Fivey: Oops, All Feats!

This is a followup to a homebrew rules system I’ve used and talked about here a couple times [1] [2]. It was basically a version of Knave with a certain semi-common house rule called “knacks”, special powers or benefits which characters acquire when they level up [3] [4]. Knacks were intended to fill the gap left by Knave lacking character classes, by giving characters the abilities usually granted by being a certain class. My original take on it was to give starting characters two knacks: a “zeroth level” knack representing their race (with humans picking a non-racial knack of their choice) [5], and a “first level” knack along the same lines as above.

So, why not take it further? Here I’m going to attempt a little ruleset that gives every character a set of special powers that they can activate at will. However, players have to be careful because they only have a couple “points” to spend each day in order to trigger a power. These abilities are classless and non-sequential (i.e. you don't have to unlock ability A before unlocking ability B), but by spending multiple points at once you can produce increasingly complex effects. The goal is for players to be able to create fascinating characters with signature powers or abilities that set them apart from others.

As boilerplate, I’m going to explain some basic rules for character creation and other stuff (which are pretty standard, but I think have some interesting stuff going on anyway). After that, though, it’s time for feats!

Character Creation

Allocate bonuses {0, +1, +2, +3} to each of your four ability categories: charisma (CHA), intelligence (INT), dexterity (DEX), and strength (STR). Alternatively, choose one of your abilities to have the +3 bonus, and roll for the order of the other three bonuses:

1. [0, +1, +2]
2. [0, +2, +1]
3. [+1, 0, +2]
4. [+1, +2, 0]
5. [+2, 0, +1]
6. [+2, +1, 0]

You can increase one bonus by +1 every new level. There are five levels of character progression (or six if you include level zero).

Your character starts with two feats and two skills, tied to their origin and first level respectively. They earn one new feat and one new skill every new level.

Your character’s base armor class is 10, and base speed is 4. They can sustain a maximum number of hits before falling in combat; this is calculated as:

( 1 × CHA ) + ( 2 × INT ) + ( 3 × DEX ) + ( 4 × STR )

Therefore, a character with an array of [+2, 0, +3, +1] can sustain up to 15 hits. The greatest possible maximum at the first level is 20, and the lowest possible is 10. At the fifth level, the greatest possible is 37 and the lowest possible is 18 (assuming a maximum bonus of +5). Or just make it like d10 per level plus an additional d10 idk.

Your character starts with 4 items. They can hold up to 10 regularly sized without reducing their speed, or up to 20 otherwise. I don’t want to worry about this part right now. This isn’t a book; this is a blog post!

Ability Checks

Roll d20 plus your character’s relevant ability bonus. Add their level if they are skilled in the task at hand. If the result is greater than or equal to the difficulty class of the task, your character succeeds.

Easy tasks have a DC of 10, difficult tasks have a DC of 15, and incredible tasks have a DC of 20. You will generally only need to use the latter two unless a situation which is normally easy has an atypical element of danger or stress.

Advantage and disadvantage are at play. When someone is helping someone else, it is treated as the more apt character having advantage [6].

I don’t want to talk about when an ability check should be done here. They should just occur less often than they tend to be in The Big Role-Playing Game, insofar as players are not gatekept from actionable information and mundane tasks are not checked without there being any stressors that would affect one’s ability to perform a task.

Combat

Combat rules are only for combat, i.e. between combatants who have a chance. Initiative is per group, via coin toss or whatever makes sense.

Roll to hit (d20 + ability + skill versus AC), then roll damage by weapon size. If you roll just 1 damage, reroll and add +1. Natural twenties deal double damage dice.

One zone is about 100 square feet (e.g. a 10’ by 10’ square). Up to four regularly sized participants can fit in a zone. Speed indicates how many zones you can traverse in a turn. If you leave a zone with enemies, they can spend their next action to instead attack you on that turn.

Most melee weapons can be used against a target in the same zone as you. Long-reach weapons can be used against a target in an adjacent zone. Ranged weapons can be shot as far as your speed rate.

Basic stuff. This is a blog post.

Time & Procedure

You may notice certain patterns in the feats below. Namely, the reference to hours (and less often days) as the chunks of time for which many triggered feats last. This is nothing but an abstraction: 1 hour is the smallest chunk of 1 day which is counted. One encounter (plus one free rest?) lasts 1 hour. Overland travel turns last 1-3 hours depending on the hex being crossed. Site exploration (e.g. in dungeons), although consisting of maybe ten-minute turns, occurs in cycles of 1 hour. This is all just hypothetical, by the way; it’s just how I’d like to organize things.

