Verve instead of Magic Points

[Harshax]

I'm toying with revisiting and updating a house rule from my RQ3 campaign and thought I would share. This rule is suitable for high-octane action oriented adventures, where there are many opportunities for combat.

Verve represents spiritual vigor and luck. It fuels magic and also represents temporary injury that is "shrugged off" after a short rest. It replaces the derived attribute: Magic Points.

A player may choose to reduce an injury received in combat by a number of points equal to the amount of Verve spent. Spending Verve this way reduces the available pool for powering Magic. Verve spent to reduce injuries or power magic should be tracked separately. Verve reduced by injuries is regained after a short rest. I haven't yet settled on how much is regained or the limit to how many rest periods can be had per day. This will very much be determined by how over-the-top action oriented of a campaign I intend to run. I'm thinking of using the Endurance skill on the Spirit Magic Table found on page 201. So a character with a 65% Endurance would recover 1d8 Verve after a short rest following combat.

Incidentally, if I want magic use to be as common and prevalent as found in many d20 campaigns, I may introduce a meditation mechanic. Using the same Spirit Magic Table, the spell caster would compare their Trance, Shaping, or Invocation skill to determine how much Verve spent on powering spells is recovered after meditation ... this is essentially the rest mechanic for spell casters. I need to think about which of the two skills for each tradition should reflect the character's ability to refocus and draw depleted energy back into their bodies.

That leaves the raw Luck mechanic. I'm thinking I will simply remove the wound reduction usage for what one can do with Luck points if I implement Verve.

Keeping in mind that this is intended for heroic adventure, what do you think?

 

 

Edited January 21, 2016 by Harshax