Friday, December 3, 2010

Everhammer Full Rules

Looking back on my last post, and the one from June, I don't think there's really enough info there for anyone else to run this hybrid Everway/Warhammer FRP game.

So,  I'm going to post below the actual rules document I've GM'd from. It's just 2 or 3 pages, written pretty informally, and in a couple spots talks about things I hadn't yet done (like convert Wound cards to reference Everway's stats instead of Warhammer's). It was basically just a brainstorming document that proved solid enough on it's rough draft to work without major revisions. Obviously, it's derived from Everway and Warhammer, so I make no copyright claims about it. Feel free to use this system in your own games if you'd like. I feel that, given the nature of RPGs and the common assumption that every GM creates house rules, this document falls under "fair use". It doesn't quote either game system directly, IIRC, but certainly appropriates numerous concepts from both.

To use this "EverHammer" document to it's fullest, you'd need to have a copy of Everway and a copy of Warhammer 3rd. A passing knowledge of each game would be very helpful - you'll need the setting info from Everway and a modicum of familiarity with the combat system from Warhammer.  The Everway boxed set contributes two necessary decks of cards, gives examples of appropriate powers,  and lays out the basics of the setting. The Warhammer boxed set provides dice, fatigue markers, and location cards that can be used as-is. It also provided wound cards that I didn't use exactly, but which certainly provided the inspiration for the wound decks that I created/converted and used for the game. To use these rules, you'd have to make up your own Wound cards.



Everhammer Summary
An Everway variant using elements of Warhammer FRP 3rd

Character Creation:
(Per Everway, except that dice are derived from Element pools.)
  • Draw three fortune cards to determine Virtue, Fault, and Fate
  • Draw five image cards to decide on back story
  • 20 points to build character
  • Four Elements must rate between 1 and 9. 3 is human average.
  • Zero-point power. Others cost 1 point per Frequent, Versatile, or Major. Max 6 points on powers.
  • For truly flexible open-ended powers, you’ll want Magic. Magic ranges from 0 to 7.
From Warhammer:
  • Dice: Blue for Elements, Yellow for Specialization, Black and Purple for difficulty, White
  • Location Cards
  • Abstract Movement and Manoeuvres system
  • Assisting others with your manoeuvre
  • Group Initiative
  • Fatigue

Tweaks to warhammer stuff:
  • Dice symbols are a little different.  
  • Comet & Chaos Star draw a fortune card for unexpected developments
  • Eagles & Skulls only affect fatigue, or trigger location effects
  • Wounds are crits only. Wounds via mental attacks are disorders.
  • Fatigue is 1 stat (not 2) and affects all elements. At end of fight, recover fatigue = highest element.
  • Assess the Situation can be done with any Element you haven’t rolled yet this battle.



EverHammer Longer Version
Keeping the cool bits from Warhammer FRP 3rd Ed, and fusing them with the solid narrative system of Everway. Warhammer 3rd is too fiddly, and Everway is too simplistic, but meeting in the middle and playing on synergy and strengths is powerful.

Keeping the best dice from Warhammer 3rd. Those are the Blue, the White and Black,  and the Yellow and Purple dice.

Using the four “Classical Elements” stats from Everway. 
Most rolls are Blue dice equal to stat, vs a number of dice equal to target/opposing stat. However, defense dice are 1 purple and the rest just black. By contrast, the attack roll will be Blues and often a Yellow. You’ve got a better than 50% chance of hitting a foe of equal calibre (unless you’ve got a 2 in your attack stat).
For non-contested rolls, the GM assigns a difficulty number. This is total dice rolled against you, one of which is purple and the rest are black. Average challenge is 1 purple and 2 black.


Characters are built from the usual Everway budget of 20 points. Attributes come out of that total, and you must spend at least 1 point on each, with 3+ points per stat being very recommended, as that’s human average.

Still get a free 0-point power. One small bit of design space opened up by the dice is that your 0-point power could add a single die (usually a white one) to a die pool (as long as it’s an infrequent, non-versatile die-pool).

