The Jolrhos Player's Guide

[Christopher R Taylor]

Incidentally, the download of the Jolrhos Codex has been repaired in the store, it has the HDC download and the proper cover image now.  There is a hardbound version on the way, I promise, hopefully within a week.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Talent of the day:

 

RETALIATE: This talent must follow a successful block attempt, granting +1 OCV and +1 damage class of damage with a weapon or unarmed attack.

Cost: 6 points

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Talent of the Day:

 

COMBAT MEMORY: This talent allows the character to  gain a bonus to accuracy and damage against a foe that they have defeated in the last turn.  As long as it has been no more than 12 segments since the creature was defeated, Combat Memory gives the character +1 damage class and +1 OCV against the same kind of creature (another human, another goblin, another rabbit with sharp pointy teeth, etc).  This bonus fades in one turn after gaining the bonus.

Cost: 6 points

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Talent of the day:

 

VICTORY RUSH: Gives the character a surge of morale and triumph with each defeated foe.  When a target that the character has negatively affected or damaged is knocked out or killed, the character is healed 1d6 Endurance automatically.  Can only trigger once per turn.

Cost: 7 points

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Talent of the day:

 

CLEAVE: (Axes only) Allows the attacker to crash through a shield and deal damage to the target beyond.  The attack does 2 Damage Class PD killing extra damage to the shield, and if the shield is destroyed, then the normal axe attack then hits the person behind the shield.

Cost: 6 points

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Talent of the day:

 

CRUSH: (Blunt weapons only) With this maneuver, the blunt weapon attack is much more likely to stun an opponent.  The attack causes a 2d6 CON Drain to go off before the weapon damage, only vs being stunned.  As soon as the segment ends, the CON Drain wears off.  It costs 2 END to use Crush, and this attack takes a full phase to execute (half a phase being used to set up the trigger).

Cost: 9 points

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Talent of the Day 

 

FLOURISH: The character can execute a dazzling flourish of their weapons, intimidating all foes.  Flourish Grants +10 offensive Presence for that phase.  Using this talent requires a weapon or unarmed Martial Arts.

Cost: 4 points

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Talent of the Day 

 

ARCING SHOT: With this talent, the character is able to launch arrows or bolts over an impediment to strike targets on the other side.  This talent does not grant any special targeting or vision to see any obscured targets.

Cost: 6 points

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Today's Talent:

 

IMPALE: The character is able to stab through a target so much that it sticks them to a nearby surface.  This acts as a 2d6 (2 PD ED) Entangle with Backlash, but takes the weapon away from the attacker until its removed.  The victim of the Impale can still use all of their limbs, they are only stuck against a surface.  This can only be used if the target is within a mater of a suitable surface (one the piercing weapon could reasonably penetrate).

Cost: 5 points

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Talent of the Day

 

DAUNT: The character so demoralizes foes that all nearby him are less accurate (Drains 1 OCV from enemies in a radius  accurate selective effect), costs 3 END, the drain effect fades in a turn

Cost: 10 pts

 

[Carl Chmielewski]

How's the book doing? Any word on the physical copies for the Codex?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Work is ongoing.  Most of the writing is done and I'm in the stage where I assemble the book and do layouts, editing, etc.  I can't really give an ETA, other than probably summer of this year.

 

The Codex print book is being worked on and I hope, hope it will be out next month.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Its a bit more work but I am glad I started making the pages a bit more fancy in these books.  I'm going to retroactively go through my older books and do the same.  I have started making the main pages look like parchment and putting notes, tables, examples, etc on scrolls so they stand out more.  I got the idea from here, from several people who said that Hero has great content but not very engagingly presented.  

 

I looked over D&D books etc, and while they go a bit overboard, they do look much more pleasing and feel more magical, so I took inspiration from that to jazz up the Jolrhos Codex, and now its going into the Jolrhos Player's Guide as well.  When printed off in color it looks phenomenal, and even the pdf is pretty sharp looking.

[Carl Chmielewski]

Will you be adding new content to the Field Guide or just a paint job? The hardback is nice.

[Christopher R Taylor]

With the Field Guide and Bestiary I will be doing some minor editing for errata, some coloring, the parchment background, and a new cover.  I liked the idea of the cover a lot as an example of a world being built from chaos, but its very bland and grey bleh.  Not the kind of thumbnail that calls to you.  The Bestiary will get more work; some of the content is moved to other books from the intro, some new monsters added, some moved out because they belong in other books, and some new art for the interior.

[DentArthurDent]

I’ve just found this thread and I am amazed at the levels of creativity and detail.
 

Absolutely amazed!

 

I am particularly enamored with the Object Creation rules. We did something similar in a campaign and it worked well. But only because the players were extremely understanding when I limited certain uses. I’ll be working over this the next couple of weeks. (Inbetween work, family, patching a leaking roof, clearing brush, baby-sitting grandson, and all the other things that make life wonderful but really cut into role-playing time.)

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Thanks a bunch for the positive words, I'm trying very hard to make the book something fresh but familiar, comfortable to newer players but different.

 

Object Creation is straight outta the APG, I just doctored it a bit to work better and be more balanced and cost worthy for use.

