The Brand - A Class for Ransack

 A conversion of Locheil's Rotless, which I have been having tremendous fun playing in his Qal Ashen game, for Ransack by Justin Todd, who also writes a damn fine game;

By deWitteillustration

My Only Teacher is Nature - Fighter Techniques (OSR/GLOG Compatible)

I rarely ever play fighters. Hybrids, sure. Gishes, paladins, monks, even barbarians, but seldom a farmboy with a sword and board and a yen for adventure. I've always just felt like I was missing out on half the system to play a character without any access to the kind of lateral advancement that spellcasters have. Part of this also stems from a conversation on the GLOG book club, specifically Spwack's idea that fighters need more options to do borderline 'impossible' things, because by standard OSR design philosophy anyone can attempt to do anything possible. There's a lot of wisdom in the old standby of letting fighters try this kind of thing just with a penalty to their attack roll, but I want a way of codifying it into something that feels like an actual way of improving your character. Wizards get the fun of collecting and crafting spells, I want that for fighter-types too. To whit, I have come up with the following rules that I am going to implement in my home OSE and GLOG games; 

Fighters can attempt to perform special techniques; they can try to pull off anything even vaguely plausible, even borderline impossible anime-tier stuff, using any resources available to them. If it's something you'd need a Feat to do in some editions or 10-year-old you believed people could do if only their kung-fu was good enough, a fighter can try it and have a reasonable chance of success. Furthermore, they can refine these attempts into polished techniques they can perform reliably.

This kinda stuff.

Fighters are not just simple warriors after all, they can endure enough damage to kill a normal man several times over, the mightiest of them can take blows from giants that by all rights should reduce them to a pulp. They are proficient with all weapons, a trait that on it's own was sufficient to elevate two members of the Suicide Squad to superhero level. Fighters are instinctual users of the same power that a wizard uses to turn invisible or rend a horde of goblins apart with killing incandescences. 

Here's how you do it;

1. A Fighter can attempt 1 technqiue per day per level, demi-fighters like barbarians and rangers etc. can attempt 1 technique per day for every second level they have. A technique is always attempted as part of an attack roll, and must be declared before the attack.
2. When they first attempt a new technique, the GM should assign it a difficulty out of 1-6. Base difficulty is a 5:6 chance of success, for each additional action's worth of stuff* a technique contains lower this by 1, for each really outlandish action reduce it by 2 or more.
3. Truly extraordinary techniques may have a 0:6 chance of success. However, if they wish, the player may negotiate drawbacks to the technique to reduce the difficulty. Taking a fatigue level, losing a die or two's worth of hp, losing the use of a limb for a certain period, or expending a hard-to-procure resource like a potion are all good examples.
4. If they roll under the success chance on a d6, they do the thing! They should also write down the technique and give it a name, so they can retry the same technique again.
5. If it fails, they should still write it down anyway, except the next time they retry it the difficulty is lowered by 1 point. Every failed attempt in real combat (not sparring) lowers this difficulty. When a technique's success chance is reduced to 6:6 it is now perfected. A perfected technique can be pulled off automatically with a successful attack roll and an expendiature of a daily technique usage. It can even be used after the attack roll is declared successful or not.
6. A character can have a number of techniques in their memory equal to their level. They can still learn new techniques once this limit is filled, but must forget one of their currently memorised techniques to make space. True masters write their perfected techniques into Manuals to avoid losing them permanently (see below).

*To illustrate: a lot of games have rules for sundering, disarming, tripping, grappling, etc. which all take up an attack action, with a technique you can do multiple of those things at once. Like disarming a person with a flick of your blade, grabbing their weapon out of the air, and hitting them with it all in one smooth move (base success chance 2:6).

Special techniques can include any resources at the user's disposal, but if it's tied to a specific weapon's magical effect the user needs that weapon to use the technique, or one with a similar enchantment. An example might be taking a swig of moonshine and spitting it through a flametongue sword. You're going to need at least some flammable liquid and a source of fire to do that.

Why yes, this is all an excuse to post Ranking of Kings gifs, thank you for noticing.