But the idea is that you are spending intuitive (but not too ‘expensive’) chunks of your day in order to accomplish certain tasks. For example, as an elf you could stand on top of a tower and cast a weather change ritual for the day’s travels, focusing your eyes in order to see past the horizon (spending overall 2 feat points and 1 hour). An hour-long rest, besides restoring hit points or whatever, could also restore a feat point that you could use later in the day. Meanwhile, you risk resource loss or unwanted attention. Et cetera.

Some people might take issue with the potential of checking for random encounters every hour. It might make sense while traveling for 1 hour at a time, but when you’re sleeping for 8 hours that’s 8 individual checks. However, I think this would make things more interesting. For long rests in particular, it would encourage finding safe (or hidden) places to sleep. For a 1-in-20 (5%) chance of an encounter per hour, that is ultimately a 33% chance of a random encounter while sleeping–approximate to the likelihood of a random encounter when rolling 1-in-6 every four hours. And imagine the stress, as if your characters are being kept up at night!

Another potential thing might be using torches as abstract measures of time during site exploration, or rather indicators of when time passes. For example, when a torch extinguishes (maybe at random, 5-in-20 checked once everyone has moved or taken an action), we can judge that 1 hour has passed since it was lit – and then it’s time for a random encounter check, when the monsters hiding in the dark decide to strike. Of course, with a 5% chance of an encounter, the result is that random encounters are much less common in dungeons than in the overworld, but this can be adjusted by increasing the likelihood of an encounter while down deep (say, 20%). This would make resting in the underworld very dangerous.

Overall, with a 5% chance per hour, you can expect one encounter a day, with 33% of days having two encounters, and only 12% of days having three or more encounters. That’s kind of easy to plan for. You can even handle random encounters as a memory stack, putting NPC parties that are pursuing your own or perhaps encounters that lead to other encounters.

Anyway, those are just some thoughts to contextualize the feats below. I’m curious to know what others think! My hope is that it feels easier and more natural than shifting between multiple formal time units. But this should be a different blog post. Whatever.

Feats

The new stuff! Your character has a number of feat points equal to their level, which you can spend in order to trigger any one of their feats (which, here, are special powers or abilities). Triggering a feat without spending a feat point results in +1 point of exhaustion (or some other bullshit idk), unless your character succeeds checking CHA versus DC 10. The feat itself will not require an ability check to trigger.

Roll for a feat family according to the below guidelines based on what you want to generate:

• Roll d4 for magical spells.
• Roll d8 for learned feats.
• Roll d10 for origin feats.

Then roll d10 to select a feat in any family. Notice that for origin feats, this is basically a d% roll. If you care.

Something else to notice is that most of the feats are unnamed (except for the weird/legendary origins), since the idea is that you can imagine how the feat takes on a form specific to your character. This is Fivey, baby! Your characters are special! Fuck you! UWU!

1. Arcane Feats

1. Cast a spell from a scroll or other item that has already been used that day.
2. Conjure and command an astral hand, which can be as large as a human being, for 1 hour.
3. Summon an astral eye or ear to view or hear something within 1 room of you, for 1 hour.
4. Call lightning down from the sky, or from a conduit. It will travel up to 4 zones away, striking one target in each.
5. Create a phenomenon of one of the five senses, lasting for 1 hour.
6. Cause 1d6 hit dice worth of creatures to fall asleep for 1 hour.
7. Become invisible, or turn someone else invisible, for 1 hour.
8. Hold someone or something your size in place for 1 hour.
9. Levitate someone or something up to 10 feet for 1 hour, suspended in place if not acted upon by a force.
10. Roll a d20 and replace the result of any one other roll later in the day as desired.

2. Miraculous Feats

1. Cure someone else of 1d10 hits, or heal them of an ailment.
2. Bless someone by giving attackers disadvantage against them for 1 hour.
3. Curse someone by granting attackers advantage against them for 1 hour.
4. Multiply servings of food into as many are necessary at the moment, if there are not enough.
5. Split a sea or move a mountain to allow clear passage for 1 hour.
6. Summon a great cloud at day or pillar of fire at night, which will guide your party for the duration of their travel in that period.
7. Summon an angelic, demonic, or otherwise spiritual companion who can offer reasonable assistance for 1 hour. (Thanks Nick!)
8. Receive an unambiguous sign from Heaven, or Hell, for an answer to a question.
9. Illuminate an enclosed space for 1 hour, or until it is no longer enclosed.
10. Cause something to become ritually clean or suitable for consumption.

