Introduction

Picture this: it’s game night, you have your gin tonic with frozen raspberries (or whatever other beverage goes with that for you) and tonight you feel like diving into a world of heroic fantasy and crushing some dragon skulls. But there is a problem, your group usually plays gritty cyberpunk. Normally, that would mean you have to convince everyone to learn new system, buy more books, and then invest time and energy into something new. Even worse, the custom creations you’ve crafted for one game often end up gathering dust, locked away in an incompatible system.

Over the years, I’ve faced this struggle over and over again. I’m deeply inspired by the stories I consume. Reading How to Train Your Dragon with my son, I dreamt of a campaign where every player had their own dragon. Garth Nix’s Angel Mage inspired me to add angelic icons to my world, and his Abhorsen cronicles influenced necromancy and riverwalking. Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders made me bring living ships to the table. My setting evolved into a chaotic mix of magic, technology, and genre-spanning ideas that, somehow, work together to occassional delight of my players.

Age of Adventure is my answer to these challenges—and my invitation to you to build something even greater. This system’s modular design allows you to switch genres without learning new rules, seamlessly carrying your favorite elements from one setting to another. Your creations will interact with others in new and interesting ways: when I created an "Echo" feature for creatures it allowed me to immediately have echo knights, wizards, and assassins in a sword-and-sorcery game, but it also means I can have pirate aliens with echo like hologram technology in a space opera game down the road with no additional work.

What makes AoA truly special, though, is its openness. Every aspect of this system is developed transparently and protected by a simple Creative Commons license. No hidden clauses, no fine print, and no corporate interests. The core rules and my own creations are freely available for everyone to use. The system’s code and content are open-source, ensuring there are no rug-pulls or gatekeeping. Best of all, it empowers you to contribute freely while retaining ownership of your work—or sharing it as widely as you like.

I would like to end this welcome with a nod to my players, friends and family that support and contribute to these efforts as inspirations, co-creators and rough first draft playtesters that stand by me even when things do not work so great, providing honest but kind feedback.

Semper tuum, JR.

What is AoA?

Age of Adventure is open source, modular, multi-genre table top role playing game.

Open Source

Age of Adventure is developed in the open. This means all of the core data, site and functionality are available for everyone to see, copy and modify (in their own version), without the need to ask for permission.

Repositories are available at the following links:

This openess means that AoA is free to everyone but also that everyone is free to propose contributions, and if they are seen as appropriate and beneficial by the core maintainers, they will be accepted into the core and made available to everyone. Of course, at that point those creations become part of the core and subject to its open licencing, so only make those contributions if you are fine with that.

This open model diminishes our control over the system and reduces our chances for any monetisation greatly, but we hope that it can foster positive and and productive community of creators, game moderators and players that are making everyone's experience with the game we all love that much more enjoyable.

Modular

Almost everything in AoA that can be made modular is. On the highest level you can enable or disable various genre or setting specific modules to filter down exactly to the experience you want. This way you don't need to care about laser guns if you want to play stone age mammut hunt. But also you do not need to learn new core rules when you want to help defeat evil galactic empire. You just switch modules, allowing for maximum flexibility.

Character and item creation (and many other things) are also made modular. This means you are not stuck playing wisdom based druid just because that is what druids are. you can easily combine druid features with intellect based fitures to create a savy and scientific explorer of nature or come up with any other combination of features you want for your character. Because of how combinatorics work, this makes number of character builds in AoA near infinite. It is therefor very likely that the character you make for your AoA game will be completely unique to you.

This modular design also means that every new creation you make for AoA gets to be used in countless ways, with a minimum effort. Lets say you are creating dark setting where good guys use special divine light to fight against zombies, vampires and the rest. Creating this one feature immediately enables paladines and clerics to use it, but it might also find a way into some gunslinger build down the road, making your game more interesting and aiding in the future worldbuilding.

