Work Continues....

...on the Red Ash World Engine Combat System. I will soon start melee testing with two clones, or cloned characters. Same species, Class, Level and equipment. I will later add combat at different class levels, species and equipment.

I have discovered one issue right off and will implement a change in the near future. I found that the starting skill points is not enough to be very effective at making a soldier and I suspect the other classes as well. So I will look at starting the 1st level at 3 times the current list value.

For the soldier this is a 12 point start and is enough to pay for a weapon skill and shield, but nothing else. While weapons training is important an adventurer will need more than this and so I may need to up the skill points for classes, more on that to come later.

The combat rules are definitely changing and will offer players a long overdue change to the typical RPG combat rules which are as exciting as a game of Whac-A-Mole!

All the Best,
Chris J.

New Art from Daniel Richards

Daniel has done added more art to the Red Ash World Engine! Check out his work on the Gargoyle, the Bodkin, Arrow, the Francisca, the Great Axe and the Kusarigama. You can also see them all in the artist gallery under Daniel Richards. You can also see more of his work at his gallery and contact him via http://www.danielrichardsart.blogspot.com/

New Artist: Daniel Richards has been kind enough to provide art for Red Ash.

Daniel Richards,

Has been kind enough to provide some art for the Red Ash World Engine. You can see his work on; The Orc, The Lacerian, The Mace and The Morning Star or see them all in the Red Ash Gallery. Also stop in and check out his other work in his gallery at http://www.danielrichardsart.blogspot.com/

Thanks a lot Daniel!

All the Best!
Chris J

Equipment Updated

Hello all,

I have uploaded a big update to the equipment, changing a lot of the attributes of weapons, armor and shields. I also fixed a few logic issues.

I also fixed an issue with the melee and ranged child skills having too low of a level requirement for each +1 you got for the weapon speed bonus. Now you can ear a maximum bonus of +11 Speed Bonus.

Other aspects of these skills will be looked as I begin building some basic characters and perform combat testing. I will be posting to the blog what my findings are to see just how well the rules hold up to two opponents trying to kill one another.


Until then...All the Best!
Chris J.

Update: Red Ash Powers...

Just got the species powers updated and fixed a lot of the descriptions. I also improved the based damage of many powers. A few had cost changes so if you may want to go back over the cost related to any species you have made with the system.

A new addition is a detailed description of species powers and all the related values. You can find this here on the main species powers page.

Now I will move on and take one more look at equipment. I also have a a few new powers to add to the system and a new addition or two to the non-playable species list. After this I will need to review the combat rules and see what need to be touched up there. During this I may decide to build some test characters for combat testing and make adjustments as needed.

I feel that the overall project of designing the rules of the Red Ash World Engine is coming to an end. While the system still has a lot of art that needs to be done, it is a low priority for me right now. If anyone wants to offer to do some art for the core system rules just drop me a message. Unless I find something else to fix I will start to build the first free-to-play Red Ash adventure for all you tabletop rpg fans!

All the Best!
Chris J.

Class feats are here!

I have expanded the class rules to include class feats. Class feats are an optional add on to classes and are closely tied to the class skills. The feats will allow your character to develop specialties as they advance by using the same skill points that you use to buy skill levels.

Most of these feats are multilevel with a max level of 10. You can buy each level for increased benefit but only once you have met the requirements for each level. Take Arcane Battery for example. It has a requirement of 20 Arcana Levels per Arcane Battery Level you buy. Some feats will also have multiple requirements like Melee, Acid requires skill levels on any child of the Melee Skill and the Acid Weapon Skill. More melee skill is needed than Acid Weapon.

As stated above, Class Feats use Skill Points to pay for the feats. The cost of the feat will depend on if the class bought the feat making it a related feat of the class. Related feats are less expensive than those that or open feats (non related, non restricted).

A feat can also be restricted. This is done automatically when you restrict a root skill when making a class. While the class will lose access to the feats that need that root skill or once of its child skills, you do gain more more points to define you class.

Speaking of points, classes have now been increased to 100 points from the original 50 points. I also changed the cost of Ability level increase and made it very expensive to gain a +1 every 3 levels. In fact it is expensive to get a +1 every 4 levels. For this reason I added an automatic +1 per 5 levels as a free increase that you can select where it goes. This applies to non playable species too.

Read more about the class feats here and the updates class rules here.

All the Best
Chris J

Skills Updated and more

After making adjustments to the base values of the ability score I decided to have a review of the skills to make sure they are in sync. They were not....

Now the skills have been updated to reflect the changes made so far including the difficulties, saves and control rolls. I also did a bit of a rewrite of the jump skill as it was still based on the very first version of the rules published. One other area I addressed was the use of spaces has now been switched to meters.

I also added the meaning of the names difficulties and the related values on the skills main page. Below that you will find a few paragraphs describing the ideas behind skills and a break down of terms used.

Up next will be a review of powers and a new addition to the classes, the class feats (or class perks I have yet to settle on a name). The idea of this is to allow certain minor class powers to open up based on the skill level progression a character follows.


All the Best,
Chris J