Dragons of Stormwreck Isle-Ars Magica
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Basic Campaign Assumptions / Houserules:
- Hit Point damage doesn't usually injure your character.
HP damage only represents noticeable injury in three circumstances:
- The damage reduces the target's total HP to or below half.
The character takes physical damage, albeit minor, and starts to show signs of battle fatigue.
- The damage reduces the target's current HP to zero.
- The attack deals poison damage or effect.
Poison only takes a scratch to affect the target. That's what makes it so dangerous.
At all other times, HP damage represents the target heroically avoiding getting skewered or brained or chopped in half or whatever.
- The damage reduces the target's total HP to or below half.
- You don't have to heal lost Hit Points--you just recover them.
After any combat, if you have time for a short rest, you automatically regain HP up to one-half your Maximum Hit Points without spending healing magic or potions. You can use magical spells or potions to regain further hit points, as normal. If your hit points are zero, you do not recover hit points in this manner.
e.g. - George's Maximum Hit Points are 24. He had a good fight. Now he has 2 Hit Points. After the fight, he takes a Short Rest and recovers 10 hp so he's at 1/2 his maximum. A healer can cast a spell or he can drink a potion to improve his current Hit Points further.
- Roll the dice when you're under pressure. Otherwise, don't.
You don't have to roll d20 to use a proficiency in which you're trained unless you have to use it while people are shooting at you or while you're under serious time pressure or if you only get one chance to do it right. If you have time to work and aren't in the throes of an adrenaline rush, you don't have to roll unless the task should be too hard for you to accomplish.
- Failing a check usually doesn't mean your character does something stupid or even looks stupid.
If your character fails a dice check while he or she is attempting to do something that's obviously above his level, then he probably did something stupid. At all other times, failing a dice check means that something outside the character's control conspired against him that prevented him from succeeding in a task he rightfully should have looked awesome doing. I mean, come on. Your character is obviously a badass--otherwise, why the heck are you playing him, and why are we following him? Badasses don't look stupid when they fail onscreen; they still look awesome. Maybe the other guy looked awesomer this time. Maybe the deck was stacked against him. Either way, we're going to avoid making characters look dumb just because we rolled crappy dice for them.
Choices make characters look stupid. Dice rolls do not make characters look stupid.
- Failing a check doesn't necessarily mean your character doesn't succeed--it just means your character doesn't succeed in quite the way he or she would have liked...
Success with a cost is often an option. Sometimes the DM will offer a trade: success, but you do it loudly; or success, but you take longer than you'd expected; or something similar. Alternately, on a simple failure the player can offer one (1) trade along the same lines (so make it a fair one), which the DM can accept, refuse, or counter. These are options, and the player can always opt for failure instead. Natural 1s, on the other hand, are still fumbles, and never qualify for success at a cost.
- Temporary Hit Points from 5E and temporary healing from AM have special rules.
See the special rules here.
- Gain Inspiration no more than once per non-combat encounter when you roleplay your character’s Personality Traits, Ideal, Bond, or Flaw.
A non-combat encounter may be social, exploring, or adventuring. Downtime doesn’t usually count.
- A Short Rest only takes 15 minutes.
Also, if you take time to eat an interesting snack while resting, you gain Inspiration. If you share the snack, everyone gains Inspiration.
- You can gain Inspiration more than once.
It does stack, but you can’t use it more than once in a single turn. Bad rolls happen, but they don’t have to get you killed.
Rules
A Primer on Ars Magica Magic
Ars Magica's Houses and Mysteries
Classes Available in this Campaign
General Character Creation Notes
Fatigue
Temporary Healing and Temporary Hit Points
Warping & Wizard's Twilight
Spellcasting Rules