Multi Genre

Modularity enables AoA to be multi genre TTRPG without pushing, tearing and stretching of the rules usually required to addapt such game systems to a genre they were not created for. This means that learning this one ruleset future proofs your games even if you want to completely shift the tone down the road. If you are a world builder this also means that AoA is here to support you even when you stray off of a beaten path and add advanced alien civilisation to your sword and sorcery setting. Or introduce magic in space. Or any other even rarer combination of things. Who knows, maybe looking down the list of modules even sparks some ideas for a new genre you haven't tried or thought about before.

Tabletop Role Playing Game

Age of Adventure belongs to the group of games intended to be played around the table with a group of friends, paper, pens and some dice. During the gameplay the players jump into the roles of fantasy caracters they created and roleplay (mostly narrate, but feel free to go as hard as you want) their actions. Once the consequences of those actions are resolved using some dice and elementary math we are left with the story created and told in collaboration with everyone at the table. This usually creates enjoyable, shared experience that is hard to forget and continues to bring value to the entire group. After all, how can you not be close friends, when you have beaten that dragon together?

License

All the rules, mechanics, and core content of this tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. In short, this means:

  • You are free to share: You can copy and redistribute the material or parts of it in any medium or format.
  • You are free to adapt: You can remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. You maintain all the rights to your own work and can do with it as you please.

Conditions

Some simple conditions have to apply in order to keep things nice:

  • Attribution. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. Usually just declaring what system you are working on, what license you are using and what parts of whatever it is you are making are your invention completely satisfies this requirement.
  • No additional restrictions. You can put whatever restrictions you want on your own creations but cannot put any additional restrictions on the use of this system and its core creations.

What This Means for You

This license allows creators to freely use the core rules, mechanics, and core content in their projects. Whether you want to make a homebrew module, write a supplement, adventure or even design your own spin-off game, you can do so without asking for permission. You can publish your work anywhere you want, openly or under restrictive and commercial licenses. If you manage to make money while doing so, you don't have to pay any licensing fees. We would be happy for you.

For GMs and players, this ensures that the game remains open and accessible, and you can share materials, create new adventures, or tweak the rules to fit your table without worrying about legal issues.

Why This License?

We feel that only this open model truly fosters creative collaboration that makes TTRPGs so great. Every group of players can bring something fun and interesting and unique to the table, if only they are allowed. By embracing this open model it is our hope that we can foster community that is ready to contribute and work towards common good of all, enriching us all in the process.

Community

How to Use This Book

Online Tools

Core Concepts

Roles

Modularity

Material

Game Flow

Session

Skill Checks

Skill Challenges

Combat

Game Rules

Standard Actions

Conditions

System Stress

d20Effect
1You lose 1 VIT until recovered.
2You lose 1 INT until recovered.
3You lose 1 AGI until recovered.
4You lose 1 WIS until recovered.
5You lose 1 CHA until recovered.
6You get ♦ less on your turn until recovered.
7Your speed is lowered by one until recovered.
8You are blinded until recovered.
9You are deafened until recovered.
10Move action costs additional ◆ to use.
11Your DgC is reduced by 2
12All your movement speeds are reduced by 1 until recovered.
13You immediately take 1d12 ravaging damage.
14You immediately take 1d10 true damage.
15Your max HP is reduced by 1d6 until recovered.
16You suffer -1 to all skill checks until recovered.
17You suffer -1 to all attack rolls until recovered.
18You gain 1 level of disadvantage on initiative until recovered.
19You get ⮌ less on each of your turns, to the minimum of 0.
20You suffer no major consequence this time.

Character / Creature Creation

Idea

Imagine the character you wish to play. Think about what defines them. What are their characteristics? Background? Skills they have? How they belong into the setting your GM created? Start with the things you feel strongest about - AoA is a modular system so the character can be created from many directions.

Pick Building Blocks

Category

1 or more

Lineage

type + kin

Size

Backstory

Background + culture

Add flavour.

Features

Character abilities.

Do the Math

Traits

Traits are basic characteristics of a creature and can be both positive and negative in value. If any trait drops to -5 or less the creature is outright killed.

Traits play significant role in all skill checks.

