Vrahode Tavern Podcast
Vrahode Tavern Podcast
How To Create A Custom Character In Vrahode
Vrahode is a world of possibilities. Want to create a muscular mage? A selfless, kind-hearted creature that looks like a monster? You can do that.
In this episode, we talk about how creating a custom character works.
Vrahode will be coming to Kickstarter most likely in quarter four of 2023. When that campaign goes live, you will not only be able to buy the core game, Vrahode: The Calteeryn Ascension, but its three expansions as well.
Learn more about Vrahode on the website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
See full transcript with links and images here: https://www.vrahode.com/how-to-create-a-custom-character-in-vrahode/
Jeff Irving: [00:00:00] My name is Jeff Irving and this is the Vrahode Tavern Podcast. I am the creator of the Vrahode Game System and in this podcast we're going to do a deep dive into the lore and gameplay of Vrahode. I'm joined by Brandon Rollins who will be acting as a stand in for you, asking many of the questions you might be curious about yourself.
Brandon, what are the topics for today?
Brandon Rollins: All right. So for this episode, I was thinking that because we talked last time, well, last two episodes about the 12 Pregenerated heroes. I was thinking this time let's talk about how you can create your own custom hero.
And so I, come to think of it, I don't really know anything about how this works. So, uh, where to begin. Um, yeah, how do you create your own hero in Vrahode?
Creating a hero in Vrahode
Jeff Irving: Well, obviously with, with a game system, when you create a game system, you want to invite [00:01:00] people in, you know, you wanna make them, uh, part of the, part of the process and, and engage them through a lot of customization. Um, and heroes is one way to do it. And so it, let's say you, you wanna roll up a, a new hero.
You're gonna get a, you're gonna get a pool of points. Um, we have five stats. Um, body, spirit, mind, focus, presence.
I think one of the great things, the great facets of this game system is that with custom heroes, you really have the ability to create something very unique. And so you have, you start with a pool of points. I think we give you 40 points to start, and then you have 10 points to allocate in addition to that. So you've got base scores of six for everything.
You start with six, six all the way through, that's 30 points. And then you have the ability to [00:02:00] apply, maybe that's it, maybe it's 30 points and then 10 more that you get to allocate. Let me see. Six. No, I think it's, I think it's 30 and 20. Sorry, Brandon.
Brandon Rollins: No problem. Don't, don't worry about it. Um...
Jeff Irving: But once you, once you start with your base scores of six on each stat, that's where you're gonna start modifying the hero to the play style that you want. So you could push it towards body. If you wanted more of a caster, you could do more mind, you could keep them fairly balanced. Um, between the stats, knowing that your roles are gonna start out pretty low for all your skills, it's just gonna give you a lot of breadth on the decks that you have access to.
Um, but no, I think, I think custom heroes is gonna be fun, especially when we have a forum on the website where we've got people, um, contributing [00:03:00] what they're doing with the game system, um, so that they can share it with others. Uh, so there's gonna be a lot of really cool hero types come out of that down the road.
Why 6 is the lower bound for custom skills
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, so is there a reason why six is the lower bound on each of the individual skills?
Jeff Irving: I think, because what we wanted to do, for example, let's say, let's use D&D, which is obviously a great rule of thumb for anything that has to do with fantasy gaming. I think. In D&D, you, you, your stat range is starts at three.
We felt like we wanted a little different approach to the Vrahode game system than say something like a D&D. It's not a, this isn't a role playing game. It's more of a, it's a, it's a board game, you know, a dungeon crawl, adventure game that bumps up against role playing. Um, but we felt like these are all heroes. Their minimum stats scores should, should be six. So they have, you know, just under a one third chance to have a skill, [00:04:00] um, work for them, be successful.
Um, and so we, we start with a base score of six, and then you modify from there to increase your chances based on what your play style is. Yeah.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, it makes sense cuz you don't want to give anybody, I suppose the ability to be just desperately weak in something, in such a way where it's going to limit their ability to play the game. Like I, I'm guessing that, um, if you just maxed out one skill instead of, um, instead of the others, which I don't, I think maybe you can't even spend 'em all on one skill.
But the point is, if you were to leave everything at six, but one, you wouldn't want 'em to, I suppose, just be a completely useless character.
