WtHQM:House Rules

Part of Welcome to Holy Question Mark, a game of the Amber Diceless RPG run by Rook Seidhr.

Attributes

• A score of 0 in an attribute is roughly equivalent to "Chaos" rank; actual rankings go up from there, with no click-stop at "Amber" rank.
• Combat with melee weapons and general athleticism will mostly be covered by Strength, with some input from Warfare.
• I will hold to the rules as written regarding the divide between Strength and Endurance: you soak damage with Strength, you heal it with Endurance. That means that characters with lots of Endurance, but little Strength, will need to fight very defensively to outlast characters with lots of Strength but little Endurance, as each minor wound will hurt the Endurance character more than the Strength character. I recommend a balance of Strength, Endurance and Warfare if you intend for your character to engage in fightyfights.

Psyche

Many of the things the book says Fiona can do with raw Psyche actually require other powers as well:

• Trailing someone through Shadow and sensing Shadow paths both require Pattern or Logrus.
• Sensing Logrus and Pattern—well, if you ever meet someone with them, I guess you'll find out?
• Sensing the physical condition of others requires Empathy (or Shape Shifting and physical contact).
• Danger sense requires Empathy.
• Noticing that someone is touching your Trump requires Trump Artistry.
• Sensing the mood and emotional state of others is much more effective with Empathy than with Psyche alone.
• Sensing details about a shadow requires Pattern or Logrus, or considerable experience with Shadow travel by other means.
• Sensing the potential for Pattern, Logrus, etc., requires the same power being sensed.
• Someone with a high Psyche can generally tell when someone else is lying, though Empathy makes it more effective.

In general, Psyche is a battery for powers, not a power in itself. Where Psyche does overlap with powers, it generally provides only a hunch, whereas an appropriate power would give certainty and detail.

Powers

Pretty much all the powers can be broken down into smaller pieces and learned a little at a time, as described in the character creation guidelines.

Pattern and Logrus

• Since these powers are not available to PCs at game start, I will say nothing about them now.

Shape Shifting

• Erick Wujcik, author of the Amber Diceless RPG, hated shape shifters and ran Shape Shifting as a deficiency as much as a power. I disagree with that. The listed hazards of Shape Shifting still exist, but Shape Shifting is not a trick to con you out of 35 points and then make you miserable.
• Basic Shape Shifting is extended to include a number of abilities not listed in the book:
  • Changing only part of one's body at a time (listed in the book under Advanced Shape Shifting as "Shape Shift Features" and "Shape Shift to Animal Abilities").
  • Altering one's metabolism to endure extremes of temperature, oxygen deprivation, radiation exposure and so forth. This may limit what else you can do at the same time (for instance, conserving oxygen makes it very hard to fight or do other vigorous physical activities).
  • Basic manipulations of internal body processes that do not involve structural change, such as "quarantining" part of the body to prevent an injected drug from spreading, shutting down or speeding up digestion, slowing breathing and heart rate, numbing pain receptors, heightening vision to superhuman acuity and so on.
  • "Impromptu" shape shifting, such as changing your mass distribution while grappling someone to gain a momentary advantage, or quickly and temporarily mirroring someone's features while they're in front of you. This is much more exhausting than the same change would be if taken slowly.
• Primal Form is available to anyone with any level of Shape Shifting talent, but is almost certainly deadly unless you possess full Basic Shape Shifting or are lucky enough to encounter an Advanced Shape Shifter who can force you back into your basic form before you exhaust your Endurance and cease to be a coherent organism at all. I wouldn't recommend it even then.

Sorcery

• In general, spell maintenance takes a base time of one hour per week per hung spell. A full rack (12 spells) is a part-time job.
• You can hang one spell at a time in your own aura and still be able to think about other things and do other tasks. If you fall asleep or are knocked unconscious, the spell will require maintenance before it can be safely cast; therefore, maintenance of spells hung on one's own aura takes a base time of one hour per day per hung spell.
• There is such a thing as Advanced Sorcery.

Conjuration

• The ability to dispel or disenchant the conjurations of others is part of the Conjuration power. It requires a Psyche advantage over the original conjurer, and if they are present when you make the attempt, may throw you into a Psyche battle.
• If you have conjured something once, duplicating the same item or empowerment is much faster.

Powers Not from the Book

• Astral Projection
• Blessings and Curses
• Empathy
• Invocation
• Scrying

Sensory Powers

• With the exception of Power Words and Blessings/Curses, all powers convey a sensory component, as does a Psyche score of 20+. Partial powers may or may not include the sensory component, as described below.
  • Empathy: Aura Sense lets you sense auras. 'Nuff said.
  • Shape Shifting: Direct physical contact with another being will give you some information about their biology. Advanced Shape Shifters can get much of the same information by analyzing dead skin cells, body oils, etc. left behind by all living beings (with the exception of shape shifters or individuals under magic designed to prevent them from leaving such traces).
  • Sorcery/Conjuration: Anyone with magical power can detect and classify magical energies if they focus on doing so. Speed depends on Psyche.
  • Trump Artistry: The ability to make either Trump Sketches or Permanent Trump gives you the "artistic eye," which allows you to perceive certain general truths about someone by observing them carefully for a little while. Different Trump Artists may perceive different aspects of the same subject.
• All of the above sensory effects can identify monsters, as can artifacts and creatures with at least 2 points in the Psychic Sensitivity quality.
• All of the above except (Basic) Shape Shifting can identify individuals with potent Psyche and artifacts and creatures with magical or psychic powers.
• Merely having a Psyche of 20+ gives an intuition about monsters, Psyche levels and magic, but no certainty.

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Page owner: Rook Seidhr