  • AGI
  • STR
  • VIT
  • INT
  • WIS
  • CHA
  • LUC (with luck module)

Skills

Skills are a meassure of how good a creature is at certain categories of tasks. Skill can never be negative. A skill is always combined with a trait to make a skill check.

Specialisations

Specialisations are narrow categories of special skills that creature has and can be added to any skill check if it makes sense for the situation.

Category

A creature has one or more categories that influence its traits.

  • aberration
  • celestial
  • demon
  • dragon
  • fey
  • ooze
  • swarm
  • beast
  • construct
  • devil
  • elemental
  • monstrosity
  • plant
  • undead

Type

Type is a broad category that creature falls in bologically. Together with Kin it represents creature's lineage

If a creature has parents of different lineages, it gets type from one and kin from the other, becoming hybrid of the two.

Kin

Specieces / race of the creature.

Size

AoA has 7 size categories:

  • minute
  • tiny
  • small
  • medium
  • large
  • huge
  • gargantuan

Culture

Each creature has one culture - one that shaped it most when it grew up.

Background

Each creature comes with a background, reflexing its life prior to the story.

Whenever you are creating a character, select the background that bests reflex your story (or create a new one).

Background consists of 4 points total of specialisations, movement speeds and languages (one language counting as 1 point) and 3 times 2 in skills.

Features

When a creature levels up it gains features.

HP Calculation

HP (health points) are a resource that gets depleated as the creature takes damage. Droping to 0 brings creature to the brink of death - unless healed it soon dies.

Block and Dodge Class

Each creature has 2 scores defining its defensive capabilities, Block Class (BC) and Dodge Class (DgC).

Dodge class is a measure of how hard the creature is to hit. To hit attacks below DgC miss the targets and deal no damage.

DgC = 10 + Dodge + AGI

Block class signifies resilience to damage. Attacks and effects that hit a creature can be greatly reduced (but not completely negated) by armour and other padding around the creature.If to hit roll is more than dodge class but less than block class the target is hit but only takes half of the damage. Damage from effects that require skill checks to resist is also halved if the check DC is less than creature's Block Class.

BC = 10 + Block + STR

All creatures have BC and DgC, but special items, effects and features could also grant three other defensive numbers: Shielding, Damage Treshold and Damage Reduction.

Shilding is a pool of HP on top of creature's regular HP that is always used first whenever creature takes damage. If a creature takes more damage than the amount of shielding it has left, the rest of the damage affects its normal HP.

Some creatures and items are impervious to small amounts of damage. Those creatures and items have Damage Treshold score. Whenever a target receives amount of damage less than its damage treshold from a single source it takes no damage. Wheneve such creature or item takes damage equal or more than its damage treshold it takes damage normally, without any reducions, as if damage treshold didn't exist.

Rare creatures and object have damage reduction. This reduction applies to every single source of damage, reducing the amount of damage by the number specified. If a creature or an item with a damage reduction would receive less damage than its damage reduction, it receives no damage instead.

