Abilites

There are three more on top of the six we are used to from D&D. Comeliness, Presence and Corruption are the three metaphysical abilities which represent your characters standing in the multiverse, the strength of its life force and how much it has been in touch with the netherworld. They tie into things like life and death, magic and planar travel. Doesn’t’ affect gameplay much at low level but will become increasingly more important as a character faces tougher enemies, learn to harness more powerful things like magic and more.

Exertion

Represents the ability for a character to muster and channel their willpower, instincts and sheer grit to face dangers, reach deep into themselves to find the ability to endure and survive. Exertion is used to power some special actions that let you do more in a round, like take both a move and a regular action in a round, move twice your movement rate to charge and such. It is also used to power some special abilities like smite, turn undead, and innate spellcasting.

Regaining Exertion is done through resting, for humans and other creatures that have a soul.  Other forms of creatures can regain their exertion through other means like feeding blood for vampires with a dark soul.

The Combat Round

I’m going to experiment a bit with how the round is structured for two reasons. First to try and keep things a bit more simultaneous and upping the tactical play a notch when using a board (real or virtual). Secondly, I want a bit more structure, to mark the beginning and end of rounds. Things tended to just flow across rounds, and I often forgot to keep track of things. I want to make that easier.

First is a Positioning Phase where the brave, the reckless, the desperate and the determined can move to repositioning themselves before the actions are taken. This move is made instead of moving afterwards in the Action Phase (you can move twice by spending Exertion). Taking action in this phase also means you go early in the next phase.

Action Phase is next when each creature gets its chance to take an action, which can be attacking, casting spells and such. If it hasn’t moved it can also move up to its movement rate as part of its action. Some spells and actions require the whole round which means you cannot move while doing them, but they are the exception.

The end of the round comes with the Wrap Up Phase (which I need to better name for) when those affected by various things make saves, spells durations are ended or prolonged to the next round.  This means that a lot of spell effects will last from when cast until this phase before Saves against conditions like stunned, blinded and such are made. This is by design making magic use a bit more situational and powerful, especially if you manage to get your spell cast early in the round.

Reactions are another part of this, you can make attacks of opportunity when creatures move into your reach our leaves it. If you haven’t acted you can just take your action early, or if you have acted spend an Exertion to take a Reaction.  

No bonus, swift or other forms of actions. Attacks are the only thing that breaks the mold a bit, if you have high prowess means you can attack more than one creature as part of your action. Some spells also give you this option, either by providing multiple attacks like Magic Missile, or by having a casting time of Attack.

Combat Prowess

Is an overall measure of a creature’s combat effectiveness and dictates how many opponents you can attack in a round, how many you can face at the same time without being flanked. Having many attacks only happens when you attack more than a single target in the same round. If you play a powerful character with a Prowess of 3 for example, you can decide to spread out your efforts in a round and attack up to three enemies, making a roll to hit for each target, and if successful inflict 1 damage die plus Str, magic and other bonuses on each target. Or you can concentrate on a single target and spend all three damage dice on a single target, or something in between like two damage dice on one target and one on another.

Flanking plays a bigger role in Hawk Tales, if you face more opponents than your Prowess, your opponents’ hits are upgraded to the next level making less capable enemies dangerous in numbers. And creatures with really high Prowess can be very scary, since they can flank you all on their own. Taking on a dragon by yourself can be a VERY risky endeavor.   

AC and Damage

This is where Hawk Tales is the most complicated. I wanted to make combat a bit more risky, chaotic and unpredictable but trying to keep it streamlined. In the first series of playtests, I did this by using Armor Hardness that reduced damage. This had the desired results by required a lot of number crunching, and subtraction is harder (at least for me) for some reason. So, I’m trying a different way, by separating AC into three stages, Minimum AC to simulate glancing blows attacks that don’t do much more than touch. Next is a Limited AC, which means the attack does a bit more damage, and Full AC which means attacks that manage to hit that hard and do full damage.

Weapon damage is determined in two ways Base and Full Damage. Base damage is a fixed number per damage die used by the weapon, a dagger using a d4 will have a base damage of 1. Then you add your Str and magic bonus to that number, no need to roll it is a fixed number per attack. Base Damage is used for Minimal and Limited Hits, with the limitation of your opponents armor for minimal hits.

