Ring Side Report- RPG review of Distal RPG Preview

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Product– Distal RPG

System- Distal RPG

Producer– Wrel

Price– free here https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/wrel/distal 

TL; DR– DCC and DnD5e had a more realistic baby!  93% 

Basics– For Edervale!  Distal is a new RPG currently being kickstarted.  The writer has provided a MASSIVE preview that includes a lot of character options, several pregens, and even a short adventure.  Let’s break it down for a review. 

Basics- This is a d20 rpg.  You have five statistics and a combination of 20 skills and knowledges.  When you want to do anything, it’s D20 plus the statistic for checks or D20 plus the statistics and the bonus for the knowledge or skill.  That’s it.  Common things are a DC8 most are a DC10, and things can get EXTREMELY hard with some things being a DC22.

Dice steps- Like DCC RPG, this system uses dice steps.  Distal sticks to normal dice with the dice chain being d4-d6-d8-d10-d12.  No funky dice here!

Character creation- This system has a ton of options and a ton of randomness if you want it.  Characters choose a race/lineage and a class.  There is also a background.  Backgrounds provide what you would expect:  additional skills, items, and knowledges based on the life events you experienced.  What makes them interesting is you can also randomly roll on several charts to randomly build a background!  No traveler death during character creation though!

Combat- Combat is round based, but not based on your normal initiative score.  After the GM determines who has the drop on the other side, each side does one action, then the other side does an action, alternating between the two.  Characters get the expected actions in a combat round with a move, an action, and smaller things like techniques that are quick actions.  In addition to the checks above, characters have an attack bonus based on their class, and it’s just D20 plus that bonus to attack.  Damage is dice based like DnD with bonuses based on your statistics.  The interesting change here is damage reduction with armor.  Armor doesn’t really provide a bonus to defense, but reduces damage taken.  Each armor provides a damage reduction die.  If you roll a 1 on that die, then you don’t reduce much damage and the die gets one step smaller.  Go too small and the armor is completely broken!

Willpower-  Characters have willpower dice as part of their character class.  These dice are gained at the start of combat and through other events, or as my favorite:  story candy and buying the GM beer.  When a character wants to add just an extra bit of extra to a D20 roll, a character can spend willpower and roll their willpower die to add the result to their total.

Magic- Magic is very similar to DnD5e.  Characters either prepare spells once a day or know so many depending on their level.  In either case, the caster can cast so many a day depending on their level and then they are out for the day.  Characters might not be able to cast a lot of spells, but spells are extremely powerful with the ability to easily kill a first level character straight out!

Death- Death is PERMANENT!  There is no resurrection.  If your guy dies, hes dead!  You do get deathmarks, however.  When you drop to zero hit points, you begin to die and take a deathmark.  These build up as you continue to die and each time you fall down again.  You can remove some as you relax, but get too many and eventually you will not be able to get back up again, EVER!

Alright, thats the basics, let’s dig in.

Mechanics or Crunch–  This is an interesting RPG.  It is not a copy of either DCC or DnD5e.  It is VERY close to both, but in good ways.  It’s not brutal nor gritty, but it is more realistic as damage hurts bad and death is close.  The mechanics are simple.  Maybe a bit too simple and you don’t get a ton of skills, but that’s by design.  Combat is not too simple, but simple enough to make the game flow easily. Overall, it’s good, but not the most original RPG this year.  4.5/5

Theme or Fluff–  The fluff of this world is interesting.  The preview doesn’t provide everything for good reason, but what is presented is good.  It might not be the most original setting as it feels like many of the classic RPG setting pieces I know and love.  It sticks with the more usual suspects like undead, monsters, and dudes with militaries being the bad guys, but those are fun things to smack back into place to save the world.  Not the most original setting, but still a fun place to play. 4.5/5

Execution– This is a solid preview.  There an OVER 100 PAGE document showing the system and world WITH HYPERLINKS!  There is a full adventure with at least four premade characters.   This is exactly what I want when I see a new RPG kickstarter.  It’s new, but shows what’s to expect.  I love what I’m seeing, AND IT’S ALL FOR FREE!.  5/5

Summary– Used to love DnD5e and I love DCC.  This RPG is a solid mix of those two right down the middle.  Simple mechanics with just a D20 plus numbers, but skills and knowledges for all.  A simple world where there are bad guys and how the world addresses that.  It’s the most new in any category, but it is done well.  I can already see the first source book as the one group is summoning undead and those undead are running around, and I didn’t see a player character undead race.  Given what I’ve seen, this will turn out to be a solid RPG that will get my silly friends to be a bit more serious and my serious friends to play a bit more loose!  93%

Daily Punch 4-26-24 Divine Return divine spell for Pathfinder 2nd Ed

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HELP GOD!