Jeff Irving: Well, you don't, There's, there's ne, there's no such thing as a guaranteed, uh, success in using a skill. There is, there is, there is always a chance, a one in 20 chance of failure. Um, there is also, um, no [00:05:00] guaranteed chance of failure. In other words, you could be the, the most humble David versus the most brutal Goliath in the game.
And there's still a chance, uh, for you to roll and, and have success. It's, it's very, very, it's a long shot, but we wanted, we wanted to, um, you know, give people the ability to have a chance at things. Even though the odds will be stacked against you in, in a lot of situations.
Brandon Rollins: That makes perfect sense.
Why cap skills at 19?
Brandon Rollins: So how high can any individual skill go? Does a cap out at 20?
Jeff Irving: Um, well, it caps out at 19.
And it's, it's not, it's not so much the skill as it is the role. I mean, you can, you can go ahead and put more, um, points into, to a skill and take it up super high. But when you have modifiers that play into your roles, a lot of times it doesn't really behoove you to do that. Our system almost kind of encourages you to spread your points out.[00:06:00]
Brandon Rollins: Right. So practically you might not want to go above 16 or something.
Jeff Irving: Right, because if, if you can modify a role, um, higher than that, then why waste the point in that stat? Why not put it somewhere else to be able to become more kind of multifaceted?
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, that makes sense.
Jeff Irving: We designed, we designed the five stat system to encourage, uh, heroes to become Swiss Army knives to become, um, to fill multiple roles.
What is the body stat?
Brandon Rollins: So the five stats of course, are, um, body, spirit, mind focus, and presence. So let's, um, I, I just wanna talk about what each of those means when you abstract them away from the pregenerated roles. So body is probably exactly what it sounds like. It is like physical strength, right?
Jeff Irving: Um, keep in mind these are, in a sense, schools of magic.
Um, we call magic rule in Vrahode. And each of these decks, these [00:07:00] ruhl decks, are focused on skills or ruhl that is indicative of a particular type of play style. So as we read down through the body skills, uh, deck, which again, think of these as as, as spells almost for, for a warrior type, you have, you have a, a skill called feral charge, which allows you to move twice your movement rate, and at the end of that, doing damage and knocking the enemy down. So that's, that, that fits with a Warrior play style.
So you've got Swath of Rage. It, it is a skill that allows you to cut through multiple enemies with an attack. It's a, it's a magically enhanced swath with your weapon. Um, you've gotta Shout of Fury, which is kind of a beserker type ability where you're, you're [00:08:00] unsettling enemies around you.
Um, Zealous Defender, this skill allows you to kind of turn a shield into a weapon. Um, and so, so you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll see in each. Um, stat deck, each skill deck that they're very, they play very, very differently.
What is the spirit stat?
Brandon Rollins: Mm-hmm. So Spirit on the other hand, like what kind of, what would, how would that ruhl be applied?
Jeff Irving: Let me, let me grab the spirit deck and I'll tell you so that I don't misspeak here.
Okay. So looking at the spirit deck, Brandon, this is a, this is a deck that's about healing. It's about selflessness, it's about self-sacrifice. Um, it's about as different from the body deck as you can get.
So, I mean, if , [00:09:00] if I'm a, if I'm drawing from the body deck, I'm, I'm focused on doing damage. I don't care about anybody around me. I care about making sure that my enemy is punished.
When I'm looking at the spirit deck, I wanna be able to heal my comrades. I'm willing to give up my health to them. I'm willing to give up some of my health so that they can have more ruhl, more magic. Um, so we've got like Righteous Aid as a skill. Uh, Spiritual Mending, which gets rid of, um, let's see.
I've got Divine Rebuke. This is one that it does damage to enemies, um, within two spaces. So it's like a short ranged kind of, but again, it's, it's kind of spiritual based, you know, um, Annointed Armor, so you're blessing your armor to, to give you greater protection.
Brandon Rollins: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Irving: So yeah, a lot of things like that. Selfless Flow, that's a, that's a skill that let, lets you give someone else more [00:10:00] ruhl, more magic by giving up your own health.
