Arkanthia Rulebook

The Arkanthia Rulebook is a new and free rulebook for your own pen and paper adventure. It focuses on player freedom and fast character creation. This allows you to create exactly the character you want to play. Plus, you don’t have to wade through 20 pages of rules and abilities - you can start in 30 minutes or less and be off on your next adventure with your freshly created hero. To find out exactly how to create your own character, take a quick look at the pen and paper tutorial.

Pen and Paper - An overview

The basic principle of pen and paper is actually quite simple to explain. There are two roles in a group, the players and the dungeon master. The players each embody a character of their own creation, known as a player character. The skills and traits of each character are determined by the rules and written on a character sheet. The Dungeon Master (DM) is responsible for running the game, telling the story, embodying the non-player characters and representing all the senses of the player characters. Non-player characters are characters that exist in the world but are not embodied by the players at the table. The world only exists in the minds of all the participants. The DM is responsible for embodying all the senses of the player characters. He describes what they see, smell, feel and taste. The imagination of the players at the table can be aided by environment cards or figures. The characters then enter this world and experience an adventure prepared by the Dungeon Master. Unlike many computer games, there are no limits set by the software. The only limit is your own imagination.

Throughout the course of the adventure, the player characters will be faced with problems. For example, there may be a high rock face to climb, a lock to pick, or an enemy to convince. Whether or not the player characters succeed is decided by a roll of the dice. This is where the character sheet from character creation comes into play. This can be used to acquire and improve skills before the adventure begins, or by leveling up during the adventure. These are assigned a numerical value depending on how well the player character has mastered the skill. Dice are rolled to determine if the character has successfully completed the task. This is also called a ’test roll’. The result of the die roll is compared to the numerical value of the skill. If the number rolled is lower than the numerical value of the skill, the player character has successfully mastered the task; if the number rolled is higher than the numerical value of the skill, the action is unsuccessful. Dice are also used in other situations, such as fights between player characters or with non-player characters. Again, dice are used to check the success of combat actions, but the damage done is also determined by the roll of the dice. Because dice are used in so many different situations, different types of dice are needed. The smallest die is usually the W4, a die with four sides. Other dice used in the game include the classic six-sided W6, as well as W8, W10, W12 and W20 dice, depending on the situation.

Attributes

Attributes are used to describe the basic nature of a character and to give a general direction in which the character should develop. Attributes are usually innate, or trained over a long period of time, so they cannot be improved during the course of the adventure (or except in very special circumstances). This initial setting is very important and has a strong effect on the character. On the one hand, you can roll dice to test your attribute values, and on the other hand, it has an effect on aspects such as hit points, mana points and your hero’s ability values. Each attribute is described briefly below:

Strength: The Strength attribute not only describes your character’s muscle mass, but also how tough they are. It has a positive effect on your character’s Hit Points, but a negative effect on their Initiative.
Dexterity: A character with a high Dexterity is particularly good at performing tasks quickly and with great accuracy. This can be useful when repairing something or doing a craft. A high Dexterity statistic therefore increases your hero’s Initiative, Range and Dodge stats.
Constitution: A character with a high constitution is physically fit and enduring. This means that your character will be able to withstand a long hunt and will have fewer problems when travelling for several days. It therefore improves your character’s Hit Points and Action Skills, as well as their Range in combat.
Intelligence: An intelligent hero has a particularly good grasp of things and can quickly understand even complicated relationships. Therefore, all Knowledge Skills benefit from a high Intelligence score and this also has a positive effect on the Mana Points.
Charisma: Charisma describes a character’s radiance. The more charismatic a hero is, the stronger his effect on other people. A high Charisma rating therefore has a positive effect on all Social Skills, but your character’s Mental Resilience will also benefit from a high Charisma rating.

At the start of character creation, 25 points are allocated to each attribute. Each attribute must have at least one point, with a maximum of ten points per attribute. The higher the value of an attribute, the more skilled the character is in that attribute. To roll a test for an attribute, you can simply roll a D10. If the die roll is greater than the attribute value, the test fails. If the die roll is less than or equal to the attribute value, the character succeeds. The following values are now calculated from your character’s attributes.