Divine Return one-action Spell 9

Manipulate
Traditions divine
Range 50 feet; Target 1 willing ally

You ask your god to rewind the flow of time for just a moment. Choose a ally. that ally does not need to be alive, but must we wiling. You rewind to the start of that ally’s last turn revering all spells and abilities they cost, but only for them. Any effects that caused for others like spent spells or abilities are still expended. Thais also reversed damage on that ally, even fatal effects. The ally rejoins the initiative at the start of their next turn with these having occurred. If they are on a different plane of existence or dead, they are instantly returned and they continue their turn and life as normal.


Thoughts?

Daily Punch 4-25-24 Elemental Assault spell for Shadowrun 6th Ed

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Ok, once more for another system.

Elemental Assault
(Indirect Combat
RANGE TYPE DURATION DV Damage
LOS P I 6 P, special
Elemental Maelstrom
(Indirect Combat, AREA)
RANGE TYPE DURATION DV Damage
LOS (A) P S 7 P, Special
You throw a ball of pure elemental chaos at an enemy. This ball is a bit of everything doing Fire, electricity, cold, and acid damage, so any resistance must match all these or the total goes through. Like other elemental spells, this one causes conditions, but only causes chilled one, corrosive one, burning one, and zapped. regardless of the total damage taken.
Elemental Maelstrom has the same effect except it affects all targets in an area.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 4-24-24 Elemental Maelstrom arcane spell for Pathfinder 2nd Ed

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IT’S THE BIG ONE!

Elemental Maelstrom one-action Spell 9

Manipulate Cold Acid Fire Electricity
Traditions arcane
Range 60 feet; Area 30 foot burst
Defense basic Fortitude

With a snap, you cause a storm of pure elemental energy to descend on an area. All targets are subjected 12d6 damage.. The damage type is either cold, acid, fire, or electricity with it being whatever type the targets are individually have a weakness to and/or not resistant to or has the smallest resistance to.


Thoughts?

Daily Punch 4-23-24 Undying skeleton power for DCC RPG

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You cant die!

Undying
Type: actionRange: selfDuration: instantaneousSave: none
GeneralCan’t keep a good man down!
Manifestationroll 1d4: (1) You litterally just stand right back up. (2)Your body falls appart and your bones just roll back into position standing (3)You fall to dust and reform the same way (4) You don’t even feel the attack!
1failure and you can not have your body rolled!
2-11failure
12-13You die but return with 1d4 HP
14-17You die but return with 2d4 HP
18-19You die but return with 2d6 HP
20-23You die but return with 2d8 HP
24-27You die but return with 3d8 HP
28-29You die but return with 3d10 HP
30-31You die but return with 3d12 HP
32+You die but return with 3d12 HP and gain 1 point of luck!

Thoughts?

Ring Side Report- RPG review of Knight: An Avalon RPG Quick Start

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Product– Knight: An Avalon RPG quickstart

System- Knight: An Avalon

Producer– Antre Monte Editions

Price– free here https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/all-about-games-consulting/knight-rpg     

TL; DR– Power Rangers meets Dark Horror with NEON!  97% 

Basics– Let’s cancel the Apocalypse!  Knight: An Avalon RPG is a near modern day retelling of Camelot with men and women donning power armor to kill horrors out of the dark.  Let’s break this down.  