3. Primal Feats

1. Grow gliding wings under your arms for 1 hour.
2. Grow claws that inflict damage as a heavy weapon for 1 hour.
3. Grow gills in order to breathe underwater for 1 hour.
4. Acquire sticky fingers and toes to crawl across walls or ceilings for 1 hour.
5. Heat up a metal surface, up to becoming harmful to touch.
6. Understand and speak with animals or plants for 1 hour.
7. Summon an impenetrable cloud or swarm in a zone, giving all inside disadvantage on attacks.
8. Summon a familiar creature or ethereal steed to do your bidding for 1 hour.
9. Call out to see if there is a nymph or other tutelary spirit residing in the area.
10. Manipulate a cubic foot, about 10 gallons, of water (including any soluble content) for 1 hour.

4. Ritual Feats

1. Spend 1 hour to protect a space against opposing spirits for 1 day.
2. Spend 1 hour to open one side of a portal for 1 day.
3. Spend 1 hour to change the weather as far as you can see for 1 day.
4. Spend 1 hour to preach to a generation, a bloodline, or a city and thereby curse them.
5. Spend 1 hour to produce water from a stone, lasting for 1 day.
6. Spend 1 hour to give an animal the ability to speak for 1 day.
7. Spend 1 hour to bless someone and protect them from ailment for 1 day.
8. Spend 1 hour to establish a connection through a mirror or crystal ball.
9. Spend 1 hour to adjust the elevation of an area by 10 meters.
10. Spend 1 hour to adjust the brightness of the sun, moon, or stars for 1 day.

5. Combat Feats

1. Make melee attacks against all enemies in your current zone.
2. Spend 1 hour to put on war paint (and nothing else) which acts as heavy armor for 1 hour (non-consecutive to the first hour).
3. Mark a target against which you gain advantage on attack rolls for 1 hour.
4. Completely negate an attack made against yourself, and do an action.
5. Attack a surprised enemy to deal critical damage as a large weapon. Failure is as a regular attack.
6. Skip an attack roll and automatically deal maximum damage.
7. Move past enemies without receiving any attacks of opportunity.
8. Force a morale check on enemies in your zone.
9. Prevent all enemies in a zone from leaving.
10. Make an extra attack after defeating an enemy, until you stop.

6. Social Feats

1. Discern what someone really wants.
2. Know what promises it will take to persuade someone.
3. Betray your mannerisms and speech.
4. Act, convincingly, like you know what is going on.
5. Flawlessly perform a song, dance, or other act.
6. Cheat at a game.
7. Garner a crowd’s undivided attention.
8. Know what would intimidate or threaten someone.
9. Know what makes someone insecure.
10. Perform charades in order to get something across.

7. Banditry Feats

1. Immediately discern how to avoid or, if possible, disarm a physical hazard.
2. Immediately detect any hidden features for 1 hour.
3. Move silently and in shadow or brush for 1 hour, forcing a surprise check if desired.
4. Memorize your path throughout a dungeon level to quickly navigate to an exit.
5. Happen to have exactly what you need, such as: a ration, a torch, a non-complex tool, or something else mundane.
6. Climb up a sheer or otherwise difficult surface.
7. Perform a sleight of hand unnoticed.
8. Upsell someone, literally or otherwise.
9. Identify and appraise something.
10. Quickly and effortlessly pick a lock or other restraint.

8. Survival Feats

1. Recognize nearby signs of life by sight, smell, or sound.
2. Follow the sun to negate the condition of being lost.
3. Read the stars to know where you are relative to somewhere else at night.
4. Determine the direction of the nearest source of water.
5. Cook meals to restore an additional 1d6 hits or remove 1 exhaustion.
6. Piece together the historical context of an area or structure.
7. Predict tomorrow’s weather.
8. Catch the biggest typical fish in a body of water.
9. Spend 1 hour to brew a potion to heal or harm someone.
10. Understand the surrounding ecosystem.

9. Weird Origins

1. Birdfolk: Perfectly mimic any voice heard since you last slept.
2. Canid: Follow the path of something by smell for 1 hour, up to 12 miles away if it is in the open air.
3. Dwarf: See through pitch black darkness for 1 hour.
4. Elf: Extend the horizon or your shooting range twice as far, for your eyes only, for 1 hour.
5. Feline: Land safely on your two feet from a great height.
6. Goblin: Fashion a device using materials on hand in 1 hour.
7. Halfling: Evade notice from big folk for 1 hour.
8. Lizardfolk: Bask in the sun for 1 hour to restore 10 hits.
9. Lycanthrope: Transform into a werewolf at night for 1 hour, increasing your strength by +1 to +4 based on the moon’s phase.
10. Orc: Gain advantage on saves against psychic damage for 1 hour.