Training & Technique Manuals
A fighter during downtime can spend cash to improve their success chance with a technique, up to a maximum of 5:6 - only testing in the unpredictable nature of real life-and-death combat can perfect a technique. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

Such improvements require access to a training facility with dummy targets, wooden training weapons, and master tutors where the technique can be refined in a semi-scientific fashion. A "fighter's guild", knightly order, mercenary company or the like will likely have such a setup. Training costs a week of effort and 100gp x the chance:6 advanced into. E.g. advancing a technique from a 3:6 to 4:6 costs 400gp.

A technique that has been perfected can also be written into a Manual, which can be read by others to learn the technique. Such Manuals are highly valuable and sought-after, and become a new item of treasure akin to scrolls for wizards. With a Manual a character can freely commit the perfected technique it contains to their memory with only an evening's study.

End Him Rightly

Writing a Manual doesn't require magical ink and uncanny parchment like a scroll, but it does require illustrations. An artist must be employed unless the author is also proficient. It takes a month to write, 500gp, and a successful skill check both for the artist and the author. A failed check results in a flawed manual, with either obtuse language or hard to follow illustrations, reducing the base success chance for the technique learned from it by 1 for each failed roll. The author can of course retry, providing they have enough money and time remaining, and the technique still in their memory.

Example Techniques

Dance of Wrath
Three strikes executed in the time it takes a common man to make one against the closest 3 possible targets within 30ft of each other, friend-or-foe. This technique is so strenuous it costs the user a level of Fatigue.
(Three attacks in one (-3), uncanny movement speed (-2), Doesn't discriminate targets (+1), Fatigue gain (+1), base success chance 2:6)

Fightan.

Don Schiavona's Percipient Defence (I provided this one, but this whole post is mineable.)
Expend a technique use for the day as a reaction to be able to parry even attacks that you are not consciously aware of for the round, allowing you to keep your full Defence and make an opposed attack roll against the first attack made against you this round, negating it if you exceed the attacker's roll. This technique, once perfected, can be used even when unconscious.

(Uncanny defence (-2), one special action (-2), base success chance 1:6)

Shirasampe
A deceptive technique that appears to the untrained (non-Fighters) to be a seemingly supernatural ability to paralyse foes with a blast of chi from the user's palm. In actuality, it employs no magic, merely knowledge of the prana-bindu meridian system and a pebble hurled with supreme speed and accuracy. The victim must Save vs. Breath Weapons or be paralyzed for d6 rounds, or until they take damage.
(Near-magical effect (-3), requires proficiency in medicine (+1), base success chance 3:6)

Consider: there is no such thing as a sword. - Soulknife - (GLOG Class)

 The best warriors in the world are the yak herders of West Kikala. None deny this, though it shames the caste-nobles and their pretensions of martial excellence. But while these dusty herdsmen learn the art of cutting from a young age they carry no swords, for swords make a warrior lazy. If you cannot cut without a blade, can you in truth be said to have performed the cut or was it the World? Such is the koan by which they order their lives. The young and inexperienced are permitted to learn how to fight with knives of stone they have chosen and knapped themselves. This is mere training though, and they are not considered fit to join the other warriors in battle until they can cut with a splash of water flicked from their fingertips. When they can behead a mountain lion with a gust of wind slapped from their palm their family celebrate that they are now fit to marry. It is not until they have apprehended the way to cut with thought alone, proving they can cut without the permission of the World, that they may call themselves a king, teach a new generation of herdsmen and form their own herd.

In their own tongue these warriors call themselves Gircara. Belying their incredible  skills it means simply 'protector of yaks' - because even meaning itself they cut down to its essence, shorn of all ornament and pretence. Foreigners, who typically lack this wisdom, call them Soulknives.

- Heliormas of Emmanica, Historia Mundi

A warrior who can be unarmed is no warrior.

Class: Yak Guard
Each template gives +1 to Hit or +1 to Melee Damage and +1 HP. Yak Guard may not wear armour or use shields unless they have another class that allows it (though bear in mind that this will scupper your social potential among your people), and only risk fumbling with weapons they have not modified with their own hands.

Skill: Roll twice; 1. Animal Care 2. Alertness 3. Tracking 4. Fording 5. Mountaineering 6. Rope Use

Starting Equipment: 2d4 stone daggers, walking stick, warm homespun clothes, a knapsack, a week's yak-jerky and dried berries, waterskin, 2d6 tea bricks worth 1gp in trade each. One Memento of Home from the table below.