Basics- This is a d6 rpg.  Your character has five aspects with three characteristics under each aspect for a total of 15 skills.  When you want to do anything, you total the correct aspect with the correct characteristic and roll that many dice. Each even result is success and each odd is a failure.  If you hit the correct amount of successes determined by the GM for the thing you are attempting to do, you succeed.  A good aspect is a five and your off aspects are about threes with your characteristics ranging from one to three most of the time.  The normal difficulty is three successes.  No success at all is critical failure, while all success is a great feat/critical success.

Combat-  Combat is round based and mostly theater of the mind.  You have initiative which is 3d6+ an initiative score.  Each round a character gets a move and an action with some reactions.  When you attack a target you are aiming at the defense score for melee and at a reaction score for ranged combat.  Here is the fun meat and potatoes of the game.  You are not just a dude with a gun fighting horrors, you are a guy/gal in power armor.  Your power armor has a force field that subtracts from all damage dealt to you.  After that, you have armor points which act as the armor’s hit points and for every 10 the armor loses, you lose one of yours as you get battered around in the suit.  Once the suit’s taken enough damage, it retracts and you’re just a guy/gal fighting the horrors of the dark!

Suit powers-  Your suit has powers as well and these are fueled with the suits energy points.  This works just like magic points in any RPG as you spend as much as you want until the suit is tapped out and you’re just left with your guns, fists, and harsh language.

Hope- Hope is sanity in this game.  As you experience the horrors in the dark, you have to make checks to see if you lose hope.  If you lose all your hope, you effectively die as you just become an agent of the darkness.

Heroism- Story candy!  Heroism is the story candy of this game where you get it for story reasons or just being the guy/gal to buy pizza that week.  It lets you reroll dice, avoid dying, not lose hope, or any other cool thing that the GM lets you do.

Alright, thats the basics, let’s dig in.

Mechanics or Crunch– This game plays like a strange version of Shadowrun and that’s a good thing.  This is a VERY crunchy game with piles of d6s being thrown at a problem.  I like that.  Some things feel a bit inconsistent, like choosing DCs.  When I want to do something opposed by a bad guy, the DC is half their relevant ability, but you do not do that for their defense stats.  That feels just a tiny bit off.  Not enough that it will keep me away, however. 4.5/5

Theme or Fluff–  Want gritty power rangers with rampant evils of capitalism and magic crap all over?  Yep, I do too.  That’s what this game feels like.  Do you remember the 90s TV cartoon where football players went back and were working for Merlin with magic power armor? Mix that with a little Clive Barker and TONS of neon light tracery, and you get this.  Yes, I want that.  5/5

Execution– This is well done and almost perfect for a crowd-funded project.  There is a 30+ page book with art, a basic walkthrough of the game, and a short adventure WITH five premade characters.  My ONE issue is that there is no hyperlinking.  But it’s 30 pages and free.  If I wanted to play it with friends, it took me 30 minutes to read through cover to cover and have enough of an idea how to play and run.  That’s a hell of an introduction.  5/5

Summary–  I grew up in the 90s and am a sucker for any power armor heroes.  I also loved the Matrix and Dark City.  This is that in a blender.  I have some slight reservations about how numbers are calculated, but that’s not enough to keep me away.  This is one to check out as it’s free, and in my opinion well worth your time.  97%

Daily Punch 4-19-24 Mind of Matter occult spell for Pathfinder 2nd Ed

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If you don’t think, you are fine.

Mind over Matter one-action Spell 8

Manipulate
Traditions occult
Range 30 feet; Target 1 willing creature
Duration 1 minute

You help a creature block all pain for a moment at the expense of its mind. The creature gains resistance 10 to all damage except mental damage where it is gains .weakness 20 mental damage. If the creature has any other resistances or weaknesses these are lost for the duration of the spell.


Thoughts?

Daily Punch 4-18-24 Micky scientist plan for Everyday Heroes

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Did you slip me a micky?

Micky
As an action, you enact this plan and inject a target within 30 feet with a dark. The target must make a Constitution saving throw against your plan DC. If it fails it takes a -1 to all checks for 10 minutes..
Level 3: The target gains a -2 penalty to all checks for the duration.
Level 5: The target gains a -3 penalty to all checks for the duration.
Level 7: The target gains a -4 penalty to all checks for the duration.
Level 9: The target gains a -5 penalty to all checks for the duration.

Thoughts?