10. Legendary Origins

12. Celestial: Give someone else tunnel vision for 1 hour.
13. Dragonkin: Breathe an element up to 1 zone away and deal 1d6 hits to everyone inside on a failed save.
14. Fairy: Ward away antagonistic spirits for 1 hour.
15. Gnome: Transform into an earth elemental for 1 hour.
16. Hellchild: Light a fire on your tail for 1 hour.
17. Salamander: Transform into a fire elemental for 1 hour.
18. Sylph: Transform into an air elemental for 1 hour.
19. Undead: Replace limbs with those of other creatures to restore 1d10 hits.
20. Undine: Transform into a water elemental for 1 hour.
21. Vampire: Drain another creature to restore your own hits. You choose the die type.

Skills

These are basically bog-standard. I’m just going to steal the list from The Big Role-Playing Game, plus two for weapons – although in practice, I’d like the set of skills to be open rather than closed. You should come up with your own. Why not?

1. Acrobatics
2. Animal Handling
3. Arcana
4. Athletics
5. Cooking
6. Deception
7. History
8. Insight
9. Intimidation
10. Investigation
11. Medicine
12. Melee
13. Nature
14. Performance
15. Persuasion
16. Religion
17. Shooting
18. Sleight of Hand
19. Stealth
20. Survival

If your character is skilled at a task, you add their level to the roll. Maybe if you spend a feat point, you could give yourself advantage or even automatically succeed. That would require me to basically replace some of the auto-success feats above, but that could lead to more interesting ones than are already there. Just something to think about!

Since there are no classes, the skills above also serve in the capacity of bonuses for actions typically associated with classes (e.g. arcana, melee, religion, or shooting).

Character Packages

I think it would be nice for there to be character packages, similar to what you’d find in games with cohesive character ‘backgrounds’ (as in, basically, premade builds). However, I also kind of like the idea of this being more hands-on than just rolling up a character, without it being too complex. Maybe packages to represent common character archetypes would be useful.

Conclusion

I am happy with the feats. Although my goal was to emulate The Big Role-Playing Game without classes or sequential progression, I ended up being more directly influenced by The Previous Edition Of The Big Role-Playing Game for how it encapsulates spells and other abilities in one shared scheme for character powers. Of course, something I was cautious of was turning them all into ultra-balanced combat powers, so I hope I succeeded in making them more broadly applicable with creative (i.e. non-obvious) use cases. I was also inspired by PBTA/BOB moves, insofar as I think when written correctly they can cause interesting situations to happen. Shout-out to Alex Chalk [7].

Obviously I’m using The Big Role-Playing Game as a model for the above activities, feats, and skills. That all implies, basically, a pseudo-medieval-European fantasy setting. But my intent is just for that Big Role-Playing Game to be a reference point. Having reduced the basic principles, I think they are easily applicable to many other settings not only on an aesthetic level but on a ‘structural’ level as well (i.e. the same character interface could easily be used in games with aims and procedures different from The Big Role-Playing Game). I’d even go as “far” as removing hits and ability bonuses.

I’m actually really excited to try this in the future because I think it will facilitate the kind of play I like best (rules-light, hijinks-heavy) while being very familiar for people who are mostly acquainted with The Big Game or are DIY enjoyers.

Endnotes

[1] B., Marcia. 2021-11-29. “On Knave and Old-School Rulebooks”, Traverse Fantasy.

[2] B., Marcia. 2022-05-19. “Wizards HATE Her! How to Play D&D for Free, Part 2: Player Interface”, Traverse Fantasy.

[3] Hammer, Adrian. 2019-11-18. “Knacks for Knave”, The Man With A Hammer.

[4] Molina, Brian V. 2019-03-06. “Knave-Knacks”, Laughing Leviathan. I didn’t read this one originally, but it seems to predate the one above.

[5] These were inspired by another light rulebook, called Here’s Some Fucking D&D, which itself had a character ability system similar to knacks.

[6] See my earlier post, “Boolean Advantage & Disadvantage” (2022-10-31), about why advantage is a really useful way to handle assistance. To summarize, it is basically the same as both characters making their own check with only one necessary to succeed, and with the additional benefit that the higher bonus is used on both rolls.

[7] Chalk, Alex. 2022-05-11. “Social Procedures”, To Distant Lands.