Hit Points: Hit Points (HP) are a character’s health points. When the hero takes damage in battle or for any other reason, his hit points decrease. If the HP drops by 75% of the total HP or to less than 10% of the character’s maximum hit points in one hit, the character becomes unconscious. If an unconscious hero then takes further damage that reduces his HP to 0%, the character dies. However, it is not possible to kill a character without knocking them unconscious. This means that a hero will not die if he takes damage equal to his maximum hit points in one hit. Although the hero will then have 0 HP, he will first be knocked unconscious and must take more damage before he can die To revive an unconscious character, he can be healed above the threshold of 10% or 25%, depending on the cause of the unconsciousness. Alternatively, it is possible to bring the hero back to the present by rolling a skill (e.g. Medicine). The DM decides if a skill is appropriate. When a character is no longer in a dangerous situation, they will recover and their hit points will regenerate automatically. This is indicated by the regeneration per in-game hour, i.e. the time experienced by the player character. Serious injury can also reduce the regeneration rate.

$$ Hit\ \ Points = \left(\frac{Strength}{2} + \frac{Constitution}{4}\right) \cdot level + 10$$ $$ HP-Regeneration / h = \left(max.\ \ HP \over 10\right) - X (Type\ \ of\ \ injury)$$

Mana Points: Mana Points (MP) are a resource that is consumed by each spell. If all your mana is used up, it will have no effect on your character. However, if a hero does not have enough mana for a spell, the spell cannot be cast. If the character tries to cast the spell anyway, the remaining mana will be used up completely and the DM can deal with the situation on an individual basis. For example, the spell may have a weaker effect, other side effects, or no effect at all. In addition to your intelligence and level, the maximum amount of mana you can gain depends on your Magic capabilityt-Ability, which can be actively improved. You can find out how your character gains abilities later in the rulebook. Each character’s mana supply also regenerates over time.

$$ Mana\ \ Points = \left(Intelligence \cdot level \over 2 \right) + Magic\ \ capabilityt + 10$$ $$ MP-Regeneration / h = \left(max.\ \ Mana \over 10\right)$$

Mental Resilience: Mental Resilience (MR) describes the mental state of the character. It can be affected by fear and anxiety, for example, as well as happiness and faith. If events occur that cause the character’s MR to drop below 10% or 75% in one fell swoop, the character will lose their temper (flight, paralysed fear, panic attack, etc.) until they have 10% or 25% MB again, or are calmed down by other means. Mental Resilience behaves almost identically to a hero’s Hit Points. However, if a character’s Mental Resilience drops to 0, they will not die. Instead, they will gain a fear appropriate to the situation as a permanent character trait (e.g. fear of water or darkness). MR also regenerates in a safe environment.

$$ Mental\ \ Resilience: = \left(Charisma \cdot level \over 2 \right) + 50$$ $$ MR-Regeneration / h = \left(max.\ \ MR \over 10\right) - X (Type\ \ of\ \ disturbance)$$

Initiative: Initiative is crucial to the combat system. The lower the initiative, the more often a character will take a turn. You can read more about this in the Battle System chapter.

$$ Initiative = 10 + \left(Strength \over 2 \right) - \left(Constitution \over 2 \right) $$

Range: Range is the radius in metres that a character can move within a combat round. The movement is performed instead of other actions. A character who has moved the maximum range in a combat round cannot perform any other actions. If only part of the maximum range is moved, other actions can be performed proportionally. For example, an archer can fire his bow while running at a leisurely pace. However, if he sprints to the nearest cover, he will no longer be able to do so.

$$ Range = \left(Constitution + Dexterity \over 2 \right)$$

Dodge: Dodge is a fixed value that any character can roll a D20 on after being attacked by an enemy. If the roll is less than or equal to the Dodge value, the character dodges the attack and takes no damage.

$$ Dodge = \left(Dexterity \over 2 \right)$$

Abilities and Talents

Abilities are activities that a character has explicitly learnt or mastered. Each ability has a value of Ability Points (AP). The more AP you invest in a skill, the stronger your character will be in that skill. Each ability is assigned to one of the three talents Action, Social and Knowledge.

