Alternity Game Rule Notes

Cormyr Campaign

9/12/2006 - Natural Healing

One of the things I realized is that healing is very slow. I certainly know that personally but in general, the game does try and have a bit more "realism" in that most characters won't be up and about the next day or three later. However, as this is a game and as I want it to be fun, I decided to change the rule a bit and put some more control in the player's hands.

I am going to allow a daily Resolve -> Physical Resolve check to get back wounds. They get one back on a Good result and two with an Amazing. This can't be done with mortal wounds. They do need some help with that type of wound.

This may cause some problems in that mortal wounds aren't terribly uncommon and are very bad. They also don't have the healing potions they did in previous games. As I said at a session, though, this means they are going to have to think a bit more tactically in that if they have a time constraint, they really need to work to avoid being wounded. I like that.

10/13/2006 - Basic Skills

A new idea I have decided to adapt is one where the basic skills of the campaign are improved, up to skill rank 4, by their use rather than skill points. I do this for several reasons.

First, Alternity has a lot of skills. While playing, if a player wanted their character to improve more than three or four skills, it would be tough, costly and take a while. That's not fun. This allows for character growth in areas that are important but most players wouldn't otherwise spend points of them.

Second, this gives the character the basic skills needed to survive in their world. For our purposes, skills like Hunting, Fishing and Fire Building are skills that are useful to the characters but aren't the player's first choice to increase.

We have been using it for a while and I think it has worked out well.

10/24/2006 - Character Generator

I recently found a newer char gen for Alternity. It allows many things to be customized. So, I have put in the basic information and hope to use it as time goes on. At this point, I don't trust it to figure things correctly, and won't until I can verify the numbers, but it is a base and being a few points off won't make that much of a difference.

2/20/2007 - Playing a character with Alternity's rules

It has taken me a while to figure this out about Alternity. In Alternity, a player should have his character stick to three or four broad skills and their associated specialties. Any more than that, and they will spread the character too thin. It has taken me a while to see this. What helped me realize it was how spells are done. Each broad group of spells has specialties that include attack, defense and miscellaneous. There is no real need to learn more than one or two broad spell groups, as it has most of what is needed.

That's a big thing, mainly because it allows me to help give a player focus for his character. I may not prefer DND but classes really give that to a player and I think they like that. So, this has really helped me figure out more about Alternity and how to explain it to the players.