Brandon Rollins: That's really interesting that you're saying that this kind of, um, you're telling story through mechanics and through the, the actual skills that you use too, and I don't suppose that's that surprising. It, it makes sense for the mechanics of any game to kind of reinforce the theme in, in what you're doing, but I'm, I'm now finding that this, this feels a little bit different than what you would find with most RPGs, where the skills are actually kind of abstracted out from what they actually mean in the world.
Jeff Irving: We hope so. We hope so. I mean, the main, the main thing is we want combat to, to, to be very fast and fluid, but we also want it to feel attached to a world and, and that there's lore there. That there's, you know, that it's, that it's well thought out.
Brandon Rollins: Meaning behind the actions.
Jeff Irving: Yeah.
What is the mind stat?
Brandon Rollins: So what about the mind skill deck? What kind of stuff can you expect to find in [00:11:00] there?
Jeff Irving: I'm gonna pull it up so I don't misspeak on it. Um, but the mind deck, I, I designed the mind deck with the idea of, uh, someone that wants to just nuke from afar. So like, we have, we have a, a skill called Falling Stars. It, it's an out, it's an Overland skill. You can only use it outside, but it, it drops meteors on people.
There was a similar spell in D&D, but I liked that one. It wasn't one that you, you, you saw very often in play. So I kind of modified version of that for us. Um, Concussive Blast, we have one that's kind of like an area of effect around a, you know, an explosion type effect. Um, Magical Armor, you know, um, mages are.
You know, traditionally soft targets, they, they can't wear a lot of armor. Um, that's, that's also true in, in Vrahode. I think you need, you know, there has to be a certain amount of balance. If [00:12:00] you can armor up to the, to the teeth, you're, you're going to be more of a, a physical type, um, attacker.
If, if you're a caster, you're, you're, it's just for balance purposes, you tend to be a little softer.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah. It, it, it wouldn't be so great if you could attack from afar and you were also really strong against any attack you could just defend well, um, yeah. That would make things quite difficult because first of all, it's hard to actually reach them, to hit 'em in the first place. And then it's like, well, once you reach 'em, you want to actually be able to do a lot of damage.
Jeff Irving: Absolutely. And the other thing we, we tried to, we really tried to do with, with the, uh, mind deck is to really put a lot of thought into the versatility of what, you know, magic using classes, mages bring to the, the battle is, is kind of a tactician's edge, and so we have a, you know, they can become incorporeal and [00:13:00] basically vanish and move about at will.
Um, we actually even have a skill called Tactician's Edge, which allows if I'm a, if I'm a, if I'm using this skill from the mind deck, I can actually switch the position of two of my allies in a battle. So if I've got a, if I've got a warrior that's stuck in battle and he's, he's getting just pummeled, but I have a nice off tank or a rook, you know, I've got another hero, I can switch those two.
I can actually put the rook where the warrior is in the battle and pull the warrior out to a safe distance so that he can be healed. I mean, these are the things that mages bring. They bring kind of a puzzle solving aspect to complex battles. And, and that's one of the things that we want, um, we wanted to bring to this deck.
And then like, you know, there's other classes, interesting classes that cut, that touch this mind deck, like the dream catcher, for example. [00:14:00] The dream catcher starts with an ability called peaceful slumber. And because the dream catcher is so focused on sleep, um, the skill that they have allows the group during rest phase. To disregard restless sleep cards, which, which heal a little bit, but not much. But to treat, but to treat those as restful sleep where we, where we recharge our ruhl, we heal, we actually heal, uh, physical health and, um, we get rid of fatigue. We reduce fatigue because fatigue is the enemy in our game. You know, the, the harder you fight, the, the more you travel, you become fatigued.
And, and, and the more fatigue you take on, the less your skills work. And so this peaceful slumber, it might seem like a very simple skill, but it's oh so beneficial when you, you've been beaten up.
Brandon Rollins: Very. Yeah, that's, that's really cool. [00:15:00] I'm just thinking. Um, so if I were to, if I were to max out, say the focus skill tree instead, what kind of things could I find in the focus skill deck?
What is the focus deck?
Jeff Irving: Let's look at the focus deck here. I will pull it up. Okay. So again, one of my favorite decks. This is one that came on, uh, that came on late. Um, this is gonna be, focus is gonna, is gonna be divided between serving kind of that archer type, you know, because archery skills require great focus, um, but also kind of the, the martial artist and roguey side of things too.