Carrying Capacity

Carrying Capacity = 10 + Stamina + STR

For GMs

Genre Transitions

Balance

Genre

High Fantasy

Low Fantasy

Sword and Sorcery

Dark Fantasy

Urban Fantasy

Steampunk

Steampunk Fantasy

Gaslamp Fantasy

Mythic Fantasy

Eco Fantasy

Dungeon Crawl

Hard Sci-Fi

Soft Sci-Fi

Cyberpunk

Post Apocalyptic Sci-Fi

Space Opera

Military Sci-Fi

Time Travel Sci-Fi

Sci-Fi Horror

Dystopian/Utopian Sci-Fi

Mecha Sci-Fi

Historical

Western

Pirates

Cosmic Horror

Post Apocalyptic

Wuxia & Xianxia

Detective Noir

Weird West

Sci-Fantasy

Survival

Romantic Fantasy

Espionage

Dieselpunk

Atompunk

Biopunk

Solarpunk

Clockpunk

Teslapunk

Raypunk

Decopunk

Stonepunk

Grimdark

Crystalpunk

Silkpunk

Mythpunk

Hopepunk

Rustpunk

Lovecraftian Sci-Fi

Neonpunk

Magipunk

Fantasypunk

Futurepunk

Psychadelic Fantasy

Plaguepunk

Kaijupunk

Piratepunk

Retrofuturism

Tech Noir

Gothicpunk

Apocalyptic Horror

Heroic Fantasy

Arcanepunk

Space Western

Shonen Action

Eldritch Fantasy

Adventure Pulp

Oceanpunk

Necropunk

Junglepunk

Art Deco Noir

Folklore Horror

Espionage Sci-Fi

Superhero

Exploration Sci-Fi

Agripunk

Monster Tamer

Tech Fantasy

Dark Academia

Wuxia & Xianxia

Heroic Fantasy

Romantic Fantasy

Eldritch Fantasy

Folklore Fantasy

Dark Academia Fantasy

Hard Sci-Fi

Soft Sci-Fi

Cyberpunk

Space Opera

Military Sci-Fi

Time Travel Sci-Fi

Sci-Fi Horror

Dystopian/Utopian Sci-fi

Mecha Sci-Fi

Exploration Sci-Fi

Espionage Sci-Fi

Biopunk

Solarpunk

Tech Fantasy

Cosmic Horror

Apocalyptic Horror

Gothic Horror

Folk Horror

Sci-Fi Horror

Dark Fantasy Horror

Historical Drama

Western

Pirates

Weird West

Pulp Adventure

Tech Noir

Art Deco Noir

Detective Noir

Superhero

Post Apocalyptic

Dystopian Survival

Monster Tamer

Survival Horror

Dieselpunk

Atompunk

Teslapunk

Raypunk

Neonpunk

Decopunk

Rustpunk

Clockpunk

Silkpunk

Crystalpunk

Hopepunk

Plaguepunk

Kaijupunk

Oceanpunk

Junglepunk

Agripunk

For Creators

Design Decisions

Creation Guidelines

Contributing

Modules

Age of Adventure is designed around modular design where components can play of each other in endless combinations.

Module Overwiev

The Core module is the foundation of every Age of Adventure game. It includes the basic mechanics needed for gameplay, covering actions, traits, combat, and social interactions. All other modules are optional and can be enabled to expand the system for specific genres, themes, or styles of play.

This modular design ensures that Age of Adventure is highly flexible and genre-agnostic. Whether your story involves mages battling robots, stonepunk societies, or space-faring explorers, you can customize the rules to fit your setting without requiring players to learn new mechanics every time the genre changes.

Magic and Supernatural Modules

These modules add magical, mystical, and supernatural elements to your game.

Spellcasting

Allows creatures and players to cast spells. A core module to many fantasy settings.

Dependency: Requires either Arcane, Divine or Elemental.

Alchemy

Alchemical and chemical crafting, with rules for potions, bombs, and advanced materials.

Arcane

Controlled, learned, almost scientific magic.

Chronomancy

Time travel mechanics, including handling paradoxes and temporal effects.

Divine

Features clergy, cultists, divine magic, and optionally, divine beings such as demons, devils, and angels.

Elemental

Introduces elemental energies, druids, and elemental magic. Optionally includes elementals as creatures.

Hemocraft

Rules for blood magic, vampires, and vampirism.

Necromancy

Focuses on necromancers and undead creatures, including rules for raising the dead.

Outsiders

Cosmic horror elements, featuring eldritch horrors, cultists, and sanity mechanics.

Psionics

Adds mystical mental powers like telepathy, telekinesis, and precognition.

Runecraft

Explores ancient runes, lost languages, and rune-based magic systems.

Shadows

Shadow magic, cloacking, and creatures of the dark.

Technology Modules

These modules introduce advanced technology, vehicles, and futuristic concepts.

Atom

Rules for nuclear technology, radiation weapons, and mutations.

Blades

Features medieval-level weaponry and armor.

Biomancy

Gene editing and chimeras. Enables modified humanoids and creatures when paired with Monsters or Humanoids.

Cyber

Focuses on hacking, cyberspace exploration, and futuristic computers.

