Elder Scrolls Oblivion RPG

Just a little something I wrote, uses everything from the Elder Scrolls games. Suitable for IRC, forum and instant messenger RPGs, as only the GM need ever roll any dice, which they can do IRL. Yes, this has been ludicrously simplified from the real game, since we are not computers capable of remembering everything and doing millions of calculations per second. Also, to those who got the version from me before, the starting gold has been increased to 100 from 50, on the basis that 50 can get you sod all, not even fur armour and a crappy sword. Version 0.3



Use http://www.linklost.com/occ/ to generate a new character. Store the raw text in notepad and format to your liking. Add your age to the top, and your current level in place of max level.

Select equipment by using http://www.uesp.net/wiki/ and searching for items. This will show the weight and cost. Record both. You have 100g to spend, and may not carry more than your encumbrance. Be realistic, only choose equipment your character could feasibly carry.

When choosing spells, you spend your gold as usual on them. A character with at least 3 major skills set as magic colleges gets an extra 200g, for spells only, to represent their magical education. You may only begin with spells from colleges marked as a major skill and that you may learn. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:List_of_Spells_by_Effect contains information about all spells and their levels, look to the bottom for skill required to reach each level.

Spells and items are entirely up to the GM, they have no set effects. However, the effects should relate to both the skill of the character and the ingenuity of the player.



To use a skill, roll a d20 and add the first digit of the relevant skill. The required roll will vary, but higher is better, and 12 is average difficulty - picking an average lock, making an average potion etc...

To attack, the attacker says how they wish to attack, and the defender decides to block or dodge. The attacker rolls d20, and adds the first digit of the applicable weapon skill. If they chose to block, the opponent then adds their Agility and Block together, takes the first digit of this, and doubles it. The attacker must roll above this number to hit. If they chose to dodge, the defender rolls a d20 and adds the first digit or their Agility. If they roll more than the attacker, the attack misses and they can move 1 meter in any direction.

To calculate your chance of a critical success, divide your Luck by 40, and round to the nearest 1, minimum 1. This is how close you must roll to 20 for a critical success. Up to 59 luck, only a 20 is a critical. Up to 99 luck, a 19 or 20 is a critical. At 100 luck, an 18, 19 or 20 is a critical success.

If the attacker rolls a critical hit on their attack, all defenses are negated, and the attack has a different effect, depending on it's type. If the attack was bladed, it does 1.5 x the maximum possible damage it could usually do, and cause the victim to bleed heavily. Effects of this are up to the GM. Blunt weapon attacks cause the victim to be dazed, or stunned on a head hit. On a limb hit, roll again. A second critical success means the limb is broken. Hand to Hand critical hits disarm a blocking opponent, or trip a dodging one. Spell critical hits either multiply the duration, magnitude or area by 1.5.

Be realistic with this. Light armour will block an axe blow, but then be broken. Heavy armour may well break a dagger. Hand to Hand may block a spear, but blocking a sword will hurt.

For damage, add the weapons basic damage (or average of the bow's damage and the arrow's damage, for archery hits) to the first digit of your strength and the first digit of your skill with the weapon used. Subtract the armour value of the target's location that was hit, and add 1d10 for every 10 points of basic damage. The GM will then apply any modifiers they see fit.



To level up, the GM will give out points to spend on leveling up after each play session. A good benchmark is between 3 and 8 per hour of play, with a usual score around 5. These points can be used to increase any skill, provided that skill was used in that play session. When ten points are spent on the character's Major Skills, they go up a level. They gain (ENDURANCE/10, rounded to the nearest 1) points to their HP and fatigue, (INTELLIGENCE/10, rounded to the nearest 1) points to their Magicka, and may increase 3 primary statistics by 3 each.

Vampirism can be acquired by catching Porphyric Hemophilia from a current vampire. This is spread either by the blood of a vampire, or an attack from one - not by feeding, unless the vampire so wishes.

Your GM will decide if you catch the disease by rolling a d10, on a 1, you do. Should you have disease resistance, they will then roll a d100, rolling under your disease resistance %.