A: Soulknife, Lodge
B: Impossible Step
C: Unerring Cut
D: Knife to the Soul

A: Soulknife
When you cut you aim for it to be you that does the cutting, and not the World. You start being able to wield any solid object that has a discernible edge as if it was a medium melee weapon or light throwing weapon. A stone knife is traditional, but you could do the same with anything as long as you yourself have given it an edge.
You snap a chairleg over your knee and drive the point through your foe's breastbone. You scrape a flat rock along the cliff-face and swing its chipped edge like a hand-axe.

At Template B you can do the same with liquids, if you employ a liquid that has a special quality like poison or wine then your attacks take on that quality too. At this point onwards, your Soulknife attacks count as magical, for purposes of hurting things that can only be harmed by magic.
You dip your hand into a river and pull out a dagger of glimmering water. You spit a mouthful of tea through your betrayers' eye like it was a dagger.

At Template C you can cut with gases, vapours and fire, as with liquids your attacks take on the properties of whatever you draw them from.
Your seemingly wild haymaker misses your foe's face by several inches, but the gust of wind from your sleeve bisects their head. With a snort of contempt you pin the rat to the floorboards with an arrow of pipe-smoke shot from your right nostril.

At Template D you can cut with will alone, you can hit anything you can perceive out to the range of a thrown dagger - the sense doesn't matter, if you can hear or smell an invisible foe, you can cut them - and don't even need to be able to move to cut and parry.
Standing still as stone, the king parried every blow with rainbow-hued spars of light that flashed into being around him. With an angry word alone, your foe stumbles back, blood streaming from a dozen cuts.

Surprise! It's a heckin' Avatar class all along.

A: Lodge
You choose a Lodge to belong to, each Lodge teaches a different fighting style that incorporates special techniques called Sleights. To determine your starting Sleights roll a d6 twice and consult your Lodge's list. Each time you level up you roll again, if you roll one you already have go up or down the list until you get to one you don't. You also gain your Lodge's Mark and Vow.

You activate Sleights using your Soul Die. The Soul Die resets to a d6 whenever you take a rest. If you roll a 1 on your Soul Die or score a critical hit it increases a die size, to a maximum of d12. If you roll your Soul Die's maximum value it decreases by one die size, if it is already a d4 you lose your Soul Die until you rest or score a critical hit. You also lose your Soul Die if you break your Lodge's Vow.

When you deal damage with your Soulknife you can roll your Soul Die and add its [sum] to the damage. 

You can also do the same when you are attacked and add your [sum] to your Defence for the rest of the round, or until you roll again.

B: Impossible Step
You can run up and along vertical planes, though not ceilings, and along the surface of water. You have to keep moving every round or you fall. At Template C: you can also use fog, clouds, windblown leaves and the like as if they were valid platforms to run across.

C: Unerring Cut
You may now attack twice per round. Furthermore, even if you miss you may roll your Soul Die and deal its damage to the target.

D: Knife to the Soul
You apprehend the truename Blade. It should be impossible for you to be a Sorcerer if you have reached this Template but you can teach a Sorcerer the Name Blade if you wish. They will expect to have to pay you handsomely for the honour. 

You can now cut the soul of things, not just the meat which is merely a shadow of the truths and abstractions at their core. You can murder love, slit the throat of memory, or shank faith and leave it to bleed out. You can even use it in beneficial ways, as you can deal damage to possessing entities without harming their host or even cut traumatic memories from someone's mind. If the target doesn't want you to cut the targeted abstraction from them they may make a saving throw. You can only target things which inhabit the victim's mind and soul - memories, emotions, derangements, and demons (even spells, in a setting that has Wizards) are fair game, connections like kingship and property that exist outside the orbit of their soul are not.

Your Soul Die now defaults to d8 when you rest.

LODGES
All Yak Guard join a warrior lodge from a young age to start their education in Gircara martial arts and philosophy. Most villages have only one lodge, but some larger communities have two or more who all compete for students.

Cut what you will.

Lodge of the Red River
Mark: Red Sash
Vow: Never retreat from a fight.
A hardline lodge, known for their strict adherence to the principles of martial honour. Their adepts were always highly respected but never much liked until the invasion of the Ironmen, where they gathered themselves enough glory as to keep students flocking to their doors for a century since.