So, um, if I'm, if I'm drawing from the focus deck, I've got an indoor invisibility. You know, when I'm, I'm working with the shadows here to become invisible, to be able to move around, nd detect it. Um, I've also, [00:16:00] this is, this plays into that Athak-uul race, uh, discussion we had about blood, you know, blood fueling the magic of the Athak-uul. We, since our pregenerated hero, um, Grendlum, the Shadow, since he, um, he's at that, he starts with a, a skill called Blood Lust. So whenever he has hit successfully, his next melee attack gains a two time a double blood effect in, in, uh, a bleed effect, I'm sorry, bleed effect in battle. So in addition to whatever damage his attacks are doing, he's also bleeding his enemies.
So it, it, it really makes the battle bloody in a hurry. Um, so there, there's that. We've got inner workings, which is the, uh, it gives you a, a huge boost to your attempts to disarm traps and to unlock things. So it's basically like an understanding of [00:17:00] engineering, of mechanisms of how, how the inner workings of a trap might have been put together or the inner, the, the, the inner mechanisms on a lock.
And so it gives you a great, uh, increase in your chances of success. So you can imagine having a character with this ability of inner workings in, in the Underlands, going through rooms and hallways. It would be so helpful.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, they would have a much better chance of getting good loot and like maybe not getting attacked as much.
Jeff Irving: Oh yeah. And then, and then so, so think about the deck, serving that purpose, but also think about it serving the warden. We've got a lot of arrow skills in this deck. So we've got like a fork tongue arrow that lets you kind of, from your bow, you know, it requires the bow, but you can fire these magical arrows.
So this one would be one that could hit two enemies, or if you, if you, um, pump a little bit more ruhl into it, it'll let you hit three. It'll let you actually shoot three, three magical arrows at [00:18:00] one time. We've got, um, some, some concussive arrows, flaming arrows, things like that. We've also got some abilities in this deck that, that serve that kind of martial artist.
So we've got one called Flurry of Blows, which is two rapid, two rapid strikes, um, that are magically enhanced. You can, you can actually pump more magic into this skill to do three. Um, a lot of our skill. That's the, that's the cool thing about a lot of the skills in all of these decks is many of them are, they're scalable.
So if you want, you can, you can spend one ruhl to, to do a skill, but if you want to increase the ability of that, um, of that skill, you can add another ruhl to it. And there's gonna be more text on that card that tells you what does this skill do? When I actually put two ruhl into it, And so you get a lot of really cool gameplay.
So, [00:19:00] you know, every time you spend through your allotment of ruhl for the day, you have to rest, regain it, right?
But if you're up against something pretty, pretty diabolical and you know that it's gonna be either you or that thing, you're gonna go ahead and waste that extra ruhl to try to put the thing down. And so a lot of the skills in our, in our decks do that. They allow you to put more magic into it to get a better, a greater effect, which I think is, is very cool.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah. Cuz that creates another kind of game time decision that, um, makes things very interesting. I, I think the focus deck, in particular, is gonna be really good for those, those synergies that make the game, make you feel like you're playing a clever game, which is, uh, that's gonna be fun.
Jeff Irving: Yeah.
Brandon Rollins: I see why you like this one.
Jeff Irving: I, I like this one too. We have, we have a skill in here, in the, in the focus deck called Treasure Hunter. And our indoor, um, spaces, our indoor encounter [00:20:00] maps, caverns and dungeons, they have a lot of points of interest in, in the artwork. They're just little squares, uh, where there's a little bit of, maybe there's a, like a drain hole or, um, some, some, uh, discarded bits of cloth laying on the ground.
The treasure hunter, when they enter one of these encounter maps, and they, and they use the skill for that entire encounter map, they have the ability to roll a D6 and on a +3, which is the equivalent of a six on a D6.
They can actually find items in those points of interest. So it, it allows them to increase their chances of discovering useful items as they, uh, travel around that, that encounter map, which I think is, is a really cool, kind of a peripheral skill that you don't think of, but it adds texture to the game.
