If you're subscribed to my substack you'll have seen a revised PARIAH character generator PDF. If you're not subscribed to my substack you may be asking yourself why I have one AND a blog, to which I'll reply: CHRIS MCDOWALL HAS BOTH SO I CAN TOO. You'll also be aware that I already shared the chargen PDF in the last blogpost, so this is a doubly redundant introduction.
Brevity is not my strong suit and never was.
This is a post about saving throws.
SAVING THROWS IN PARIAH 2024
Scanning through the character generation document, two things leap out at you if you're familiar with PARIAH volume 1. The first of these is the renaming of saving throws (which previously cleaved fairly closely to original D&D). I'll come to the second noticeable change—the apparent absence of attributes—at the end of this post.
The saving throws are now thematically tied to the 5 (or 6) realms outside the Here & Now of the psychedelic animist omniverse in which PARIAH takes place:
- Dawn - charms, illusions, polymorph (dawn magic), dawn entheogens
- Dusk - teleportation, mental/psionic attacks, technological devices constraint (dusk magic), dusk entheogens
- Sun & heavens- thunder, lightning, fire, breath attacks (sun magic), sun entheogens, shock & surprise
- Moon- sleep, stupefaction, mind control/confusion (moon magic), moon entheogens
- Death- death, non-magical poison and disease
There is a "hidden" separate save for the magic and entheogens of THE BEYOND, but pariahs do not start with a fixed score (it is determined during play).
Saves work in the same way: it's roll a D20, hit or exceed the target number to survive or mitigate a negative effect.
You can stack these up against the classic saves as follows:
- SPELLS = DAWN
- PARYLISIS & PETRIFICATION = MOON
- WANDS/DEVICES = DUSK
- DEATH/POISON = DEATH
- DRAGON'S BREATH = SUN & HEAVENS
Part of this was down to embedding the setting in the system a little more, while maintaining that connection to classic editions of the game i.e. OD&D and B/X. But it also owes much to this vintage (2012!) post by Necropraxis:
https://www.necropraxis.com/2012/07/31/why-i-love-saving-throws/
It's also worth mentioning Wolfpacks and Winter Snow, the other OSR stone age RPG as that included four saves against weather, poison, magic and hazards. I feel obliged to mention that I have heard rumours of a second edition in the works, which is very exciting.
Attributes?
I've been thinking a lot about the role of ability scores (if you go back through posts tagged adventure game, you'll see it comes up more than once) and have decided to remove them. You can put them back in if you like, it won't make much difference. I've introduced traits instead, which are a bit more specific. The major impact I suppose is the removal of the core attribute, which previously conspired with the pariah's hit dice, reason for exile and background to give a vague sense of the pariah's class.
If you do prefer to play with the "traditional array", can I suggest using the following modifiers instead of the B/X inspired ones from Volume 1:
3-5: -1
6-15: -
16-17: +1
18: +2
But why?
I've revived the City of Ghosts campaign and want to put the realms front and centre in the PARIAH game. Ultimately I plan to publish this adventure once I'm happy with how it runs at the table, and want the system to sit neatly beside it while also permitting ease of adaptation to other systems.
I've... kept skills! Which I realise annoys a lot of people. You can ignore them, or just use them as character flavour. I minimise their impact by using the scaling die as part of a 2d6 roll, loosely based around the animist resolution mechanic.
Consider this an update to my previous sandbox primer post:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-city-of-ghosts-sandbox-playtest.html
You can also download the character generator from itch.io at this link:
https://atelier-hwei.itch.io/ahpz15-pariah-generator
LINKS
Substack:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.substack.com/
Previous PARIAH post:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2024/09/curse-template-spirit-touched.html
Seminal Necropraxis post:
https://www.necropraxis.com/2012/07/31/why-i-love-saving-throws/
Wolfpacks and Winter Snow (affiliate link)
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/181454/wolf-packs-and-winter-snow?affiliate_id=767873
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