Scrolls And Pouches

18 Mar 2021

A simple, classless, TTRPG focused on item advancement and dungeon exploration played using 6-sided dice

Every character has these stats:

Hit Dice: 3 by default Armor Value: 1 by default Dexterity: 3d6 drop lowest Strength: 3d6 drop lowest Spellcasting: 3d6 drop lowest Constitution: 3d6 drop lowest

Every character has these skills:

• Alchemy
• First Aid
• Engineering
• Map making

Give players 15 points to distribute however they want. No skill can be higher than 10. Alchemy, First Aid and Engineering are active skills, Map Making is passive.

Advantage and Disadvantage: If the player has advantage subtract 2 to the result, if the player has advantage add 2

Stat Checks: Roll 3d6, if the result is lower than the corresponding stat then you succeed. Skill Checks: Roll 3d6, if the result is lower than the corresponding skill then you succeed. There are also passive benefits.if you have enough points in one skill.

Skills

Alchemy: Allows the creation and identification of potions. 4+ -> Automatically identifies healing potions 6+ -> Automatically creates healing potions given the right ingredients 10+ -> Have advantage on identifying any potion

First Aid: Allows the player to heal himself or his allies. Once after every combat a player with this skill can roll to heal any damage that happened in that encounter. If the roll is successful the character gains 1 HD, otherwise he loses 1. 4+ -> Allows the automatic creation of bandages 6+ -> A successful healing recovers 2HD instead of one 10+ -> Allows to stabilize one dead character if immediately healed, given the right tools

Engineering: Used for building tools and interacting with traps 4+ -> Automatically disables traps inside chests 6+ -> Can rearm simple traps automatically 10+ -> Can build traps given the right tools

Map Making: 4+ -> The player will have the exact dimensions of every room he visits given to him, but only once 6+ -> The player can ask as many time as he wants the dimensions of the room he’s in 10+ -> The player can ask the DM if his map is right and receive a yes/no answer

Combat:

Every weapon and every enemy have a number of Damage Dice. That number of d6’s is rolled whenever someone wants to attack. The target rolls a number of d6’s equal to his Hit Dice value. Then the values are compared and the number of winning (higher) dice that the attacker has is dealt as damage. The defendant can use his Armor Value to reduce any attacking die. Every damage dealt reduces the total HD.

Example: Leon is fighting against a Skeleton. Leon has 3HD and 2AD and 2AV, the skeleton has 1HD and 1AD. The skeleton attacks Leon and he rolls 1d6 = 4. Leon rolls 3d6 and gets 3,4,4. He would lose because the 4 is higher than his 3 but he uses his AV subtracting 2 from 4 and he doesn’t suffer any damage because the resulting 2 isn’t higher than any of his dice.

Combat uses a team based initiative. Every team rolls 1d6 and the higher one goes first. In case of a tie the die should be rerolled. The order inside the team doesn’t matter.

Every turn a player can make an action:

• Retreat: Allows for movement up to 60’
• Attack: Allows for an attack
• Defensive Stance: Allows for an attack with -1DD but gives 1AV until the next turn.
• Use a skill: Allows the player to use a skill or a stat
• Use an item: Allows the player to use an item from his inventory

Inventory:

A character can carry a number of items up to his constitution score. The game uses a slot system, every item the player has counts as one slot. Small items are an exception and you can store 5 of them in a slot (less items still occupy the same amount of space). All reasonable rulings apply (i.e. a player can’t have two helmets or two chestplates). Each scroll occupies exactly one spot.

Items:

Items should be mostly randomly generated and are divided into five categories: passive, active, tools, weapons and Materials. Passive items enhance the existing stats and provide gameplay benefits (waterwalking, speed, etc). Active items are divided as well into scrolls and artifacts. An artifact can be used as many times as the player wants, 3 times per day. A scroll is a powerful item that can be used only once and requires a Spellcasting check. Tools are common use items that can be useful in dungeons. Weapons are self explanatory, and can have both active and passive effects. Materials are items that can be used by professions to craft items.

