust when hit with enough heat energy. The opposite of fire is water.
Force: The raw unadulterated form of magic and creation. When channeled into spells it acts similar to raw mass. Only a force spell can stop a void spell's effect. The opposite of force is void.
Ice: The frozen wastes, winter, and rime of Korrenth are the ice element. Cold is the energy type associated with this energy and often has slowing affects when used. The opposite of ice is fire.
Life: Healing, health, and all things living are imbued with life energy at their birth. Positive energy can heal wounds, injuries, and restore HP. It can also be used to create life, like diseases, parasites, and other awful things. The common mistake is that life and positive energy is only a good thing. The opposite of life is death.
Sonic: This is a unique energy type in that it doesn't have an element attached to it, but Earth elementals are vulnerable to it. Sonic damage comes from many sources and always deals extra damage to brittle or crystalline structures.
Void: Nothingness, the march towards non-top and chaos. Void is pure entropy and disassociation. Entropic damage is the type of damage done by disintegrating effects and can break force effects when directed at them. The opposite of void is force.
Water: The roaring oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers of Korrenth encompass the water element. When channeled into a spell, water deals corrosive energy damage. Corrosive damage often also deals damage to equipment along with the creature. The opposite of water is earth.
Figment
A figment is a type of illusion that creates an effect in the world that everyone can see. These types of illusions are not subject to anything that makes a person interacting with the figment immune to mind affecting spells. Figments can trick all of the sense, and are not just visual.
Flight Maneuverability
Flying is a complicated motion and not all creatures fly equally good. As such there are three categories of flight maneuverability that alter how the movement is conducted during a round in combat. These three are Poor, Average, and Perfect.
Poor: A creature that has poor maneuverability must use their entire flight speed every round. These creatures can only ascend and decent 10 ft. per turn. When turning around a large arc is required.
Average: A creature that has average maneuverability must use half of their flight speed every round. These creatures can ascend and descent up to 35 ft. per turn. When turning around a small arc is required.
Perfect: A creature with perfect maneuverability does not have to use any of their flight speed in a round. These creatures can move in all three dimensions as they please.
Heighten
This is the action of increasing the level in which a spell is cast. Like casting a 2nd level spell as a 5th level spell. The primary benefit of this is increasing the DC of the spell, and making it harder to counterspell.
Known Spell
A known spell is a spell a character understand inherently and does not need to prepare it at the beginning of the day. It can be used in place of any prepared spell at any time, so long as they have spell slots remaining for the day. Any magic caster will have some known spells, characters with the wizardry primary definition gain an entire school of known spells.
Line of Effect
Line of effect is a term used to describe when you would normally be able to affect something. You have line of effect to a creature if you could throw a ball at them and hit them. Please note, this does not mean a player or monster blocks line of effect, but a wall or large object would.
Main Attributes
There are six attributes a character has that modifies almost everything else. These are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.
Strength: Is the physical strength of the character and their ability to lift, move, and carry objects. It also can determine accuracy with attacks, and it almost always applies to weapon damage. Two-handed weapons gain 1.5x their strength modifier damage to weapons.
Dexterity: Is a mixture of both the skill in fine motor control and overall agility of a character. If it is higher than strength it is used instead when rolling to hit on melee attacks, and is always used on ranged weapon on attack rolls. Dexterity also gets added to AC and Reflex saves.
Constitution: The measure of a character's fitness, endurance, and health. Constitution determines maximum Hit Points and is added to Fortitude saves.
Intelligence: The knowledge base of a character and factual understanding of things. Intelligence is used as one of the Primary Mental Attribute. It determines maximum skills known and how many skill points a characters gains per level.
Wisdom: Experience informs future decisions and wisdom represents that. Wisdom is another attribute used a Primary Mental Attribute. It is added to Will saves and in some instances to AC.
Charisma: The measure of a person's presence. A high charisma character takes up a lot of metaphorical space. It has nothing to do with how pretty a character is. Charisma is used in a lot of social-type skills and is added to the Ego save. This can also be selected as a primary mental attribute.
Natural Attack, Primary
A primary natural attack works much like any weapon a player would be proficient with, except it is part of the creature or character's body. These can be specialized in by specifying (Natural) or (Claw/Bite/Tail/Ect...) when taking feats like Weapon Fixation. These are treated as one-handed weapons for determining strength modifier to damage.
