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View Full Version : DM Help Looking For a System - Broken Empire



Prince Raven
2014-09-13, 10:27 PM
My cousin is looking to run a campaign in the setting of the Broken Empire novels by Mark Lawrence. He says he wants to run it in Pathfinder, because that's the system he's familiar with, but I have my doubts. Broken Empire magic is much rarer and more restricted than Pathfinder, with each magic-user having to follow a certain theme. (necromancer, pyromancer, dream-witch, etc.) Does the playground have any advice as to a more suitable system?

Averis Vol
2014-09-14, 12:05 AM
He doesn't need a new system, he just has to lay down some ground rules like "You can only cast from one school of magic" or "you can only use one energy type", etc, etc, and just make magic items a bit more scarce. Sure, it requires using house rule, but what game doesn't?

ArtlessMammet
2014-09-14, 12:43 AM
He doesn't need a new system, he just has to lay down some ground rules like "You can only cast from one school of magic" or "you can only use one energy type", etc, etc, and just make magic items a bit more scarce. Sure, it requires using house rule, but what game doesn't?
With some sensible encounter design, this might even help assuage the good old 3.P caster/melee gap :smallbiggrin:

Averis Vol
2014-09-14, 01:59 AM
With some sensible encounter design, this might even help assuage the good old 3.P caster/melee gap :smallbiggrin:

It's a step in the right direction at the very least, because there's not really any feasible way to bring the fighter up to T1.

Sidmen
2014-09-15, 07:20 PM
If you and he both want to find another system, I'd recommend HERO. Though I agree, you can just limit casters to the Sorcerer/Oracle and have it so they can only cast from one school or reskin the spells to fit if he is more comfortable just using Pathfinder. It should work more-or-less fine; heck, you can just ask the players to limit their spells to in-theme ones and it should work out.

HERO, if you decide to check it out, is a universal system that can be used to build practically anything. Want a sword? That's a Killing attack melee-only with 1d6+1 damage and requires an Obvious Accessible Focus (that last bit means that someone can see and take away the sword). You could instead say you have a sword of flame that manifests in your hand - removing the Obvious Accessible Focus part whilst making the "weapon" cost more points.

In that way, you could have a player start with a sword, then upgrade to a builder-steel blade later (spending more points on the damage). At the same time, you have your death-sworn creating spells to summon(reanimate) the dead or suck the life out of foes based entirely on her theme instead of a list of spells already made.

Its not a hard system to learn (5e at least, was really easy for me to pick up - though I recommend the basic rulebook first, before getting the core books - because the latter has WAY too many optional rules and unnecessarily long examples and explanations). The biggest difficulty was in realizing that conflict resolution was decoupled from combat resolution. I.E. Having a high dexterity doesn't make you a better archer - to do that you want to invest in Offensive Combat Value. High dexterity does, however, make you much better at all the skills and tasks linked to it (picking locks, doing acrobatics, tumbling from a fall, etc.).