Examples:

Passive:

• An Amulet Of Strength (+1 Str)
• A Ring Of Detect Monster (Vibrates when monsters are nearby)
• An Helmet (+1 AV)
• A Chainmail (+2 AV)
• Leather Armor of Speed (allows the weared to attack and move in one turn)
• Belt Of Health (+2HD)

Active:

• A Wand Of Wall Of Ice (creates a 5x3 wall of ice)
• A Ring Of Open Door (Allows the user to open any closed door from afar)
• A Scroll Of X-Ray vision (Gives the user the ability to see through small walls and doors for 10 minutes)
• A Scroll Of Explosion (Casts a fireball for 5DD in an area, ignores AV)
• An Helmet Of Magic Immunity (+1AV and allows the user to absorb one spell)

Tools:

• Thieves Tools
• Alchemist Tools
• Rations
• Rope
• First Aid Kit
• 10 ft. pole
• Ladder
• Potion of Health (restore 2HD)
• A bag (adds 4 item slots)

Weapons:

• A longsword (2AD)
• A dagger (1AD + throwable)
• A spear (2AD + reach)
• Holy Hammer (2AD + 2AD vs undead)
• Axe Of Levitation (2AD + everyone hit starts levitating for 1 round)
• Bow Of Piercing (3AD + Allows the user to shoot a piercing arrow 3 times a day that goes through enemies damaging the ones behind)
• Excalibur (4AD + ignores AV against evil creatures)

Materials:

• Iron Ingot (To craft weapons/armor)
• Soul Gem (To craft enchanted items)
• Violet Rosemary (To craft potions)

Gold progression and shops:

Gold is also a primary resource for the players. When outside of the dungeon they can spend gold to buy and improve items they already have. Most of the higher-level items also require materials to craft, these materials can be found inside of the dungeons. The game doesn’t have level progression, rather tier progression. Each tier comes with increased power, better items and more gold. The tier is entirely hidden and only used as a GM tool.

Generally the players should earn roughly 100x[tier level] gold pieces every 10/15 rooms (per party, non per character).

• A normal tool should cost 10gp.
• A normal weapon should cost 20gp.
• A stat upgrade should cost [total stat]x100gp. (i.e. a +3 HD helmet should cost 600gp because it would raise the HD to 6)
• A skill upgrade should cost [total skill]x150gp.
• A passive effect on any item should cost 500gp.
• An active effect should cost 400gp.
• A scroll should cost 300gp.

Not all combinations asked by the players should be available and the DM might decide to roll randomly to see what the shopkeepers have.

Dungeon Exploration Procedure:

The dungeon should be prepared in advance, enemies included. The loot should be rolled (in advance, or at the table). One turn represents 10 minutes in game time. Every turn players should declare what they want to do: Move, Explore, Interact. Moving allows the players to either reach an area they’ve already visited or to proceed to the closest unexplored area. Exploration allows a full (non-thorough) search of the room they’re in. Interaction encompasses every action that takes a significant amount of time. Sometimes actions and movement wouldn’t take 10 minutes but in Scrolls & Pouches the DM should round these times for sake of gameplay. A torch takes 30 minutes to burn completely. Every hour the players should consume one ration. If the players can’t eat. they suffer a -4 to all rolls until they eat (cumulative for every hour). Every 10 minutes the DM should make a wandering monsters check (1d6 - encounter on 1)

Game Design and Philosophy:

It’s difficult to transmit what the game should be from this simple homebrew document but the idea is to have a classless game focused on exploring dungeons and recovering items. The inventory system should limit what the players can wear and introduce interesting dynamics as the mages will not be able to wear armour since they have to carry scrolls. This is not an OSR system, and while the idea is still ruling over rules the intention is to have an emphasis on crunch and optimization. The random nature of loot and of the dungeon is also utilized to encourage replayability, exploration, and material-collection.Scrolls & Pouches is not intended for long rp and story-heavy campaigns, but for short and repeated dungeon delves with varying characters.