Brandon Rollins: It does. And it, it's one of those things, it's like you don't know exactly what you're going to get when you [00:21:00] draw, but you know that if you improve your odds of, um, getting something good, then like that could change your game play in positive ways that you can't quite predict. And as long as you're really good at rolling with the punches, I mean, that could be a very good thing.
Jeff Irving: It definitely tilts the math in your favor. And that's really what this is, is, is, you know, is we've done a lot of math here in the background and everything we do, every, every math we create, every deck we build, there's, there's a spreadsheet and there's math, you know, that's involved. We don't want you to see it, we don't want you to have to worry about the math, but we want your game experience to be rich because of the time we put into the math and we feel like skills like treasure hunter.
It's, it's adding another letter to the quadratic equation that is your gaming experience. Um, one thing in closing, I wanted to say real quick about the focus, the focus, deck is we, we have a group of skills called mantras in, in the, um, in, in the [00:22:00] focus deck that I think are really nice. It, and it, and it lends to the breadth of, of service.
It's a very kind of, serviceable deck that allows you to do a lot of different things. Um, we have, we have a Void Mantra that allows you to deflect incoming range attacks. Um, we have a Savage Mantra, which allows you to increase damage output on attacks for a time. Um, we have a, a Healing Mantra. So, so you're able, this is like a, it adds just a little bit of, of subtle healing to this deck where if you don't have access to the spirit deck or a spirit hero, it does give you a little bit of healing ability.
And so it's, this is, this is kind of the, this is kind of the, the, the catchall deck to me. I just think it's super useful. I think if I was playing a solo hero, I would want access to the focus deck.[00:23:00]
Brandon Rollins: It, yeah, it sounds like something you would want to specialize in if you were playing a low player count game.
Jeff Irving: Yeah.
Brandon Rollins: So, with that in mind, you know, first of all, I think we're gonna cover the Calteeryn and in the next one, cuz that'll be dipping right back into hardcore lore. Um, and I think that is probably a big enough concept for its own episode.
So, before we, um, take this one out, I, can you tell me a little bit more about the presence deck, which is the last skill which someone can customize when they're creating their own hero?
What is the presence stat?
Jeff Irving: Sure. So to me, again, the presence deck kind of has to cover a lot of different things too. I think it's, I think it's a, it's a more varied deck, much like the focus deck. Um, we're gonna, we're gonna con, I think presence has a lot to do with illusion, really.
I think it's a lot about misdirection and confusing the enemy.
Um, like we have one called Confused Allegiance, which... It forces a target [00:24:00] enemy to attack a secondary enemy instead of you. So it's like you're, you're messing with their mind. Um, but then we also have it, it's, it's serving our Syrin. Our Syrin is drawing from the presence deck, right? Because it's the presence of their voice in the battlefield that is their weapon.
And so we have one called Battle Hymn. And it gives, it gives the, the friendly characters in battle. It gives them pluses, but it also gives the enemies a minus.
So he or she is, is buffing and debuffing at the same time with a song with their voice. Um, Tone of Persuasion is a, is a skill within this deck that allows the hero when working with merchants to buy items at the sell price and to sell at the buy price.
So it switches the math on the merchant equation for people, which normally, obviously, merchants are gonna sell high and, and buy low from you, right? So they can make their money. Well, this skill for the Syrin, [00:25:00] or for someone who chooses it from the presence deck, it allows them to turn the tables on the merchant and actually, um, kind of come out ahead.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, it, it feels a little like focus changes your relationship with the environment around you and, um, presence changes your relationship with other characters in the game.
Jeff Irving: Definitely, um, but, but think about it this way. It, it re um, Blood Unity is a skill we have in the presence deck. This is a, an ability for you to transfer life to and from a pet. So like for our Warden, they need Blood Unity. They need that Blood Unity skill later on when their, their pet is in battle and they're not, they're out there at range so that they can not only shoot from range, but also control that pet, that enemy, uh, that they've tamed. Well, that enemy's gonna get lost.
They're gonna lose that pet if they can't transfer some health from them to it. So they have this blood unity. Same thing happens if the [00:26:00] pet is safe and they're taking damage, they can steal some life from that pet that they've obtained if they get in trouble. So it, it makes them very potent as a team. Um, so that's an important skill in the presence, uh, deck is the blood unity.