Action: An action is something that your character does actively. Acting primarily has a physical component. Physically strenuous actions (e.g. lifting a heavy object or cutting down trees) are included in this group, as are fine motor actions (e.g. carving a wooden figurine). (e.g. carving a wooden figure).
Knowledge: For example, your character might need Knowledge to understand a foreign language, categorise political differences, understand mathematical relationships, or distinguish between plants and animals. Abilities in the Knowledge group are often considered neutral and analytical. They tend to be mental abilities that are particularly dependent on intelligence and education.
Social: Social abilities are especially important when interacting with non-player characters. Social primarily describes skills that have to do with interpersonal interaction. This includes active skills such as lying and manipulation, as well as passive skills such as knowing people.

To perform an action, you must roll a D20 on the associated ability value. To perform an action that has not been learned, you must roll a die for the ability’s value. Aptitude rolls can neither critically succeed nor critically fail. The aptitude score is calculated using the following formula:

$$Talent value = \frac{\sum Ability Points}{10} \le 8$$

It is always better to have an appropriate ability at hand for an action than to try to roll for the ability. If a skill is learned but its value is less than the associated ability value, the result is: $ability value + 1$. Here is a small example: Your character is in the forest and wants to follow the tracks of a deer. Your character has an ability value of 5 in the talent Knowledge, but only 3 ability points in the skill Read tracks. Because your talent value is now higher than your ability value, the die roll is $ability value + 1$ instead of the ability value, in this case 6 (5+1). Skills can always be assigned to one of the three talents. If it is not clear which talent an ability falls into, the DM decides. Below are some possible abilities and their corresponding talents.

Action
One-handed (weapon handling)	Two-handed (weapon handling)	Shooting	Throwing	Fistfighting	Sneaking
Climbing	Swimming	Hunting	Acrobatics	Riding	Fishing

Knowledge
Medicine	Animals	Plants	Alchemy	Cooking	Mechanics
Magic Capabilityt	Lockpicking	Reading Tracks	Blacksmithing	Woodworking	Religion

Social
Chatting	Persuading	Lying	Inspiring	Calming	Flirting
Humour	Talking out	Leading	Manipulating	Bargaining

Standard ability

Each player has default abilities that do not need to be learned, but can be improved. This means that these abilities do not cost any additional skill points at the start of character creation. These are_

Climbing (Action)
Swimming (Action)
Throwing (Action)
Riding (Action)
Talking (Social)
Lying (Social)

Before you train these skills, place them in the appropriate skill category with a value of 1.

Improve abilities

At the start of character creation, each player may spend 150 ability points on abilities. In principle, there is no limit to the number of APs that can be spent on each skill, but the higher the skill level, the more APs are required to develop it.

Ability value 0-4: 1 AP
Ability value 5-9: 2 AP
Ability value 10-14: 3 AP
Ability value 15-19: 4 AP
Ability value 20+: 5 AP

The higher the skill level of a character, the better they are at that skill. It may make sense to develop an ability to 20+, even though ability checks are made with a D20. This is because the DM can make the test more difficult in particularly complicated situations. This means that your ability score will be adjusted downwards by a value set by the DM. In such cases, you may benefit from higher ability scores.

Your starting attributes also have an effect on your abilities, giving you $+ \frac{Attribute}{4}$ for each ability in the corresponding category (Constitution for the ability Action, Intelligence for the ability Knowledge, Charisma for the ability Social).

Once the 150 points have been distributed, the total ability points for each ability are added together and divided by 10 (this does not take into account any extra points gained through attributes). This is the general talent score and can reach a maximum of 8. This can be used to perform actions for which you have no ability level.

Level up

At a certain point in the adventure, each character’s level increases.Each level up gives the player 8 skill points.These can be spent immediately or saved for the next level up. FPs cannot be spent spontaneously during an adventure, but only when the character levels up again, or in a quiet situation where there is no advantage to spending the remaining FPs. For example, a character could spend his three FPs to Lockpicking around a campfire in the evening. This is not possible if the group has just found a chest that needs to be opened.

Skilling without leveling up

Situations in the quest, conversations with NPCs, or items found can all lead to a character gaining abilities or, in rare cases, attributes. In addition, characters can receive character traits over the course of the game, which can be permanent buffs or nerfs.

A sample character creation for your own hero can be found here, the combat system of the rulebook is explained in detail here.