Sleights;

1. Break Banks: On a successful soulknife hit, reduce your SD size by one step to deliver a bleeding cut, the victim bleeds for 1HP per round for a number of rounds equal to your SD's former [max] or until they receive healing. One victim can receive multiple bleeding cuts at once.
2. Blood in the Water: When you roll [max] on your SD it explodes. You still only lower your SD size by one step, no matter how many times it explodes.
3. Return to the Source: Lose d6HP, your SD increases by one size.
4. Pirhana Devours Yak: Reduce your SD by one size to make an additional attack with your soulknife this round. You may do this as often as you are able.
5. Flow Pure: Roll your SD whenever you must save against poison or disease and add its [sum] as a bonus.
6. Frozen River: Reduce your SD by one size when you deal damage with your soulknife. Your victim must save or be stunned for a number of rounds equal to your SD's former [max].

Lodge of the Sun Calf
Mark: Orange Turban
Vow: Never initiate violence against the living.

One of the newer lodges, established by a group of converts to the faith of the Second Prophet. The faith had previously had little penetration among the Kikalese until an enterprising missionary realised that one of their core metaphors, "the lamb of G_d", had little purchase among animistic people who herded yaks, and promptly improvised.

Sleights;

1. Truth Shines: Reduce your SD by one die size, you gain the ability to see through illusion and invisibility for a number of rounds equal to its former [max].
2. Rays of the Dawn: Reduce your SD size one step. Make a thrown weapon attack with your soulknife against a number of different targets equal to your former SD [max]/2.
3. Darkness Flees: Your SD damage is doubled against daemons, undead and other creatures of darkness.
4. Noonday Brilliance: Reduce your SD by one size when you deal damage with your soulknife. Your victim must save or be blinded for a number of rounds equal to your SD's former [max].
5. Armoured in Light: Your Defence gains a bonus equal to your SD's [max]/2.
6. Darkest Before Dawn: When you take more damage than your SD's [max], increase your SD by one die size.

Lodge of the Rainy Mountain
Mark: Turquoise Armband.
Vow: Never refuse hospitality offered by someone who has never done you harm.

Celebrated rangers of the mountain passes, warriors of the Rainy Mountain lodge have a reputation for joviality, daring and free spiritedness. They are also known for ruthlessly hurling any who would threaten their herds from the mountainsides and laughing as their corpses dash against the rocks below. 

Sleights;

1. Relentless Downpour: When you hit with a soulknife attack, you can choose to do [max]/2 extra damage with your SD instead of rolling.
2. Fall Like Lightning: You can fall from any distance without harm, for every 10ft fallen you can roll your SD and deal the cumulative [sum] lightning damage to anyone within 10' of your landing spot.
3. Howling Wind: When you hit with a soulknife attack, throw your target [sum] meters in a direction of your choice.
4. Walk Between Raindrops: Reduce your SD size one step. You flawlessly dodge or parry the next [max] projectile attacks targeting you within the next turn. This includes magic attacks that require an attack roll, but not those that require a save or do not allow one.
5. Raindrop Breaks Boulder: Roll your SD, your attacks ignore [max]/2 points of Defence for [sum] rounds.
6. Mountain Anvil, Rain Hammer: When your SD and damage die roll the same value, both their [sum] are doubled.

d12 Mementos of Home

1. An amulet of iron nails, counts as 1 inventory slot of iron for purposes of Sorcery.
2. A brass teapot and cups, engraved with abstract depictions of mountain trees.
3. A riding yak with saddle and blanket.
4. A mouth-harp, believed to attract benevolent spirits when played well.
5. A set of pigments and yak-hair brushes.
6. D3+1 bundles of medicinal herbs, provide an additional save vs. poison and disease when drunk brewed into tea.
7. An iron dagger, given to you as an insult by a rival.
8. A waxed cloth tarpaulin, waterproof.
9. An ancestor scroll, recording your entire lineage back 10+2d6 generations.
10. A yak-hair rope, 50' long.
11. A handheld butter-lamp, comes with 6 hours worth of yak-ghee.
12. A tasseled rug, covered with intricate abstract patterns.

Edits:

1. Changed the defensive Soul Die option to a Defence bonus instead of damage reduction, thanks to Vayra for that suggestion.
2. Altered the mechanics for Armoured in Light and Walk Between Raindrops sleights to reflect above change.