Um, of course we talked about Dream Sentinel. That's the, the spectral guardian that our Dream Catcher can someone to serve them through a day. Um, that's part of this deck. Um, we talked about the Bestial Mastery, which is the taming of the pets. Um, we have a Song of the Hero, which is another, um, another buff for the, um. This one's for the Jester, it requires the song of the Hero is sung and played by the Jester to augment the battlefield, they have to have a flute or a lute or some kind of instrument in their inventory in order to, to use this skill. But if they do, it's very potent. It allows them, um, [00:27:00] all the friendly characters within range to receive plus one to their primary stat roles and, and an additional point for each mind point that the Jester has over 16.
So as they up their skills, this ability gets more potent and it enables everybody in range, their primary stat to go up. So that's, I mean, that's really, really good.
Um, and it, the cool thing is it lasts. As long as they play that song, they sit back there and, and until they get attacked and hit, they can just sit back there and play that song and buff everybody up.
That's really fun.
Brandon Rollins: Mm-hmm. And so custom characters can, they use things like the, um, dream sentinels and stuff like that when, when certain conditions are met?
Jeff Irving: Well, that's the wonderful thing about this, these decks, they're not, they're not exclusive. In other words, it, it, it, we, we give, we hand pick the [00:28:00] three skill cards for each pregenerated hero. So in a way that we think purifies, that archetype, that play style. Okay? If you don't have a dream catcher, a person playing the dream catcher, your custom hero can, can grab that skill right outta the skill deck.
Brandon Rollins: That's cool. I, I like that because it really does give people the ability to totally customize and not, and feel like they're not missing out on something.
Jeff Irving: No, you are not missing out you, but just know this. Just know that we intentionally limit the number of cards that are you... there is only one Dream Sentinel card in that deck. There is only one Bestial Mastery card in that deck. So once that, once someone has selected it, whether it be the Pregenerated hero or the [00:29:00] custom hero who just happened to want to, want to use that skill, then that's it.
That's all that group can take on. Because if we put. Multiple cards of those, then you're gonna have all these people with all these pets and all these dream sentinels. It just, it doesn't make sense because what we wanna do is force group unity and asymmetry in our parties. We don't wanna just have everybody say, Okay, we're gonna see what it's like for us all to play wardens.
Well, no, you're not, you're not...
Brandon Rollins: yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It also keeps things interesting.
Jeff Irving: It does, it keeps them interesting and it keeps your group cohesive.
Um, because the sacrifices that someone makes to cast a dream sentinel to, to bring them into being is, is a large chunk of their ruhl for the day. They're giving up a lot to bring that thing into being, cuz it takes so much presence, so much magic to fuel that present skill that they're, they're not gonna be viable as a Spark.
You know what I mean? Cuz they don't, they [00:30:00] won't have the ruhl to fuel all those, those mind skills. So it, it is, everything is very, very well thought out. And intentionally limited so that we get the balance and the unity within the groups when they play.
Brandon Rollins: And well at this point I, I, I gotta say, I've got to go, but I am looking forward to just figuring out what I want to do when it comes time to come up with a character. Like, I'm probably gonna go in on the focus and presence decks, but I honestly don't know because they all look, they all sound pretty good.
Jeff Irving: I've tried to make the warriors, you know, warriors are traditionally not that exciting. They're kinda like the, the cardboard cut out of, of a character. Everybody. I'll just play a warrior first. Oh no. Our Blade and Shield characters, which are kind of our warrior, uh, equivalents, I find them very interesting, uh, and fun to play.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing them in action.
Jeff Irving: Yeah.
Brandon Rollins: All right. So that in mind, let's [00:31:00] next time talk about the Calteeryn and what that means in the universe. And, uh, why don't you take us out from here?
Jeff Irving: Okay.
Thank you for listening to the Vrahode Tavern Podcast if you're enjoying this show, take a moment to subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. If you're on Apple Podcasts please leave a five star review. It helps more than you know. You can learn more about Vrahode on vrahode.com. That's V R A H O D E .COM. Link in the show notes. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram where we are @Vrahode. Thank you again for listening. We really appreciate it. Keep an eye out for our next episode in two weeks.