Grave v1.2


An eagle-eyed reader out there noticed that Grave v1.1 did not actually include several of the changes described in the Grave v1.0 devlog post — and, it turns out, I don't even have a copy of the correct version myself! So, I made the revisions all over again, plus some other slight alterations. Here are the most notable updates.

Quality: Weapons and armor now have just three states — undamaged, damaged, and broken. 

Death: If your character has died too many times to resurrect, you start making a new character to introduce ASAP — potentially even in the same fight, if you're quick enough! Also, the "spirit" die was changed to d6 to encourage players to keep raising CHA above +5.

Item weight: Jewelry now explicitly does not require item slots, and multiple items under "Alchemy & Spellcasting" were changed to take up < 1 slot.

Spells: Made some edits I thought I'd already made, plus a few more. Also clarified what casting "as a reaction" means, moved the text about monsters with legendary souls resisting spells to the more player-facing part of the spellcasting rules, and added a key to the bottom of the spell lists page in case you forget what "S," "item," and "object" mean.

  • Abjure now also extends protection to adjacent allies. I'd personally rule that if the allies attack, it messes up the effect, but I leave the specifics up to you.
  • Charm specifies it's only useful on unprovoked targets. (Basically, just don't stab somebody and expect charm to work.)
  • Dying Star specifies that it can kill you more than once. (It's really powerful and should not be spammed lightly.)
  • Jinx was, according to my earlier devlog, supposed to make "minor afflictions now permanent" … but I have no idea what that means. Maybe I had something in mind for the Malediction spell and mixed up the names? Well, I clarified the phrasing for Jinx, anyway.
  • Sanctuary takes a full 3 rounds of concentration to cast so it's tricky at best to use in combat.

Magic items: Made some edits I thought I'd already made. 

  • Demon Magistrate's Gavel now breaks armor.
  • Ring of Ruin now works with new weapon breakage rules.
  • Gravestone Chip was never used the way it was phrased before, so now it lets you teleport the whole party to a tomb or burial ground as an emergency exit when somebody dies.
  • Ring of the Ghostwatcher used to say "Ghostcatcher," but that seemed needlessly antagonistic toward ghosts.
  • Ash Wand, Sacrificial Dagger, and Holy Medallion were kind of confusing. Now they just give fairly simple (but good) bonuses.

I also corrected some spelling errors and had to change wording in a couple places just to make the text fit, but I don't think it changed the meaning of anything significantly.

If you catch any other errors, please let me know! And thanks for coming by to check out my game when I know very well you could still be playing the heck out of Elden Ring.

Files

Grave 1.2.pdf 375 kB
Apr 11, 2022
Grave 1.2.docx 118 kB
Apr 11, 2022

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Comments

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Fantastic! The update makes so much sense. My group had house ruled the death bonus but took the new RAW into use with open arms. Love the simpler approach to item breakage and the minor tweaks. The game feels much more polished with this update.

All in all, thanks for an amazing game. It's been a pleasure to design a campaign with Grave. Our group has really enjoyed the overall flow and simple but rich elements like spells and magic items. It ticks a lot of boxes for us that other newer or OSR stuff wouldn't have done without extensive homebrewing and grey hairs. Cheers!

That’s so great to hear, thank you!