Armor makes it harder to be hit, just like regular D&D but in stages. Each armor has a low and a high bonus, minimum damage and the number of beatings it can take. Beatings is a way for armor and shields to deflect crits which can be deadly, but only a limited amount of times before needing repair. Minimum damage is the weirdest part when first looking at the rules, it is the lowest for simple armor and goes up for the more protective things, Leather has a min damage of 5 and Plate Mail has 8 for example. The reason for this is to simulate that armor can’t protect you from all damage, every combat should involve at least some risk. Plate mail protects you from way more severe damage by letting a bit bigger trickle of small amount of damage through. Leather protects you less from the severe damage but is a bit better at stopping the small stuff. Which works best depends both on your character’s capabilities and what types of enemies you intend to face. A low level character is probably better off with something like leather to keep as many of those precious hit points intact, but with a higher risk when facing really touch opponents. A seasoned warrior with way more hit points to protect him would probably do much better with a plate to stop the really damaging hits better and take some small damage in the process.

Weapon specialization gives you two key advantages, upgrade the damage die size and increase your crit range. This means even smaller weapons like daggers can be as deadly as big swords in the hands of an expert. Crits means your hits are upgraded a level from Minimal to Limited and so on.  Ful Hits do double damage plus they inflict injuries on top of that, which brings up to the next big change.

Hit Points, Injuries and Death Saves

Hit points in Hawk Tales represent a creature’s ability and will to continue the fight. Running out of them doesn’t mean you are near death, not directly. Instead, you are Bloodied and now if you stay in the fight, you will take injuries instead of hit point damage. Crits and some other hits, and types of damage inflict injuries right away, so both hit points and injuries work in parallel. Hit points are like your ability to stave off injury, and when they run out you are exhausted and less capable of defending yourself.

Injuries have the effect of being a negative modifier on your Death Save, so if they pile up you get into the danger zone. If you have hit points left you are good to continue, but if you have injuries and become Bloodied things deteriorate fast. You become Encumbered and are forced to make a Death Save. Hawk Tales is gritty but with lots of options and player agency built into the rules, all the way to the end and beyond.

Skills

Skills are multi-part in a way. The first part is the Ability modifier which represents a character’s natural talent, and then if you retrained in a skill, you can add your proficiency bonus just like in D&D5E. Proficiency Bonus of +1 is gained at Level 1 and then increases by one every three levels. There are only four base skills, Athletics, Influence, Insight and Tinker, which covers all skills checks, and there is nothing off limits, every character can attempt any skill check. Lower DC’s can be overcome by ability bonus and luck, but higher ones you need more, anyone can succeed opening a crude lock, but the lock protecting the city coffers is another matter. Then you need Expertise as well to manage, which is the next part offering bonus from +2 to +8 to be used along with things like Evasion with Athletics and Dex to avoid a fireball for example. Skills are used as Saving Throws as well, so Evasion expertise can help you avoid getting blasted. Deception Expertise can help you see through an illusion and so on.   

Skills are a good example of my effort to make Hawk Tales complexity increase as you play. Things are simple at low level to then gradually take on more complexity as you face more and more of the world and its many dangers.

Magic

Is a big part of the game just like other fantasy, but it comes with more depth that is the norm with regular D&D. Magic can be obtained in three different ways, thought talent and understanding of the world, Arcane magic. Thought a relationship with a power of some sort, Divine magic and through your attunement to life and nature around you, Primal Magic. I call these Conduits of Magic. Strains are wat kind of power that a spell draws from, elemental, ethereal, fey, shadow and more. Schools are what tradition and technique is used to cast magic, fonts are how magic is recorded and transferred, like Relmordian Script for scrolls, or Flan wood carvings for Druidic magic.  Tattoos, blood magic and rock carvings are only a few of the forms I have so far, Vecnan Skin Craft is one to keep in mind if you are the more adventurous student of the Arcane arts.   

This was a very brief introduction and overview of my Hawk Tales rules. I’ve been working on them for about five years now, and this is major rewrite from the first alpha to try and take in what I’ve learned from the first round of playtests. Creating a rule set, not from scratch but almost is a huge undertaking but very rewarding. It forces you to evaluate and understand gaming in a much deeper way than needed to just keep playing. This will not become a new bestseller or widely popular, but it might be the right tool set for some of you out there. I’m gearing it to be a good platform for those who want a system to tinker with, and tweak and build on what I’ve done. My plan is to have a first public playtest rules package ready spring next year, it depends on the feedback I get from this round of playtests and how well my commission work is progressing.