After reading the book for the Polaris RPG its awesome poetic writing and neat setting really made me want to play.
Unfortunately, the rules aren't really my cup of tea.
I enjoy the Nemesis ORE variant quite a bit, and the following posts in this blog will catalog my efforts to modify its system to suit a more medieval setting, specifically the world of Polaris.
A further expansion will be posted that involves crazy demon powers that come with a price, drawing heavy inspiration from the amazing game Don't Rest Your Head (which I seriously recommend as a rules-light RPG, by the way).
Work in progress, will update this with skill descriptions soon.
[Melee Weapon Training]
[Ranged Weapon Training]
[Block]
[Dodge]
[Parry]
[Equilibrium]
[FITNESS]
Acrobatics
Athletics
Endurance
Hand-to-Hand
Stealth
Wrestling
[SENSE]
Hearing
Sense Motive
Search
Sight
Smell
[MIND]
Astrology
Demon Biology
Demonology
First Aid
Linguistics
Medicine
Science and Mechanics
Survival
[EMOTION]
Deception
Inspiration
Intimidation
Performance/Art
Persuasion
[ATTRIBUTES]
[Fitness] [Sense] [Mind] [Emotion]
Each start at 3, and you have +3 points to raise them and one -1 to decrease. Raising a stat from 4 to 5 with these points costs 2 instead of 1.
[SKILLS]
11 points for each pool of skills (grouped by attributes). Raising a skill from 4 to 5 costs two points.
[COMBAT SKILLS]
[Melee Weapon Training] [Ranged Weapon Training] [Block] [Dodge] [Parry]
Not attached to attributes and range from 1-10. Sometimes they will be used with an attribute, though (like when using Mind to feint) in which case the skill level will be halved and rounded down.
These are raised with floating dice.
[EQUILIBRIUM]
Raised separately, also with floating dice.
[FLOATING DICE]
You have 40 floating dice to put into any stat or skill, and 20 noncombat floating dice to put into any stat or skill other than the 5 combat skills. Prices for raising attributes and certain skills are outlined in this spreadsheet.
[ARMOR]
Max heavy armor total across all locations = 5+Fitness
Maximum 3 HAR per hit location, max 2 LAR. LAR worn under HAR now counts toward the maximum HAR on that hit location.
For example, you can now have 2 LAR and 1 HAR on a single location or 2-3 HAR, but not 2 HAR and 2 LAR like before.
Heavy armor blocks 1 point of killing and 1 point of shock.
[HEALTH]
In addition to the hit points per location, if a character takes 15 total shock and/or killing damage they are knocked unconscious.
Keep in mind the following rules use the mechanics described in the free NEMESIS PDF, except where noted otherwise.
