Prepping for Gary Con XVIII and especially my game, and had planned to post a bit more about the combat round, attacks and damage when I realized that how these things where written on the character sheets where anything but clear. So I re did the character sheets, and here is a link to an updated zip file (8.7MB): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/rules/Gary%20Con%202026%20-%20Characters%20%26%20Spells%20v3.zip

Sorry about the late confusion, but I wanted things to be as good a possible. The zip-file includes spells and backstories as well.

Design Thoughts
I first designed Hawk Tales to use 5E like math and mechanics, but use damage increase instead of piling on multiple attacks. That part worked really well in my playtests, the drawback was that 5E comes with really high numbers. Damage per round could well be into the 200's and Hit Points of creatures had to follow suit. Hit Points are front stacked a lot more in Hawk Tales, Con and Size gives a creature a boost at 1st level, and a smaller amount is added per additional level.

First level characters often starts out with 20 to 30 HP and might reach 150 or so at level 20. This means the games becomes deadlier as you level up and go up against more powerful opponents. Equipment and magic makes up for this to some degree, but that is situational and becomes a logistic issue to some degree. Beatings and boosting spells run out.

Instead I wanted to bring the numbers down to something more old school but keep the mechanics, and if possible streamline it a bit further. So I standardized normal damage instead of rolling it and only crits requires damage rolls. This makes crits more special, and I contemplating adding other special effects to crits as well.

Armor doesn't normally makes a creature harder to hit, only magic and some natural armor does that. This means that the hit rate is higher than D&D and I'm aiming for a hit rate around 75% against an equal enemy. Crits are also more common, due to skills and magic both usually increase the crit range.

Using Armor Hardness and Minimum and beatings is way to make armor more diverse, essential and not having it should make the world scary. Prowess also makes you harder to hit, it provides a bonus to your Defense Roll, in full when you see the attack coming and can avoid it, but half of even for attacks you are not aware of. This is to reflect that those skilled at combat know hot to act and place themselves at all times.

The "grindiest" combat we have had in the playtests have been lower level play when damage is low and little skill involved, few crits and not much special damage. We will see how well this fares in the long run, and with these adjustments it might be a bit too much.

Hawk Tales is aimed to be a medium gritty system, but with lots of aspects to it. A definite learning curve, but one that comes gradually as you level up not all at once.

Attacks

When making a weapon (or magic attack that requires targeting) make a d20 roll an add your To Hit modifier and if it is higher than the Targets AC. If you hit the attacks does at least 1 point of damage (unless the target has True Immunity).

If the Attack was successful it inflicts its listed damage plus half of what you beat the target AC with. This is gravy on top of listed damage and create some variation without complicating things too much I hope. It is also more dynamic including both a lot of luck, and the dynamic the skill of the attacker as well as the nature of the defender in a single formula that stays the same. Attacks that hits doesn't require a damage roll, you inflict the damage listed for your attack, plus half the overflow from the Hit Roll.

Critical Hits are a chance to deal a lot more damage, first you inflict the full overflow, and then roll an exploding damage dice per Damage Die used, and add normal damage as well (see example below). This means that weapons withs mall damage dice, easier does more crit damage. This is per design, I wanted skilled attackers to do more reliable high numbers, but lucky rookies can strike deep occasionally.

Special damage is not increased by critting but added to it. Crits can be devastatingly lethal by skilled and/or powerful creatures with a but of luck (or unluck) which is why I included beatings, the ability to let armor or shields take the brunt of a crit turning it into a normal hit.

Attack Example

What I have changed are how attacks are written up on the sheets. Here is an example and explanation, using Ertin's attacks since they are more complex. First his Longsword:

Keen Radiant Longsword +2 reach 5 To Hit: +12 Damage: 6 +9 slashing +1d12 radiant Crit: 15 xd12+15

First is the name and type of weapon, in this case a Keen Longsword with a +2 magic enhancement. Next is reach and range (when used by Ertin) in this case reach 5ft. To Hit +12 is what you add to the d20 Hit Roll.

Damage is listed as 6 +9 slashing which means each Damage Dice does 6 points of slashing damage on a normal hit plus 9 points in Str, Magic and Specialization bonus. Ertin has a Prowess of 3 which means he can use them all against a single enemy doing 6 x 3 = 18 points of damage plus 9 for the other bonuses (which don't get multiplied by Damage Dice). Half the overflow from your Hit roll is added as well.

The +1d12 radiant is special damage that some weapons and attacks can come with, like sneak, snipe or smite for example. This damage is not multiplied by damage dice (or crit), and might come with its own restrictions, like only once a round, use Exertion or something else.

Crit covers critical range, the first number 15 in this case, means a natural 15 or higher on the hit roll means a hit. This is the highest crit range for most creatures, and proves that Erin is a very accomplished swordsman wielding a keen sword giving him an even better edge in combat. He is also very good with Battleaxes as well, but that is another story.

Next, xd12 means that when critting roll an exploding d12 (per damage die used) and then add the +15 to the damage. Remember to add the full overflow to a crit as well.

Action Economy

Hawk Tales uses a single action economy round with a few twists and caveats. A creature can take an action and move up to its rate each round. The action can be an attack or something else during its turn, or a reaction to something outside of its turn. Attacks are a form of Action and if you have high Prowess you can attack more than one enemy during your turn.

Reactions means you can make attacks in a number of instances, like if an enemy moves into your threat range and you have a weapon ready. Leaving a creatures threat range also gives opportunity for a reaction like in D&D, if you do anything except only move. Attacking is riskier in Hawk Tales, choose the time to do so wisely.

Acting and Reacting in the same round is possible, but will cost you a point of Exertion. Exertion is the main meta-currency regulating how much cool stuff your character can do. It can also be sacrificed as a way to gain an extra Death Save that doesn't give you permanent loss of Pre (and gain of Cor) in case you fail it.

Spells Casting Times can be expressed as an Action, an Attack, a Round or longer. This means that spells with CT of an Attack can be cast multiple times per round.