Other powers cost per Everway. Frequent, Major, and Versatile each cost a point. When a power is being used, it adds a die to the roll. In most cases this is a White die. However, any power that is major will add not just a white die, but also one extra yellow die per Major rating.

Defensive Powers: Any defensive power will convert one more black die into a purple (which is similar in impact to adding an extra black die, but it’s actually a little better for the defender in terms of the foe getting more banes). Major defensive powers add extra purple dice per level of major, which is pretty potent.

In general, the dice reflect the powers, not the other way around. That is to say, the storyline impact of a major power is probably better than its dice odds. There will be times where that major power means you don’t even have to roll.

Dice icons: We’ve really simplified things.
  • Hammer: Success as always. Attacks do 1 or 2 damage, depending on whether you rolled 1 or 3 successes. Damage is done in crits. NPCs will, in addition, have a target line that if a PC rolls the NPC is taken out automatically.
  • Hammer +: Success, and roll another yellow die!
  • Comet: GM flips top card of the Fortune Deck, and improvised appropriately. The better possible interpretation of the card happens, regardless of up/down orientation.
  • Eagle: These are only fatigue-related now, unless there’s a location card. One or more eagles gets rid of 1 point of fatigue.
  • Crossed Swords: Challenge result. Cancels out a hammer.
  • Chaos Star: GM flips the top card of the Fortune deck, and the worse interpretation happens.
  • Skulls: These are only fatigue-related now, unless there’s a location card.. 1 or more skulls means 1 point of fatigue.


Other roll effects: Location cards can give other effects for die rolls, but the most common will be for Eagles or Skulls.

Attributes used: Most attacks roll fire. Most powers use Air. Attacks are always defended against with the same trait that they rolled. If your foe has a better dice pool than you, change stats.

Initiative: Per WFRP 3rd. Each PC rolls. Every major NPC rolls, and once per distinct type of henchmen. Any person on the team can use any slot, whoever knows what they want to do, should do it.
Assuming all sides know trouble is coming, they roll Fire for initiative, depending on whether this is a melee or a social conflict. If, however, it’s instead an ambush, we’ll roll water.

Fatigue and Injuries: 
We’re using the core of the Fatigue and Manoeuvre systems from WHFRP. So, you get 1 free manoeuvre per turn. Each mano past 1 costs a fatigue. Range system is Engaged to Close=1, Close to Medium = 1, Medium to Long = 2, Long to Extreme = 3. So going from Extreme to Engaged in one round is 7 fatigue.

In addition to movement, manoeuvres can be used to interact with the environment, draw or ready a weapon, or assist another. Assisting is just narrating how your action provides an opening or opportunity for someone else, thereby giving them an extra white die on their next action. You can also narrate sheltering them or intervening, which adds a black die to attacks against them.

Fatigue is marked with tear drop tokens. If your fatigue exceeds your active stat, each point beyond it adds a black die to your roll.

Shedding Fatigue: At the end of a fight, you get back fatigue equal to  either your highest stat, so you’ll start the next fight very close to fresh. (Plus basing it on highest stat helps make high stats better, which is important given that we’re using dice for Everway).

During a fight, you may “Assess The Situation” to regain fatigue. Assessing involves  rolling any trait you have not yet rolled this fight. The difficulty is a single purple, plus 1 black per foe you’re engaged with. If you score 1 success, it cures 1 fatigue. If you score 3 successes, it scores 2 fatigue (total), and if you score any eagles that cures 1 more.


Wounds: This is the trickiest part. The GM has just a couple days to make a bunch of Wound cards (criticals) and Distorder cards (like insanities, plus party tension meter, distractions, etc). I’ll base them off the ones in WFRP, but converted to these four stats and simpler system. If you get more crits than your Earth score, you’re out of the fight.

Healing: You may roll Earth once per day to get rid of injuries, and Water once a day to get rid of disorders (the stress effects). Success gets rid of one card, regardless of numbers of symbols rolled. Only 1 card (of each type) can go away per day.

Magical Healing: Is just like normal healing, except the healer is usually the one rolling. Magical healing is limited to one roll (and one success) per day, but it does stack with mundane healing.

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