Rules Changes

These are rules that already exist within the corebook but I am tweaking to fit the campaign a little better.

Initiative

To make initiative easier to track and quicker at the table, only players will roll for initiative and there will be no 'initiative number' to put everyone in order.  Simply make a Wisdom check each round.  If you succeed, you go before enemies, if you fail, you go after.  Within those two phases, the players can go in whatever order they decide.

Encumbrance

This will work mostly the same as the corebook, but streamlined.  No extra 'readied' slots can be used.  All items will be either slight or the size of a soap, a stone or a sack (12 per one slot, 3 per one slot, one slot, or all of your regular slots).  For treasure, 250 coins will weigh one stone/slot (gems will be treated as specific number of coins based on size - this is independent of value).  Each level of Fatigue also takes up one inventory slot (and can lead to being encumbered/exhausted as well).

While within the city, encumbrance will be mostly handwaved, as it is assumed you can simply head back to base and grab/drop off anything that is needed.  Inventory management is only worth tracking in a wilderness/dungeon environment where resources for survival are in short supply.

Mortal Wounds

This is being replaced with a Death and Dismemberment table.  Other wound statuses and healing rules are the same, just changing what happens at zero HP.

Critical Hits

Critical hits will use the tables in DCC when the PCs score crits.  When monsters score crits, the PC in question will just immediately roll on the Death and Dismemberment table.  Of course, for cool/deadly monsters like manticores or something I might just roll on the appropriate monster table for them in addition to the D&D roll.  Player classes in WNN line up to DCC thusly:

• Fighter Tables: Warrior
• Dwarf Tables: Warrior/Expert, Warrior/Mage (non-spellcasting)
• Cleric & Halfling Table: Expert, Warrior/Mage (spellcasting)
• Thief & Elf Table: Expert/Mage
• Wizard Table: Mage

Skills

As presented in the corebook, skills are binary pass/fail rolls with set DCs.  I prefer the fail-forward/shades of success paradigm in Powered by the Apocalypse/Forged in the Dark games.  This means that for the most part, all skill rolls will be judged on a scale of 2-7/8-10/11+ with that being complication/partial success/full success.

Additionally, having no ranks in a skill will no longer give a -1 to all rolls with that skill.  Instead, the skill will be rolled normally, just with a zero modifier in circumstances where an untrained person could conceivably 'figure it out.'  For trained tasks, the character will roll with 3d6 and the highest die will be dropped (aka 'disadvantage').  Example: Untrained Heal Check - first aid in the field, staunching blood, wrapping a sling, etc; Trained Heal Check - setting a broken bone, treating chronic disease, surgery, etc.

Languages

The rules as written do not allow characters to learn new languages without spending skill points and don't allow for any surprise during gameplay.  To remedy this, I will be taking the language system from Lamentations of the Flame Princess.  What this means is that all characters will start as normal for WWN with their native tongue and Trade Cant, a lingua franca for communicating just enough to make a sale (and will be literate assuming Intelligence is 8 or higher).  However, they will know no additional languages.  When encountering a new language for the first time, a character has a 1-in-6 chance of already knowing it at a roughly proficient level.  For each point of Intelligence bonus or level of Connect or Know skill (whichever is higher) the character has, increase this chance by  an additional 1-in-6.  Each character only ever gets one chance to 'already know' any language.  This can be done a number of times up to the character's INT bonus.  If a character would like to actively learn a language, this same check can be made after 3 months of intense study or 1 month of total immersion, with an additional +1 to the success range for each additional time increment.  After success, the character is considered roughly proficient in the language and any study bonuses are cleared.  An additional check with all the same rules can be made to increase this knowledge to fluency.  If warranted by the character's background, an initial 'already known' language check can be made without counting against the limit above using 2d6 and if both are successful, the character was 'already' fluent in the language.

Magic

While spellbooks are listed as a requirement in the rulebook, there are no actual mechanics for them.  I will simply port the spellbook rules from AD&D (adjusted to the silver standard economy).  Because AD&D doesn't use a slot-based encumbrance system, to make it fit within WWN, regular spellbooks will take 2 inventory slots and traveling spellbooks will take only 1.  Note that in WWN, there is no distinction between arcane and divine magic, meaning anyone with the ability to cast spells requires a spellbook to prepare them each day.

Material components do not appear to be necessary for spellcasting in WWN, so unless a specific spell requires rare ingredients that must be quested for, it can be assumed that any spell components are on hand and take up zero inventory slots.

Experience

This is by far the biggest change from the rules as written in the book.  WWN uses a system that is effectively milestone leveling, but with a tracker for XP.  Instead, we will use a blend of typical old-school exponential XP and this smaller/mile-stone style advancement according to this table:

Experience is awarded for defeating monsters, performing feats that align with the three pillars: Exploration/Combat/Role-Playing aka interacting with the fiction (stolen shamelessly from 3d6 DTL's method) or for other reasons as they come up.  Feats are described as Minor, Common or Major and grant 1/32nd, 1/16th and 1/8th of the party's next level requirement, respectively.  To determine the exact amount, generate a total XP Target by adding the XP needed to reach the next level for each member of the party and base all the  percentage awards off that value (ie: if there are two level 2 characters and a level 6 in the party, their total XP target is 6,800 [900+900+5,000] and a Minor Feat would grant 212.5 XP).  All XP is awarded as group XP, split evenly amongst all party members.  XP targets ignore the player's current XP - they just look for the total amount between beginning and end of each level (a lvl two character always has an XP target of 900, even if they currently have 1,350 XP). [[actual percentage of XP gain might change if this is too fast or too slow]]

