Monday, December 2, 2013

Tinkering with SKILL (Fighting Fantasy)

In a previous post, I put up some house-rules for running the venerable Fighting Fantasy system in Arihmere. I suggested a fixed SKILL score of 9 for all basic characters, but although this is near the average for any character created with the original rules (6+1d6), a SKILL of 9 would mean that most Tests of SKILL would succeed (about 83%, or 5 in 6).

This means that characters will mostly succeed at standard (unmodified) tests and have rough combat parity with many powerful FF monsters. The GM, of course, is expected to devise modifiers for situations to make play more interesting and dramatic. Characters with a high SKILL also gain less from a rare +1 magic or enhanced weapon or tool.

But if you want to make Arihmere a more dangerous place, make the standard SKILL 8 for an adventurer, and 7 for an untrained traveller at the start of adventure.

An initial SKILL of 8 means that the character is equal to a strong monster like a troll, but not a deadly or rare creature. It also means that finding a +1 item is more meaningful, as is any gain in SKILL through experience or magic. Characters with lower initial SKILL must fight harder together, and use their wits and strategy (and LUCK) to overcome tough opponents.

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