Three days after contracting Porphyric Hemophilia, you will develop vampirism, at level one. Every 24 hours since your last feed on a sapient creature, you will go up one level of vampirism, to a maximum of level 4, after 72 hours. All vampires begin with a 10% weakness to fire (in addition to that below).

Every level will give a cumulative +5 bonus to Strength, Willpower and Speed, a +5 bonus to Acrobatics, Athletics, Destruction, Hand to Hand, Illusion, Mysticism and Sneak, a further 10% weakness to fire and a 5% resistance to normal weapons. Normal weapons are anything not silver, not daedric and not enchanted.

After level 1 vampirism, a vampire will begin to take damage when in sunlight. They will take damage every minute spent in direct bright sunlight. Torchlight and magic light does not affect this. A level 2 vampire will die in 4 hours of bright sunlight, a level 3 vampire will die in 1 hour, and a level 4 vampire in 15 minutes. This damage can be reduced by shadows, water and clothing, but is not negated except when indoors or underground.

Each level of vampire gains a new power. Should they drop below this level, they lose this power. A level 1 can sense people by their heartbeat, and see in the dark. A level 2 vampire can mentally seduce people with eye contact. A level 3 vampire can inspire terror and render people speechless with their presence. A level 4 vampire can turn invisible for 3 hours a day.

Becoming a werewolf is done similarly, by catching Sanies Lupinus from the blood or attack of a werewolf, with resistance as above. After 3 days you will become a werewolf, every night at 9pm.

While transformed, werewolves can sense living beings by smell, and can see in the dark. They cannot use magic, weapons or armour while transformed, and nor can they open chests, loot bodies, or pick items up. They get a +20 bonus to Agility, Endurance, Speed, Strength, Acrobatics, Athletics, Hand to Hand and Unarmoured, but all other skills and attributes are at -10. Hit points are also doubled. They transform back at 6am, with all skills restored, and all memories restored.

Werewolves must kill a sentient being each night, due to their bloodlust. Should they refuse to do this, they are severely weakened the following morning, and are tired and weak all day.

As a side note, vampires and werewolves always have red eyes. However, this is rarely known outside vampire/werewolf clans, and is of little importance, unless meeting one, or a scholar.

This is epic, and the game was epic. Aahh, the memories of shooting the adoring fan in the head off dive rock with a bow...

The elder scrolls was originally based of the one guys idea for a campaign

The elder scrolls P&P actually reached the editors before Bethesda scrapped it
(i have some old images of the cover and a .pdf of the old rules although it isnt complete)

/salute

Shame, how complete are the rules? I'm sure we could patch them up, if it's only bits missing. Especially since almost all the game formulae are on UESP.

you should run this sometime.
perhaps use straight oblivion rules?

also : unarmed cannot block that easilly.
>Ctrl+f
>"dodge"
>not found

might want to fix that.

(also id suggest the removal of the "speed" stat, just lump it into agility)

Fair enough. Maybe have dodge as an Agility vs Attack roll? I'm trying to keep this as close to the normal oblivion rules as possible, so the Speed stat would represent combat order, and maybe movement on hex-based, maybe [first digit] hexes?

I'd be willing to run this if I get a few interested players, PM or MSN sheets if you want.

UESP is an awesome site. I used to always use it.

Well, do you want to play this sometime? I'd be willing to GM, as I said. Just send me a sheet.

http://www.linklost.com/occ/?K'Sharr&Adventurer&0&8&10&0&4&5&0&5&10&14&17&18&19

Name/Class: K'Sharr / Adventurer
Race/Gender: Khajiit / Male
Birthsign: The Thief
Specialization: Combat
Attributes: Speed, Strength
Major Skills: Alchemy, Restoration, Sneak, Light Armor,
Hand to Hand, Block, Armorer

Health/Magicka/Fatigue: 60/80/165
Max Level: 50
Encumbrance: 225

Abilities:
- Demoralize (daily: 100 pt. Touch)
- Night-Eye (for 30 sec.)