• Fiction
  • Roleplaying: Interesting moments, playing to a character's flaws, exploring a backstory, etc  (Minor)
  • Lore: Encounter, investigate and research a new magical anomaly/organism/secret/etc (Minor)
  • Intrigue:  Survive being entangled in someone's plot, learn the true power structure in a city, start a peasant revolt, etc (Minor or Common)
  • Minor Quests or Projects: defeating a local monster terrorizing the locals, break up a "protection" racket, establish a new research lab, etc (Common)
  • Map out/study a new point of interest (Common)
  • Gain significant reputation within an existing faction or for your own faction (Major)
  • Index to a new Khazraji Waystation (Major)
  • Major Quests or Projects: factions changing alliances, major villains and plots being foiled, disrupting the church or secular power structure in a substantial way, etc (Major)
• Exploration
  • Dungeon Delving: Each room of a dungeon explored gives a cumulative 1/400th TXP award (4 rooms - 2.5%, 8 rooms - 9%, 15 rooms - 30%, etc)
  • Travel: Stay in a new settlement for the first time (Common)
  • Travel: Forge a new path across the wastes (Major)
• Combat
  • Use the standard B/X monster XP awards, but scaled for the XP table above (aka, just multiply them by 1/3)

  • 

• Extraordinary Achievements
  • Once-per-Campaign accomplishments: build and manage a personal domain, cure Red Rot, bring back the Serpent Kings, etc.  Bespoke goals such as these count as Feats with a 1/4th TXP award
  • Carousing: 1d8 x 1%.  This d8 will explode, driving the number higher.  Your character spends a week partying, living it up and causing ruckus (or volunteering time with orphans, studying old tomes, or another such downtime activity - carousing looks different for each character).  10 x (character level) x (total rolled) in silver pieces must be spent after carousing.  If you cannot afford the bill, there will be negative consequences.  Unlike other awards, this is individual XP
  • Defeating a classed villain: 1/8 of their XP total if killed or driven off, 1/4 of their XP if captured or converted
  • Other feats as they come up - players should be giving goals that we can attach to feats as well (minor feat for each elephant given to local emir for his army, common feat each time a witch is removed from the nassarid region's coven, etc etc)

The goal is for each player to get ~300-500 XP per session, so if these XP rewards aren't working, we'll change things.

• Individual XP
  • Playing to your beliefs/drives/vice/background/personality: Especially if doing so causes a complication for the group or causes us to learn something new about your character or the world, earn 2d10 x 10 XP.  Roll additional d10's, gain advantage on the roll or gain other bonuses if the fallout is particularly interesting
  • Exploring a dungeon: 1 XP per new room for each room cumulatively explored before exiting to heal and restock - a room can only ever be 'explored' for XP once, ever.  Thus, exploring 4 new rooms in one delve will result in 20 XP (1 + 3 + 6 + 10).  Whereas exploring twice that many will result in 120, five times as much XP (1 + 3 + 6 + 10 + 15  + 21 + 28 + 36).  This will likely be increased for deeper levels in more dangerous dungeons or lowered for high leveled characters obliterating the lost mines of Phandelver
  • Carousing: 1d8x25.  This d8 will explode, driving the number higher.  Your character spends a week partying, living it up and causing ruckus (or volunteering time with orphans, studying old tomes, or another such downtime activity - carousing looks different for each character).  Ten times the total in silver pieces must be spent after carousing.  If you cannot afford the bill, there will be negative consequences
  • Travel to a new location: 1d10 x days travel away.  Increase to 1d20 for deadly travel or 1d100 for suicidal travel
  • Encounter a magical anomaly, new organism, etc: 1d20 x 5
  • Study/Investigate a point of interest: a local curiosity: 1d6, uncommon: 3d6, rarely visited: 3d20, unseen for years: 3d6 x 10, unseen for generations: 3d20 x 10, of questionable veracity: 3d6 x 100, fabled: 3d20 x 100.  Takes 1d4+1 days
• Group XP
  • Fighting monsters: no XP for nameless minions, but for named creatures (even if the name is simply 'the giant rat that keeps raiding my larder'): a local legend: 2d10 x 10, a regional threat: 2d10 x 50 XP, a national threat: 2d20 x 50, a cultural icon: 2d10 x 500 XP, a fabled monster: 2d20 x 500 XP, a mythological being: 2d10 x 5,000 XP
  • Vanquishing a leveled villain: for an NPC with levels, the group will earn 1/10th of their XP total for defeating them if slain or forced to flee and 1/4th of their XP if captured or converted to their side
  • End a conflict/plot: 2d6 x 350
  • Survive a conflict/intrigue: 1d8 x 50.  Increase this by +1d8, up to 3d8, based on difficulty
  • Loot/recover a treasure:  XP based on importance, though if named and related to a quest it will be in the ~500 XP range.  For smaller, unnamed treasures: of local importance: 1d20 XP, a local treasure: 2d20 XP, of national significance: 5d20 XP, a national treasure: 2d20 x 10 XP, a cultural icon: 1d20 x 50 XP, mythological in nature: 2d20 x 100 XP, divine: 1d100 x 100 XP
• Additional rewards as they come up