Diesel

Diesel-powered machines, vehicles, and weaponry.

Elektrica

Covers electricity-based technology, transportation, and mystical energies.

Gunpowder

Introduces firearms, explosives, and early industrial weaponry.

Mecha

Rules for piloting giant robots, optionally including giant monsters to battle them.

Nano

Advanced nanotechnology, laser weapons and energy-based equipment.

Space

Rules for space travel, rockets, and alien worlds.

Steam

Introduces steampunk technology and clockwork devices, optionally incorporating magical machinery.

Stone

Focuses on stone-age tools and weapons, as well as animal-powered technology. Ideal for primitive or low-tech campaigns.

Synth

Introduces artificial intelligence, androids, and other artificial life forms. Includes rules for creating, interacting with, or even playing as synthetic beings

Species and Creature Modules

These modules expand on character and creature options.

Heroes

Introduces superhuman characters with extraordinary abilities.

Humanoids

Introduces non-human playable species, from aliens to mythological beings.

Monsters

Adds a variety of creatures for use as enemies, allies, or world flavor.

General Modules

These modules enhance the social, political, and economic aspects of your world.

Apocalypse

Covers catastrophic events such as plagues, natural disasters, environmental collapse, and societal ruin.

Bases

Rules for building, upgrading, and maintaining bases, secret lairs, or headquarters. Includes mechanics for fortifications, resource management, and customization.

Crafting

Enables players to create magical or technological items.

Exploration

Focuses on travel mechanics, environmental challenges, and world exploration.

Factions

Adds faction renown, political systems, and power struggles.

Hearts

Personal renown, relationships, followers and pets.

Mercantile

Rules for trading, banking, and investing.

Learning

Rules for learnings and improving during downtime. Grants small bonuses and aids in roleplay and exploration.

Luck

Introduces mechanics for luck as a core trait, allowing players and enemies to influence outcomes with lucky breaks, rerolls, or fate-altering events.

Scavenging

Rules for gathering resources, looting, and crafting with found materials.

War

Adds large-scale battle mechanics and war machines.

Setting-Specific Modules

These modules are designed for specific settings within the Age of Adventure universe. They showcase how multiple modules can combine to create unique, tailored experiences.

Riverwalk

Focuses on navigating the river of life, bringing back souls, and battling necromancers in death.

Dependency: Requires Necromancy.

Teoxal

Introduces Teoxal Warriors—powerful allies who can be stored in Teoxal cubes and summoned for combat.

Dependency: Requires Monsters.

How to Use Modules

When building your game, follow these steps to choose the right modules:

  • Start with Core: Always include the Core module.
  • Choose Your Genre: Decide the theme or style of your game (e.g., medieval fantasy, sci-fi, post-apocalypse, etc.).
  • Enable Relevant Modules: Refer to the "Modules for the Genre" section to see which modules are normally best for your chosen genre.
  • Customize: Customise to your liking. Add any general modules you want to include.

Alchemy

Apocalypse

Arcane

Atom

Bases

Biomancy

Blades

Chronomancy

Crafting

Cyber

Diesel

Divine

Eletrica

Elemental

Experience

Factions

Gunpowder

Hearts

Hemocraft

Heroes

Humanoids

Learning

With this module enabled, characters can improve their skills beyond what they would usually get. There are three distinct methods of skill advancement, each granting +1 to a chosen skill, stacking up to a total of +3.

Learning Methods

  • Guided Mastery (+1) – Learning from a teacher who is more skilled than you.
  • Scholarly Insight (+1) – Studying from books, digital archives, or other media.
  • Breakthrough Moment (+1) – Achieving a major success through gameplay.

Once a skill reaches +3 using this system, no further increases can be gained through learning. However, characters may still improve skills through other game mechanics (e.g., level-up features, feats, or magic items).

Guided Mastery

Characters may seek out a mentor or instructor to improve their skills. A teacher must have a higher skill bonus than the student to be able to teach them.

