OSE Houserules

Travel

Journeys and Travels

When traveling between two distant locations there are two different ways to get there. If a group is taking a few days to reach another location, camping out along the way or even just traveling in a direction with no idea of what they'll find, that is called a Journey. On the other hand, if a group is taking a day trip out to a location from a base of operations which they return to by the end of the day, it is called a Travel.

Journeys

When traveling on a Journey, time is measured in watches. There are six watches in every day, so in general they each end up being around 4 hours long. In any given day two watches need to be spent resting. If not then a point of Exaustion is given until the next time the players sleep. Additionally, only two watches in a day can be spent traveling. A third can be taken, but any who force march a third watch of travel gain an exaustion level. There is also a certain amount of camp making and upkeep that must be done.

Watch Activities

Travel: Each watch the party can travel as fast as their slowest party member. When the party moves at a fractional hex rate, the half hexes are not counted towards the day's travel after resting. So traveling for 3 watches at 1/2 hex is only 1 hex, not 1 1/2 and traveling for 3 watches at 1 1/2 hex is only 4 hex and not 4 1/2.

Hunting: Hunting Takes a watch to be completed. When hunting, there is a 1-in-6 chance of encountering animals which may be suitible for eating.

Gathering: Gathering can be preformed alongside traveling. The party has a 1-in-6 chance of finding food for 1d6 humans.

Adventuring: Unless a very substantial or very little amount of time is spent at an adventuring location or dungeon, adventuring takes up an entire watch. Investigating things while traveling can be done in the middle of a watch without ending the watch.

Travels

When making a Travel, time is measured in hours. There are, of course 24 hours in any day. Because the expectation is that a day of Travel will begin and end at a base of operations, no camp making or upkeep is neccessary. If a travel becomes a Journey unexpectadly, or takes more than one day, the rules will switch over.

Encumberance and Movement Speed

How fast a character moves in any given situation is based on the number of items that character is carrying. An item is generally any individual item or a bunch of smaller items. Small items like rings or keys don't count as items for encumberance sake unless they are being carried in bulk. Two days of rations can count as one item as can up to 6 torches.

Encumberance Point Breakdown

Encumberance Levels

Movement Speed Breakdown

Travel Speed Modifiers

Animal Encumberance

Animals use a mostly similar encumberance system. Each animal has two speeds, an unencumbered speed and an encumbered speed which is half of the unencumbered speed. Any animal with encumberance points over their unencumbered max load is encumbered, and animals will not move with points over their encumbered max load.

Encumberance Point Breakdown

Animals and their Encumberance Limits

Animal Speed

Arcane Magic

Spell Books

Arcane spell casters record the spells that they know in a spell book.

Number of Spells: There is no limit to the number of spells in the character's spell book.

Beginning Spells: Arcane spell casters begin play with a number of spells in their spell book determined by their INT score (see the table below). The referee may choose these spells or may allow the player to select.

Adding Spells: An arcane spell caster may attempt to add spells to their spell book at any time, as follows:

• Copying: Spells of a level which the character can cast may be copied from another source, for example scrolls or the spell books of another spell caster. This process takes 1 week and 500 gp per level of spell copied. Requiring time to decifer the writing of another caster and funds to source magical inks and other components.
• Research: It is also possible to add spells to a spell book by means of magical research.

Mechanics of Magic

Arcane Magic is the act of warping the world around you using only thought. In it's most basic forms it requires complete concentration, in-depth knowledge of all nearby aspects, and an encyclopedic understanding of magical mechamics. This complexity means that it is nearly impossible without using some kind of shortcut or cheat to create a magical effect. This often includes magic circles, runes and rituals, which can hold power, creating buildings to house complex and powerful spells, or storing magic in objects such as scrolls and wands to be released at a later point.

Arcane magic users of all types are able to cast spells at a whim without any physical instruments or shortcuts. This is due to "preperation", a special process by which magic users are able to encode a very complex spell into a pattern in their mind whch can be acessed immediately at any point after with the correct magical gestures and words. They create these patterns using the "Read Magic" spell which they learn to cast without preperation. Learning how to do any amount of magic without preperation is incredibally difficult, so learning how to read and prepare spells takes up the first years of a magic user's training.

The process of preparing a spell can take up to an hour of meditation and deep thought, along with the use of "Read Magic". It also involves that magic user's spell book. A spell book is not just a book that contains spells, it is printed on special paper and with special crystal ink. This special ink is integral to the preperation process, and spells written plainly without it cannot be prepared. Each magic user writes their spells down in their own way that works specially with their mind. Therefore copying spells from other magic users spell books is a laborious task of decoding their own system and recoding into your system.

Spell scrolls are made from the same materials as the pages of a spellbook but have been infused with the power of the spell itself.

Magical Society

Certain sects of magic users have different enough methods to be determined as different classes. These include Illusionists, Necromancers and Vivimancers. Even though they are all still magic users, they are less able to learn spells from eachother. When an arcane magic user copies a spell that is meant for another class, they learn it at a level higher. Only one spell from any other class can be memorized at each level in each day.

Some forms of magic are generally banned from use, and are mostly forgotten to time. These include:

• Necromancy
• Chimeromancy/Vivimancy
• Blood Magic

Out of these Necromancy is still the most widely practiced.