Stats:
INTELLIGENCE-40: Alchemy-25, . Mysticism-5, .. Conjuration-5
WILLPOWER-30: ... Destruction-5, Alteration-5, .. Restoration-25
PERSONALITY-40: . Illusion-5, ...... Mercantile-5, . Speechcraft-5
AGILITY-60: ......... Security-10, ... Sneak-30, ..... Marksman-5
SPEED-55: .......... Athletics-15, ... Acrobatics-15, Light Armor-30
STRENGTH-45: .... Blunt-10, ........ Blade-15, ...... Hand to Hand-40
ENDURANCE-30: ... Block-30, ...... Armorer-30, . Heavy Armor-10
LUCK-60

Awesome, equipment? Use UESP and search for it, or if you have the game, look up the costs when buying at 100% of normal cost.

i use uesp normaly im shopping for equipment later

Splendid. I've been thinking of redoing the combat rules, use these as a lite version, and then have a rules heavy version. Well, I say heavy, my current idea is normal damage + 1st digit of strength + 1st digit of the weapon's skill, and then some modifier based on where hit. Any other things to take into account?

Crits.

Natural 10 ignores defense and/or maximum possible damage?

Id say ignores armor is good

use luck in some way for crits, say (AGI+LCK)/4?

Also: Gear

Leather Cuirass - WT:7.5, Dura:160, Cost:35, Protection Rating:6.25
Black Wide Pants - Cost:1. Middle class clothing.

Surely you have more gear? You will also need to eat, remember.

im khajit, ill hunt.

True. As for crits, maybe Luck/10, rolled on a d100 every time you attack?

I'm a Shadowscale. Yay.

Noilz, Linky?

As for crits...
Critical Hits
A Critical hit with a weapon simulates your character finding that flaw in the opponents armor or technique and exploiting it, this gives you two bonuses to your damage roll, the first is that the attack will not be reduced by the opponents armor, the second depends on the weapon you are using.

With Bladed weapons you will deal x1.5 Damage (or 2.0?)
With a Blunt weapon you will daze the opponent causing them to lose a turn.
When fighting hand to hand you will disarm the opponent.
Using spells will increase the effects by x1.5 (or 2.0?) for both time and potency.

To calculate your critical chance take your Luck and divide by 40. This is how close to 20 you must roll to perform a critical hit.

Example: Bert the Blunt weapons specialist has a luck of 40 this means that his Critical hit chance is 1. When rolling the dice to hit a 20 is a Critical.
Isha the illusionist has a luck of 60, a critical hit rating of 1.5, rounded this is 2, so a roll of 19 or 20 will result in a critical hit for Isha.

/professional

sound good?

As for spells, why use spell points? why not just stick with gold and magicka?
Also, lastly, can we swap the werewolf / vamp mechanics, it doesnt make much sense outside of the TES universe.

Werewolves should get more powerful for not eating, but will suffer a loss of intelligence, willpower and personality. they must also pass a will test of varying degrees when fresh meat is around.

Vampires should weaken from not eating.

i think thats all i could think of, i do like the system so far though. and you really do seam to have an affinity for d20 dont you.

I do like d20; 5% increments is much easier to do than increment on 3d6. Thank you.

The only issue I can think of from swapping the vampire mechanics is that players may well fight a vampire, then plan their attack on something major to coincide with them becoming FUCKHUEG POWERFUL - after 3 days.

Maybe have them be forced to drink blood for the first time, after the gestation period of Porphyric Hemophilia? And this would perform the whole DNA rewrite.

Okay, lets put it less retardedly. You have the disease, which gives you a minor debuff for 3 days. Over this time, food begins to taste less satisfying, and raw meat seems more appealing. However, no effect from eating anything. Drinking blood during this time is treated as normal - you get sick and it does no good for you.
After 3 days, you're a vampire proper. Normal food is tasteless and provides no nutritional value. You begin to ache for blood, and will die in 3 days if you don't feed. When you do, you become horribly sick, but do not vomit. You become weak and drained (massive penalties to everything). After a few hours, you stand up, as a level 4 vampire. If you don't feed, you go down the levels, at the normal rate. When you do, you go up a level for every pint of blood you drain from someone the same race as you, 2 pints for non-same but sentient, and 3 pints of non-sentient creature blood.
For effects on the victim, draining 1 pint does nothing, draining 2 leaves them ill and weak for a couple of days, draining 3 leaves them dying, and draining 4 pints kills them unless they are healed within a minute.