Learning Process

  • Each learning session lasts 1 hour and focuses on one specific skill check.
  • At the end of that hour, both the teacher and student roll a chosen skill check.
  • If the combined total of both rolls is 30 or higher, the student marks one success in that skill for the chosen attribute.
  • Once the student has gained a success in all six attributes for the skill, they achieve Guided Mastery (+1 to the skill).

For example, to learn Stealth, a student would need to succeed at Stealth (AGI), Stealth (STR), Stealth (VIT), Stealth (INT), Stealth (WIS), and Stealth (CHA).

Additional Notes:

  • Multiple teachers may be used. A character can seek different teachers for different attributes.
  • A teacher may instruct multiple students at once. Each student rolls individually, benefiting from the teacher’s roll.
  • A poor teacher roll can slow progress. A teacher who barely meets the required skill level will make learning much slower than one who excels.

Scholarly Insight

Characters may study books, digital archives, training simulations, expert videos, or other media to improve a skill.

Learning Process

  • The character must acquire an appropriate piece of media to learn from.
  • Each study session lasts 1 hour and focuses on one specific skill check covered in that media.
  • At the end of that hour, the character makes a skill check (DC 20).
  • On success, they mark one success for the chosen attribute.
  • Once the student has gained a success in all six attributes for the skill, they achieve Scholarly Insight (+1 to the skill).

Media Quality & Availability

  • Higher-quality media may provide a bonus (+1, +2, etc. to the roll).
  • Some media may require translation or decryption. A character who does not understand the language (or lacks proper access credentials) cannot benefit from the material unless they have a way to bypass this restriction.
  • Media is not consumed or destroyed but must be available for study.
  • Multiple characters can learn from the same media if they are learning the same skill check (e.g., one character reads aloud, or a training simulation is run for multiple participants).
  • If multiple characters want to study different attributes from the same media, they must schedule their downtime accordingly.

Breakthrough Moment

At any point during gameplay, if a character rolls 40 or higher on a skill check, they experience a Breakthrough Moment.

  • This reflects a moment of absolute mastery, allowing the character to instantly gain +1 to that skill.
  • No further effort or downtime is required.
  • A skill can only benefit from one Breakthrough Moment. If a character rolls 40+ again, no additional bonus is granted.
  • This applies to any roll over 40, regardless of external bonuses or assistance.

General Learning Rules

  • Learning order is flexible. A character can mix and match the three methods in any order to reach the +3 cap.
  • Students can attempt the same check multiple times. There is no penalty for failure aside from lost time.
  • This is a downtime activity. Learning typically occurs between adventuring sessions (e.g., while camping, during town visits, or in other low-stakes moments).
  • Teachers and media provide in-world roleplay opportunities. NPCs may charge for lessons, offer training as a reward, or refuse to teach without proper persuasion.

Example: Learning Stealth

A character wants to improve their Stealth skill. They can:

  1. Find a mentor (Guided Mastery) – A rogue in town agrees to train them for a price. Over several days, they complete six successful lessons (one per attribute).
  2. Study expert knowledge (Scholarly Insight) – They acquire a rare thief’s manual, an interactive VR stealth course, or a hacker’s guide, and spend downtime studying it.
  3. Achieve a Breakthrough Moment – During a high-stakes infiltration mission, they roll a 42 on a Stealth check, immediately gaining their final +1.

Once they have used all three methods, their Stealth skill is permanently improved by +3.

Edge Cases & Clarifications

Can a character fail to learn?

No, but learning can take a long time. If a character fails a learning check, they simply spend more downtime attempting it again.

Does a teacher need to be far more skilled than the student?

No, but the better the teacher, the faster the progress. If a teacher rolls low, the student must compensate.

Can a single piece of media be used by multiple characters?

Yes, but only if they are learning the same skill check. If multiple characters want to study different attributes from the same media, they must schedule their study time.

Can a teacher instruct multiple students at once?

Yes, but all students must be learning the same skill + attribute combination.

Can a character gain more than +3 from this module?

No. Once a character has Guided Mastery (+1), Scholarly Insight (+1), and Breakthrough Moment (+1), this module can no longer improve that skill.

