Paladin Rising Paladins are warriors who are sworn to uphold the cause of Good. It is the dream of every paladin to transcend this corrupt world and become a demigod. During this Journey to Ascension, a paladin will face many moral dilemmas, for things are never as they seem. This is a game about good people who do bad things.You are tightly bound by your oath to never do evil. The more good things you do, the higher you rise. The more evil things you do, the faster you fall. As a paladin, you will be thrown into morally obnoxious situations where you must avoid doing evil at all costs. Concoct a plan on the edge of logical absurdity. Get someone else’s hands dirty. Whatever it takes. As long as you didn’t technically do anything wrong, you’ll be in the clear. Character Creation Holy Points (HP): Each paladin begins play with four Holy Points. Holy Points are the core of this game. When a paladin performs a good deed, regardless of intention, he gains a number of Holy Points. When a paladin performs an evil deed, regardless of intention, he loses some Holy Points. When a paladin’s HP falls below zero, he falls from grace and loses his status as a paladin, along with all of his paladin powers. He can only be redeemed by going on an Apology Quest. If a paladin obtains twelve Holy Points, he becomes a demigod. Skills: Skills indicate what a paladin is good at. A paladin has 24 skill points to allocate to his skills as he sees fit. The lower the scores the better. Skills are divided into three categories: Fighting Fighting Unarmed Fighting Close (melee) Fighting Ranged Sensing Sensing Evil Sensing Things Doing Doing Acrobatics Doing Athletics Doing Sneaking Equipment: The primary conflicts in Paladin Rising are moral, rather than violent ones. Thus, ordinary armor and weapons do not have any special rules, or any rules at all for that matter. Melee weapons use the paladin’s Fighting Close Skill. Ranged weapons use Fighting Ranged. Thrown weapons can use either Fighting Unarmed or Fighting Ranged, depending on what feels appropriate to the Controller. Paladins may or may not have horses. The players could decide their paladins have a certain weapon in the middle of combat if the Controller chooses to allow it. It really doesn’t matter. Note that this does not apply to magical weapons or items with special properties. A short list of special items is given at the end for the Controller to make use of. As for other items such as rope, they don’t matter unless the Controller finds some time where their inclusion or exclusion would aid the story. Special Abilities: “Just because he looks evil, that doesn’t mean he’s evil. But if he smells evil, well that’s just evil.” —Arch Paladin Dave These are unique abilities that only paladins can use. If a paladin falls, they lose these powers. Sensing Evil: On a roll within 50, a paladin can know the Alignment of the individual in question. Note: some enemies have sneaky ways of making it more difficult to tell their alignment. Sometimes the Controller will just make the difficulty higher to screw with the players. Holy Strike: A powerful attack that instantly vanquishes its target. If the target was evil, the paladin gains +1 HP for killing them. If they were not evil, they lose an extra HP. This ability is usable only once per day. By default, the player must declare they are using this ability before rolling to hit. However, if the Controller thinks that’s super lame (and it is), they may allow the player to retroactively declare a Holy Strike after a hit has been rolled. The first approach is more dramatic, the second is more cinematic. Doing Things “Whenever it’s a bad idea to do good, it’s still a bad idea to do bad.” —Arch Paladin Dave Paladin Rising is a player facing game. This means that the players roll dice, not the Controller. When a paladin wishes to do something, he rolls 1d100 (2d10) plus his Skill rating and compares it to a difficulty rating determined by the Controller. Rolling equal to or under this number indicates success. This is referred to simply as "rolling within". Example Difficulties: Easy: 70 Medium: 60 Difficult: 50 Challenging: 40 Hard: 30 This is why lower Skill ratings are better. The lower your roll, the higher your chance of success. Opposed Skill Rolls When a paladin wants to do something but another player’s character is trying to stop him from doing it, both people roll with their relevant skills and whoever rolls lowest wins! Combat “A good vampire? The only good vampire is a dead vampire.” —Arch Paladin Dave In Paladin Rising, combat always contains or comes as a result of a moral dilemma. Therefore, combat in this game is merely a means to an end, and the system is in no way intended to model realistic tactical combat. Combat does not follow a rigid structure of "rounds". Rather, the Controller moves from character to character in a way that best fits the flow of the action. Combat should be cinematic. A character might even perform two actions in a row. A player may shout out what he would like his character to do in the middle of someone else's action. The Controller has final say about when that action takes place. Most NPCs have a standard series of damage conditions:* 1. Shaken 2. Wounded 3. Vanquished *Note: some powerful foes will have more than these. When a paladin attacks, he rolls 1d100 plus his relevant Fight skill. If he rolled within the NPC’s defense rating, the NPC takes the next damaged condition. If a paladin rolls within half of the NPC’s defense rating, the paladin may chose to skip the next damage condition. This is called a CRITICAL HIT and represents the paladin striking his foe with an extra degree of accuracy. Example: An evildooer is Shaken and Heathcliff the Paladin needs to roll within 60 to hit. Heathcliff rolls within 30 (half of 60), so he chooses to Vanquish his foe instead of only wounding him. Alternatively, Heathcliff is fighting someone and is not sure if he is good or evil. He again needs 60 to hit, and again rolls within 30.To buy himself more time to discover his foe's intentions, he will only wound his target, to avoid murdering a potentially innocent man. Like NPCs, paladins also have three damage conditions: 1. Shaken 2. Wounded 3. Vanquished When an enemy makes a successful attack against a paladin, the paladin moves to the next damage condition. Most NPCs have one of a few standard attack ratings: Skilled: 40 Average: 50 Untrained: 60 When an NPC attacks a paladin, the player describes how his character will defend himself and declares which of his skills he will use to do so. For example, ducking and dodging out of the way would be Doing Acrobatics. Deflecting with a sword would be Fighting Close. Certain arguments could also be made for Sensing Things, and other skills. If the paladin rolls within the enemy’s attack rating, he avoids harm. Otherwise, he gets his next damaged condition. When a paladin is Wounded, he is in dire straights. If he is damaged one more time, he will die! Recommended courses of action are: 1. Running away. Non-Lethal Damage If a paladin wishes to deal non-lethal damage, his attacks function as normal until the foe would be considered "Vanquished." At this time, the paladin makes a skill check with the skill he was using to attack. He rolls against a difficulty of 50. If he passes, then the target is Incapacitated. Otherwise, the target is Vanquished. Targeting Specific Body Parts If a paladin wishes to target a specific body part (i.e. shooting at the leg to get around the non-lethal lethality rule), the difficulty to do so is -15 (recall that lower difficulties are harder). If the paladin would have hit had it not been for the greater difficulty, it counts as a hit by a normal attack. Morality Alignment “Good and evil exist in all creatures — is a lie that an evil person made up.” —Arch Paladin Dave Every character in Paladin Rising has a basic moral center called an alignment. A person’s alignment is essentially a measure of how good or evil they are. There are four alignments, as follows: Pure Good Medium Good Medium Evil Pure Evil All Paladins must be either Pure Good or Medium Good. The Controller should remind his players to roleplay their paladins in a way that reflects their alignment. The Paladin Oath “Good paladins are hard to come by these days.” —Arch Paladin Dave Paladins may worship any number of gods, but their primary allegiance is to the force of Good. When a paladin is in training, the order he joins teaches him morality. He then makes a solemn oath to do only what is good and to never to do what is evil. His soul is bound to this contract for as long as he remains a paladin. The paladin’s intentions don’t matter, only his behavior. When a paladin does something good, he gains Holy Points. When a paladin does something evil, he loses Holy Points. Chart of Deeds Note: This is not an exhaustive list, and the Controller may modify it as he sees fit.