Natural Attack, Secondary
Secondary natural attacks will typically be listed as an ability and take many shapes and forms. Most humanoid characters will not have a secondary natural attack. Often times the ability is similar to an attack, but might have special rules with it and is done in place of primary attacks.
Phantasm
A type of illusion that only the targets of the spell or effect can see. No one else is witness to whatever the targets are seeing. The targets will think that these illusions are completely real and will act accordingly.
Quick Gold Value
If constantly giving unidentified items and keeping track of loot becomes too complex or time-consuming, a DM can instead use a Quick Gold Value (QGV) and divide it among the party members instead. This value is determined by the value of the items divided by 10. DMs should vary this value some depending on how the battle went.
Reach
Reach weapons are weapons that threaten another 5 ft. worth of squares around them for a medium size creature. A reach weapon with a small size creature minus the far corners.
Rest Period
A rest period is any significant amount of downtime in which a character and get at least 6 hours of sleep, meditation, preparation, or other types of down-time activities. If a character sleeps or meditates they will recover their HD x Constitution modifier in HP as well as 1 point of attribute damage across all attributes. Spells Per Day, as well as the daily use of abilities will be restored, and items that might also have daily uses. During this time it is possible to use the heal skill to multiply out the healing gained. The heal multiplier is applied to the attribute score damage (always round down) as well.
Sanctity
Religion is a force for good in the eyes of many. As such, it is often used as a path to goodness, virtue, and enlightenment. These kinds of people aren't always nice, but they do not mean any harm to anyone. People like this are holy sanctity. Some people are more interested in using their religion for personal reasons rather than as a way to a good life. They will use their religion as a cudgel to further their own feeling of self-worth, virtue, or station in life. They often do not care if their actions harm others or might even intend harm; especially to non-believers. These kinds of people are unholy.
Whether a person or creature is holy will render them immune to effects of the same side. A spell that deals holy damage will not affect holy people or creatures. Conversely it will deal extra damage to unholy creatures or peoples. Some try to stay out of matters of philosophy and religion. These people are fully affected by both holy and unholy spells and effects.
While it is important to select or have this concept in one's head when designing or building a character. It is ultimately their actions that will determine if they are holy or unholy. It is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Saving Throw
Saving throws are made against ability, spell, and other effects the DM might throw at a character. There is a totaled bonus is added to the roll of a 1d20, totaled, and compared against a DC set by a spell, ability, or the DM. There are 4 types of saves. Ego, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will.
Ego: Is sense of self and is used in rolling against direct compulsion, implanted memories, morale, and other similar effects.
Fortitude: Is how sturdy the body is and is used against poisons, diseases, and effects that target the body's health directly.
Reflex: Is how quick a character is in responding to an effect typically used against area effects, dodging large objects and other similar effects.
Will: Is how good a character is at resisting religious, thaumaturgical, and suggestion type effects.
Shatter Resistance
Most objects resist incoming damage to some degree. This will be labeled as shatter resistance. Whatever the number is, is subtracted from all damage types except entropic. Some materials and spells might bypass shatter resistance as well, if they do, it will be in the description of the spell, material, or effect.
Size Modifier
Size modifiers are penalties or bonuses that apply whenever size is a deciding factor in a roll. Refer to the chart below for them. There are times when size helps or hinders. So both negatives and positives are included. In terms of AC the smaller a creature is, the better. In terms of grappling or things where might is important being bigger is better.
Being Small is better for
- AC
- Stealth
- Escape Artist
Being Small Hinders
- Grappling
- Shoving
- Tripping
- Trampling
Being large is better for
- Grappling
- Shoving
- Tripping
- Trampling
Being large hinders
- AC
- Stealth
- Escape Artist
| Sub Tiny | Tiny | Very Small | Small | Medium | Large | Very Large | Gargantuan | Super Gargantuan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -8 or +8 | -4 or +4 | -2 or +2 | -1 or +1 | 0 | -1 or +1 | -2 or +2 | -4 or +4 | -8 or +8 |
Spell Proficiency
Spell proficiency is added to Spells, Spell-like abilities(Sp), Supernatural Abilities(Su) DC's; and any non-touch attack roll. It is also applied as a flat bonus for each damage/healing/warding dice for Spells, Spell-like abilities(Sp), or Supernatural Abilities(Su). For example, if a character has a spell that deals 5d6 damage and has a Casting Proficiency of 2 it will be 5d6+10 damage.