Homebrew Review - Revenant Fantasy AGE Rules Tweaks

 

Revenant on the "Green Ronin AGE Appropriate Discord" Discord server posted a short list of their rule tweaks. I wanted to discuss and comment to continue the evolution of better AGE rules. Some of the words are taken directly from the document. Others are paraphrased.

Attributes and Ancestry

  • Characters automatically begin with all their ancestral ability bonuses factored into their character’s attributes.

  • Because of the racial ability bonuses, starting characters receive only 10 attribute points.

  • Remove the attribute bonuses from the ancestral tables, allow the players to pick two from the table.

I like the spirit of this quite a bit. Personally I don't understand the draw of a randomly generated character and I think this is a good compromise to get background stats. One can actually just use roll table as it has an average of about 10 total and add the ancestry modifiers. I would actually recommend the 10 stat ability array from https://herdingdice.blogspot.com/2023/03/fantasy-age-determining-starting.html to start with.

I also really like removing the abilities and just having a list of focuses to pick from. It's much easier to choose when all the parts are equivalent. I would also consider pulling out other unique ancestral perks so it's just focuses (at least the most interesting ones).

Health and Mana Advancement

  • Health Advancement: Any increase to the player’s constitution after character creation is retroactive to their health pool.

They didn't specifically mention Mage MP as well but they did mention a similar retroactive scheme when explaining "Arcane Disciple" specialization which grants spells to non-mage characters. I really like the wording of "retroactive". I usually try and explain with a formula but this is a good work alternative. This change essentially endorses level as a factor in HP generation. It would be a replacement for cinematic and pulpy AGE rules.

However by no means does this address the "HP Bloat" issue and in fact probably increases overall player HP for those who don't game the system. The main benefit is removing this need to invest early levels in CON or WP to maximize HP or MP. A good change since it reduces that decision and mechanical impact.

Weapons Groups

  • Weapon Groups: Be it for ancestral or cultural reasons, a character may opt to swap out one of their weapon groups for a group more common to their character’s culture. GM is the final arbiter on what weapon groups are appropriate.

  • Classes - additional weapon group enhancements: Envoy at 6, 12, 18; Mage at 10, 20; Rogue at 8, 16; Warrior, you already have so many.

  • Weapon Training - grants an entire weapon group per rank

Only 5 out of 9 ancestries have a weapon group. This bonus is very powerful at level 1 if you pick a class that also has that weapon group. That double weapon group combo turns into a +2 focus instead. I would rather weapon groups be remove altogether but making them more common limits the damage of their rarity. Overall I prefer the weapon training change as you can make it a character creation option and let the PC take anything. Or just remove it. Or even better weapon "style" talents could be more like spell talents where you gain techniques (spells) and get a focus during the talent progression.

Conclusion

There are so many small improvements that can be made to the game. It also needs setting agnostic rules which spells, actions, bonuses are using to create a setting.

I think ancestry and backgrounds are a good example. Out of all the AGE games I think Dragon AGE has the best "backgrounds" as combines both ancestry and background into the same story element. I don't think FAGE ancestries stand strong enough by themselves and neither are the backgrounds. There is an opportunity for more words for each of those. I think there needs to be fewer choices with stronger writing along with a baseline choose whatever you want following these maximums (which end up the same total bonus as the backstory ones).

Health and Mana - I am still working on this... it taken a long time.

Weapons talents, spell talents, arcana, weapon groups need a underlying common framework and representative talents so a player can choose that customization at any level. Levels are arbitrary and really you just need a list of opportunities to make choices.

I really enjoy hearing other peoples ideas and it fuels my own imagination with their effort.

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