A Thing I Did (For My D&D-Adjacent Group)

By Simon Retold, in Genesys

PDFIcon.png - Genesys Realms Character Sheet

So, my group has been playing FFG's Star Wars RPGs for the last four and a half years, so starting last November we took a break and gave D&D5E a chance. I'll admit, while it's certainly an improvement over 4th Edition, I'm still not a fan, but a few people at our table like it well enough. Now that we're back to Genesys (and have already dipped into short one-shots of several different settings), pretty much everyone agreed that fantasy was the way they would prefer to go. The group as a whole really liked the 5th Edition character sheets, so I spent a little time a couple days ago working this PDF up for my players.

(A few changes have been made from standard Genesys. Medicine is now Herbalism , while Mechanics has become Engineering . I've added the Bard-friendly Verse magic skill from Terrinoth. I've also opted to change Wounds and Strain to a more malleable Pain and Fatigue , but that's just a thing at our table. (I'll explain it, if someone wants, I suppose.) Also, instead of a Career , each character is part of a Caste and has a Calling , each of which provides four skills.

Anyway, just thought I might post this for fun.

Edited by Simon Retold

This is awesome, my players have had a rough time facing the transition between the two systems but more specifically the layout of their character sheets. Thank you for sharing this.

PAIN and FATIGUE ; how does this work in place of WOUNDS and STRAIN ?

On 4/1/2018 at 9:34 AM, RottenCosmos said:

PAIN and FATIGUE ; how does this work in place of WOUNDS and STRAIN ?

If I was to guess, I think he has just renamed them. He is trying to further conceptually separate these from Hit Points and whatever passes for fatigue in D&D/Mathfinder to avoid mechanical associations by his players to D&D concepts. "Fatigue" may actually be a better word then "Strain" in communicating the "strain" concept. Or I may be way of base in my speculation.


 
Edited by lyinggod

I was wondering if maybe he came up with an alternate system, I've seen pain recently pop up as a metric for wounds that compromises continued capability in combat, and fatigue as a metric for mental effort.

If he is using it the way another system I've seen use them it'd be pretty cool. So much Pain or Fatigue can lead to set back dice to physical or mental tasks. Its a concept I've really grown found of in Modiphius' systems. Makes combat more dangerous, and deadly which is something I personally enjoy as a player and GM because it discourages MurderHoboism.

23 hours ago, RottenCosmos said:

PAIN and FATIGUE ; how does this work in place of WOUNDS and STRAIN ?

Pain and Fatigue work similarly to Wounds and Strain, with a few minor differences. The most notable difference is that a normal attack can cause either Fatigue or Pain to a character, and I let the player determine which one is used. Certain game mechanics, like taking a second maneuver on a turn, still cause Fatigue. And certain types of attacks will only cause Pain. The idea is that the character can either dodge an attack, thereby taking Fatigue, or be struck, thereby taking Pain.

Magic still costs two Fatigue per spell. When a spellcaster reaches their Fatigue threshold, they can opt to take Pain instead, and continue to cast spells. In fact, after any character reaches their Fatigue threshold, they may opt to take Pain for actions that would normally cause Fatigue. However, a character who has reached their Fatigue threshold upgrades the difficulty of all rolls made while over the threshold. If the character is simply over their Fatigue threshold, the upgrade it all rolls one time. If the character is over their Fatigue threshold and more than halfway to their Pain threshold, they upgrade the difficulty of all rolls twice. A character who goes over their Pain threshold loses consciousness.

Edited by Simon Retold
Because my phone doesn’t know the difference between there, their, and they’re

This is excellent! Love the character sheet. I will mention this in our podcast for sure.

I like the way the skills are redistributed to their parent attributes.