Virtual Greyhawk Con 7 is son upon us and I’m scheduled to run two games, a low level and a mid-level game as part of playtesting my Hawk Tales rules. Thank you all for signing up, so glad to see people interested!
Todays post is a look at one of characters of the low level game, Tossart of Brightport. A 16 year old recruit of the Order of the Shield, fresh from the first few month of service, just getting the grips of serving his native Shield Lands. A near native of Scragholme, one of many war orphans whose parents must have been poor folks from somewhere on the mainland. Tossart was only a year old when he arrived on Scragholme and grew up together with many other orphans in Brightport. Conditions where materially harsh, but every child became vitally important for a nation facing extinction, so everyone did their best to care for the young ones. So little Tossart grew up surrounded by sorrow and misery paired with love and care. At age 12 he was nearly killed in a Iuzian raid across from the mainland. That experience gave him a 1 point of Corruption and a few scars but also experience. Now at 16 he is a shy and determined youngster taking his first steps on his journey to become a defender of the realm. The past few months he has learned how to use weapons, ride and slowly becoming a hardened knight.
You can download the character sheet here (PDF 689kb): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/VGHC7-2026%20Tossart%20L1.pdf
Let’s look at the character sheet starting with the mechanics’ heavy front page. Tossart is 1st level character geared towards being an effective warrior, no spellcasting or other special abilities yet. He has begun to specialize in the use of the longsword and dagger and sneak attack, only a measly d4 as of now, we all must start somewhere right. He is young so his Comeliness is a high 16, and Presence is 3 which shows the grace and blessings of Heironeous have given Tossart back what he lost during that nearly fateful night 4 years ago. Tossart has never forgotten it and is devoted follower of Heironeous and might choose to join his flock more directly learning divine magic, holy smite or both, for now he is concentrating on learning the basics properly.
Athletics is the only Base Skill he is proficient in, which only provides a +1 one, for now, when leveling up it means all checks based on it will increase. Tossart is training to become a horseman, therefore Animal Handling expertise +2, and all the hours spent on the obstacle course have given him Climb +2 as well.
A good +6 modifier on Death Saves, Constitution and Armor make a difference, but 1 Corruption brings it down a notch. Having a good Death Save modifier will save your life in combat for sure, and as you get older and more bruised in life your Death Save Modifier tend to go down, but you gain more Hit Points which can keep you out of trouble. Tossart has 32 hit points based on a d10 Hit Die which is a bit above average and will serve him well as he levels up. Hawk Tales is more bottom heavy, giving extra hit points to start with and less when leveling up. 10 Hit Points as a base for all creatures, a further 15 in size bonus for being medium, a full Hit Die and one per Presence. This gives humans around 20 to 40 hit points to start with depending on their stats, and then another 1 to 10 per level. This gives a 20th level character up to around 250 Hit Point maximum and bigger monsters a bit over 400.
Hit Points are only half the equation in Hawk Tales, they represent a creature’s ability and will to fight, not physical damage. This has opened some different uses for HP, to deal with fear, pain and non-lethal damage, more on that in a future post. The other side, when things get bloody is handled by Injuries, which are effectively eating away at your Death Save modifier. When you take injuries your chance to succeed on a Death Saves diminishes, and eventually, if you go untreated you will fail, losing a point of Presence, gaining Corruption sliding closer to your afterlife. Losing Presence (Pre) is permanent, and the only way you can normally get it is by leveling up, 1 point more per level. This can be devastating so there is an escape hatch built into the rules. If you have Hit Points left you can keep going in most circumstances, only facing the inevitable if you run out, giving you time to heal if magic is available. If you have Exertion, which is the resource you spend to do fancy stuff, like smite, turn undead and strenuous moves, you can spend all your points and get an extra Death Save. You still must succeed in it to stay on the safe side, so injuries are dangerous and take a days of downtime to heal from. Hit Points are fully regained by a long rest, or you can regain a Hit Die of them during a short rest, or by being Inspired.
Armor Class is handled in a less straight forward way compared to D&D, you have effectively three Armor Classes, Minimum (Touch), Limited and Full. When attacking you can do either Base Damage, Full Damage or Crit, and then there is Minimal Damage if you manage to hit an opponent’s Minimum AC but no more. Minimum Damage is limited by the opponents’ armor, for example Tossart’s studded leather has a Minimum Damage of up to 6. The effect of all this is that having armor protects you from taking severe damage but for the price of letting some small blows through. Combat is always dangerous in Hawk Tales, armor protects you better against a knight’s sword than it does against a mob of angry villagers with pitchforks. Even a commoner can harm and even kill a far superior opponent, under the right circumstances, like allies helping with flanking. A skilled warrior can quickly land a blow taking out all Hit Points on an opponent but still might need to spend a round or two to make sure the opponent is injured enough to not be among the mortals any longer.
Tossart is a human, which means he has a soul and a living body to host it. Not all creatures’ functions in this way, some are based on a spirit, dark souls or worse. There are 18 different Essences in the game, and they set up the rules for things like Key Ability, which is Presence for Soul based creatures. If you get killed by a vampire you might become a Thrall and that changes a whole lots of things, story-wise for sure, but Hawk Tales has the mechanics covered as well. Some forms of undead doesn’t need to rest, and they regain spells and other resources like Exertion by inflicting damage and pain, so they get stronger the more they fight. They need to inflict damage and pain on others to continue to exist even, be wary when facing them in combat. This type of encounter is what my mid-level play test session is set up to explore!
Prowess is a creature’s general combat ability, it dictates how many opponents you can damage and face without being flanked. Tossart is still a rookie having only Prowess 1, which means things get tricky when facing more than a single enemy. Human warriors can go up to Prowess 5, which gives you 5 Damage Dice to dole out each round, and you don’t need to be that worried until you face 6 enemies simultaneously. Some creatures can have Prowess above 5 , which makes them even nastier like flanking you all by themselves. Dragons and similar creatures don’t fight fairly, be careful!
The key takeaway from the back side of the character of Tossart are two, equipment for which a Slot system is used to manage encumbrance. Wealth is held at levels, and Tossart’s is well-off enough to handle expenses in Copper which means you don’t have to record things priced in lower coins. On Hand and total is a way to handle wealth stored at safe location or party wealth.
Tossart has no spellcasting powers at 1st level, he might learn that later if Heironeous thinks he is worthy.
This was quick look at Tossart’s sheet. He will be one of the pregens for my low-level game a VGHC and the sessions I will run next weekend. The character portrait of Tossart is made using AI and some Photoshopping.