If Luck module is enabled, are there 7 rolls to make?

No. You cannot learn luck.

Luck

Mecha

Mercantile

Monsters

Nano

Necromancy

Outsiders

Psionics

Introduction

Introduction to Psionics

The mind is the ultimate frontier — a realm where untapped potential and raw will converge to shape reality. In Age of Adventure, psionics represents the power that emanates from within, allowing individuals to manifest extraordinary abilities through focus, discipline, and insight but without relying out magic and other outside forces.

In a game where settings and genres are left to the Game Masters, psionics is designed to be as flexible as the narrative demands. A psion could be:

  • A Mystic Monk: Living high in a secluded mountain temple, mastering inner peace and the art of transcending physical limits while practicing martial arts
  • A Hypnotist: Talk of the glamorous saloons and a member of mistical societies, wandering the shadowy fringes of society, using their mental prowess to sway hearts and bend wills.
  • A Galactic Guardian: Wielding laser guns and swords, blending martial prowess of the future with metaphysical insight.
  • Corporate Mindbender: In the cutthroat world of corporate espionage, this operative uses subtle mental influence to sway negotiations, uncover secrets, and control the boardroom from the shadows.
  • Psychic Detective: Always knowing a little more, piecing together mysteries that leave conventional investigators baffled.
  • Druidic Empath: Tapping into the collective consciousness of the natural world—communicating with wildlife, healing the wounded, and invoking the ancient rhythms of the earth.

This open-ended design encourages you and your players to interpret psionics in a way that best suits your campaign's tone and aesthetic.

Psionic Points

Each psion has a pool of PP (psionic points in case but this is compatible with wherever else you see PP such as power points in Hero module). Generally every psionic feature gives psion 2 PP.

Psions regain half of their PP after every short of long rest.

Initially a psion can use 1 PP at the time and they can raise that limit by taking levels in Potent Psionics. Limiting this one feature tree therefor allows GMs to fine tune the presence of psionics in their games from minor effects (no Potent Psionics) to world bending psionic powers that can influence entire areas (all 11 levels of Potent Psionics).

Psionic Abilities

Psionic abilities have two stages, low burn and release. After every short or long rest a psion will generally start one or more abilities on a slow burn that give them small bonuses psions are known for - talking telepathically, moving small objects with the power of mind, seeing a bit more, being a bit faster... At any point the psion can chose to release those low burning abilities for a short but more powerful effect. Psion can also chose to overcharge that release with even more PP for a costlier but more powerful effect. Releasing too many of their low burning abilities will leave psions weak and tired until they can take a rest, regain PP and start new abilities.

Breaching Limits

Psions are known for their ability to go past their limits, risking injury to themselvese to go beyond their normal limits. Psions can spend PP they don't have by rolling on the Psionic Punishment Table for each PP. They can also spend PP above the limit allowed by their Potent Psionics by doing the same.

Psionic Punishment Table

d20Effect
1You lose 1 VIT until recovered.
2You lose 1 INT until recovered.
3You lose 1 AGI until recovered.
4You lose 1 WIS until recovered.
5You lose 1 CHA until recovered.
6You gain -1 to Psionic DC and attack rolls until recovered.
7Your max PP is reduced by 2 until recovered.
8You are blinded until recovered.
9You are deafened until recovered.
10All psionic abilities and release effects cost 1 additional ◆ to use.
11You gain one level of System Stress instead of psionic punishment.
12All your movement speeds are reduced by 1 until recovered.
13You immediately take 1d12 psychic damage.
14You immediately take 1d10 true damage.
15Your max HP is reduced by 1d6 until recovered.
16You suffer -1 to all skill checks until recovered.
17You suffer -1 to all attack rolls until recovered.
18You gain 1 level of disadvantage on initiative until recovered.
19You cannot use the psionic ability that caused this roll until recovered.
20You suffer no major consequence this time.

Riverwalk

Runecraft

Scavenging

Shadows

Space

Spellcasting

Steam

Stone

Synth

Teoxal

War

Glossary