 

The book is in rough right now, I have to do some tweaking and art, but the layouts are mostly done.  Art takes a while, as you'd expect, I don't see this being done before Summer.  The cover I have a concept for but I'm not sure if its feasible.  I've been toying with "AI" art to try to come up with a group but the posing is challenging and so far I'm not super happy with the style or coloring.

[Christopher R Taylor]

One of the things I have wanted to do for a couple decades with Fantasy Hero is to bring Wisdom into the game somehow.  I miss it as a stat even though I haven't played D&D since the mid 80s.  Its a very important concept for life, brings a bunch of story options and character possibilities.  For a while I tried to think of a way to make it a stat with a roll: make your Wisdom roll!  But that didn't really work out because I didn't want to go that far in changing the base rules.

 

So I think I've come up with something that works.  Not only does it work Wisdom into the game, but it actually works as compensation for players when something goes wrong.  It works like this:

 

WISDOM

Every time a character experiences something really bad, like a heartbreak or serious traumatic injury, or fails in a quest, loses a lot of money or something like that... they gain a wisdom point.  Now, this cannot be a deliberate screwup, just to get a point, and it has to be more than a complication activating, it really has to suck.  Say a player chooses to go left down a maze hallway and that leads to days of wandering around lost.  Wisdom point.  Or you fail to save the princess.  Wisdom point.

 

The Wisdom points turn into a roll, sort of a hidden stat the GM has and controls.  1 point gives an 8- roll, 2 gives a 10-, 3 gives an 11- and then on one point at a time.  The character is, through hardship, challenge, and experience, gaining wisdom.

 

The next time the character makes a really stupid choice, proposes something foolish, attempts to do something only a bonehead would do -- genuinely, not trolling the group -- the GM makes a Wisdom roll.  If it succeeds the GM can inform the character that this seems really foolish to them.  What they do with this information is up to the player, of course.  But their wisdom tells them "eh, this isn't a good idea."  If their psychological complication compels them to do something really unwise, well that's worth a HAP but that's another discussion.

 

Also Wisdom Rolls can be used for world events, for interactions with locations and items.  This sword gains 1 DC for each wisdom point a character has!  This font will heal you if you are wise enough to use it properly!

 

I like this mechanic a lot, and I think it will add a lot to a game if well played.  To the best of my knowledge its not in any other game, but maybe I'm just reinventing the wheel.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[GDShore]

Bravo Christopher, I too have missed wisdom but could not come up with a way to introduce same. (a blind spot of mine) I will be using this in future games. Thank you. Absolutely brilliant. 

[Kealios]

I have just discovered your world and books

 

I was looking through my Fantasy Hero files and saw that I had 3 PDFs from Kestrel Arts of 5th Ed monsters...which led me to your webpage...

 

Now I want to buy all your books. Looks like I should wait, however, since you're redressing some of the previous versions and coming out with a new one this summer?

 

One thing I noticed was that your physical books all seem to come from different places. I tend to prefer softbound books - is there a site that will have all your books in one place? I will also be buying PDFs and the HDC files...gotta have all the goodies!

 

EDIT: Have you considered a package of a Book + PDF + HDC files?

Edited May 23, 2023 by Kealios

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm looking at trying to bundle stuff up, but I face a couple of problems

 

First, Lulu doesn't do bundles and that's the site I have the most familiarity and success building books in

Second, Drivethru RPG has perhaps the world's worst possible interface and its brutally difficult to get everything the way they want it, but they can bundle stuff -- but if you put out a bundle, then the system cannot do a preview; it pulls the preview straight from the pdf file which is hidden in a zip file if you do a bundle.  Or, at least that's the only way I can figure out how to do it.

I want to put all of it on Hero but I don't know if they will do that.

 

I will work on it, but sadly right now I am getting zero done on writing because I'm cleaning and getting house work done to prep for moving my mom in and getting her house cleaned out and that is taking all of my time and energy.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Unfortunately due to several life events my work on this has slowed significantly.  I am getting the illustration work done slowly but at present do not have much energy or time to devote to my writing, so I cannot even speculate when this will come out.  I hope this year.  I am sorry this is taking longer than I hoped, I wanted to get this out soon after the Codex so they would pair together well but life is like that sometimes.

[Christopher R Taylor]

This has been a very, very difficult year, and I do not have any realistic estimate when this book will be done.  I apologize, but I have never been very strong or healthy and right now almost everything I have is being directed toward caring for my elderly mother and just surviving.  I get a bit of art done once in a while, but its very slow.  Maybe some time next year I can get the Player's Guide finished.  This is deeply frustrating to me, but there's only so much that can get done at a time.

[m.mavnn]

As someone currently recovering from a bout of stress exacerbated post viral fatigue... look after yourself, and don't let your frustration push you into making the situation worse. I'm sure this isn't news, but I know I need people to remind me that it's okay to do that (without telling me that the situation is okay, because sometimes it's actually not). 

 

I, of course, always follow my own advice on this 🙈

Edited November 17, 2023 by m.mavnn

[Carl Chmielewski]

Just to let you know that my interest hasn't died. Looking forward to this book.