As for werewolves, I think they should get half the effects if they've fed within the last 3 hours, full if not. As for the will rolls you mentioned, maybe roll under basic INT/5 on a d20, with a -1 penalty for every hour since eating?

For spell critical hits, call it 1.5 x duration or power. Otherwise, 10 dmg for 10 secs becomes rather lethal, going from 100 dmg to 225 dmg. Alternatively, maybe half the mana cost?

Bladed weapons do 1.5 damage, and cause the victim to bleed. Effects of this are left to the GM, but should typically require INT/5 (call it a Will roll, from now on) rolls from vamps and wolves. Custom enchantments that seek blood are also possible, also left to the ideas of the GM.
Blunt weapons stunning should only be to the head. Otherwise, limb shot breaks the limb, torso or groin shot winds them, giving penalties to END for a few minutes.
Hand to Hand should only disarm if the opponent tries to parry/block.
(parrying/blocking is treated as a skill roll against defenders weapon/block skill, with a penalty equal to how much the attacker passed by. Wanting to parry is declared before rolling the attack). Otherwise, treat it as Blunt weapons, above. Should the defender parry or block with Hand to Hand, also treat the attack as Blunt.

Can we split up coz I wanna get Umbra.

it's possible to split up - the players leaving the main party will go into a different channel and leave the first one, so they don't know what's happening. And also, you all start at level 1. Go try to get Umbra at level 1.

Nailz: Umbra stats: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Umbra_(person)#Details
394HP with 55 AR.. GG

Crits:
i posted at early morning so didnt do the mechanics of spell crits in my head, they are pretty OP. i agree on limiting it to either Damage or Time.

Bladed crits sound good.

Blunt seams a little overpowered compared to bladed.
The "daze" was meant to be an all encompassing word to cover the opponent recoiling from the hit. I do like the idea of breaking limbs, its what i had in mind for blunt, but you would need to buff Bleed in order for it to be fair.

Hand to Hand needs something unique, the thing is that H2H has significantly less damage than others but i has more versatility in the way of damaging fatigue and that the power attacks contain a stun and a disarm.

Vampirism power could be easily solved by just extending the time needed to become powerful, even i felt that the few days to hit max level was a bit too quick on the PC, perhaps.

Caught disease into vampire, 1 week (Various effects you listed during this time)
Level 1 to level 2; 2 days, Missing a feed will cost you a day as well as a Minor debuff.
level 2 to level 3; a week, Mising a feed will cost you 2 days as well as a debuff.
level 3 to level 4; 2 weeks, Missing a feed will cost you a week as well as a large debuff.
level 4 to level 5; 2 months, Missing a feed will not cost you anything, however a large debuff will begin to stack and will become fatal.

This way it also shows the player getting used to their vampirism.
Along with things like high level vampires loosing their humanity since they have to be fueled by blood, however abstinence at low levels will prevent this. (fuck yeah, grimdark)
Also: Lower level vampires would need less blood than a higher level.

Werewolves sound good.


A note on will tests, why not use the willpower stat? why Int?

Another idea for fleshing out mercantile.
When trying to barter on an item, take a personality test if you pass your mercantile skill determines how much discount or markup you can get away with, a critical pass will cause your mercantile skill to count as being 50 points higher for this meeting with the NPC.
(i did originally say "counts as being 99 (or 100?)" but what if you already had 99 mercantile?)
0-24 every point gives +1% price variance.
25-49 every point gives +0.75% price variance.
50-74 Every point gives +0.5% price variance.
75-99 Every point gives +0.25% price variance.
The effects for 100 mercantile is up to the DM. (as in i dont know what to put here)

99 Mercantile would give a total of 60% price variance which seems fair to me. Oh, and by Price Variance, i mean when buying you get discount, when selling you can markup.