Class: Veteran

The Veteran is a battle hardened weapon master. They are able to take multiple actions in a single round to lay out damage with an intensity only the most experienced and skilled champions could posses. They wade skillfully through battle, hewing down anyone unfortunate enough to catch their attention.

In designing this class we wanted to focus on simplicity. Veteran’s get multiple attacks on a lot of their turns, and this results in a lot of attack rolls. In our combat system this leads to a lot of damage rolls for most, but the Veteran deals maximum damage on all attacks which simplifies their playstyle. Veteran’s also have a higher chance to critically strike with any weapon. Along with all of this damage potential, we wanted to keep them mobile so they can stay on their targets, and position well. To assist in this while also granting some defense they manifest the ability to make a dodge roll for any attack that comes their way. Typically such a roll would require saving a portion of your action for the purpose, but Veterans get to ignore this rule.

Like all of our classes, the Veteran abilities each have four Masteries that enhance them even further. These Masteries are chosen as you level up giving the Veteran interesting and challenging choices to make:

• Increased mobility to better position to avoid and deal damage
• Increased utility with the ability to swap to any weapon set as a free action on any round
• Increased damage
• Increased defense
• Increased chance to critically strike
• Increased Critical damage
• Increased Health

This has always been an exciting class to play, especially when playing and running a game at the same time. The simplicity of the Veteran along with their Combat Awareness (the ability they get as a Melee type to change their action at any point during the round of combat without penalty) makes them ideal for beginners and Game Masters who have a lot going on. At the same time their versatility with a variety of available weapons and play styles keeps them fun for even the most experienced players.

With all of our play-testing, we are quite comfortable at this point that the Veteran will stay largely unchanged as we move forward with developing Undestined. Because of this, I am excited to release the overview of the Veteran’s class abilities which they manifest as they increase in power:

Weapon Mastery

While wielding any weapon, Veteran’s show an uncanny consistency, and are far less likely to critically fail when attacking and can often turn potentially disastrous situations into more favorable ones.

Strikes of Intensity

Regardless of the weapon or set of weapons being used, the Veteran’s attacks are devastating. Whether it be wading through battle cleaving foes with a massive two-handed weapon, quickly felling an opponent with a barrage of strikes from dual-wielded weapons, slowly and steadily targeting your enemy’s weaknesses with sword and board, or picking off your targets from afar with the precision of a bow, the Veteran’s dominance of the battlefield is unmatched.

Battle Hardened

The Veteran is instilled with an overwhelming prowess in battle that allows them to surprise and unbalance their foes by sustaining a pace others cannot match. This pace allows the Veteran versatility to close gaps on distant enemies, or string together strikes against multiple foes setting them back on their heels. This often places the Veteran in an advantageous position, leaving her opponents grasping feebly for a way to get back into the fight.

sixth Sense

With 6th Sense the Veteran suddenly feels as though she has survived thousands of intense battles causing most attacks against her to seem tedious and stale. She is never caught off guard and can always attempt to evade attacks her enemies throw her way seemingly without a second thought. Any who think they have the jump on her are likely to find themselves suddenly reeling from an unexpected onslaught.

Precision

Weapons feel even more comfortable in the Veteran’s hands increasing her skill while wielding them. The Veteran skillfully guides her attacks to her enemies’ vulnerabilities leaving crushed bones and gushing wounds in her wake.

Exploit

Armor that once looked impressive or impenetrable to the Veteran now seems to be filled with gaps and weaknesses calling for the Veteran’s next strike.

Opportunity

The Veteran is able to capitalize even further on the advantageous opportunities she creates during battle. Further attacks against any still standing after her initial onslaught land with even greater intensity. Those unlucky enough to find themselves battling a Veteran with Opportunity find that she is able to shrug off attacks that would have seemingly felled others.

War Hardened

Impossibly, the Veteran is even more capable of outmaneuvering, outpacing, and overpowering her enemies. During battle she leaves all who oppose her terrified as they watch her fall upon them with overwhelming skill and precision.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I can't wait to share more next month!

Jason McCracken

Overheard at a bar

I plan to spend most of the upcoming blogs giving some overviews of our 32 classes, but I thought before I dug in on those I could give an overview of the systems in which they live. Most of the abilities that characters gain as they level up are combat abilities. If discussed in it’s simplest terms our combat system can be broken up into two sections, Supernatural and Physical. For the sake of our classes we break these down further into four class types. Supernatural is broken down into Magic and Faith types. Physical is broke into Melee and Normal types. Each of these types have their own perk that gives them a unique and fun combat play-style, and there are 8 classes of each type.

Magic classes cast spells with powerful and sometimes volatile affects. These spells are empowered by words and gestures learned through years of study and dedication by some, and manifesting in others from a power beyond any Scholar’s understanding. Most spells require 100% of the casters attention and as such take a full round to cast. Spells also have an open-ended critical and damage system meaning they can crit multiple times with a single spell which will greatly amplify its effect. The perk of the magic system is a usable resource called Focus. Focus is gained as you level up and can be used once per combat to empower your spells in different ways. This empowerment combined with their open-ended criticals leads to some of the most powerful and dangerous abilities in Undestined.

From a lecture by the Scholar Verig:

Casting a spell may seem easy; just memorize what it is you need to say and say it at the proper time and in the proper order and BOOM, the result.  For the most part that’s right. Yet try memorizing an equation that is three lines.  Not too hard, sure.  Now imagine reciting the same three lines properly with a battle raging about you, with arrows flying past your head, men jostling, screaming and bumping into you.  Now imagine reciting it while a grotesque beast wielding an immense sword covered in gore from its previous victims is charging you, and you know you will not finish the spell in its entirety before the beast reaches you.  This is the concentration of a true spell caster.

Faith classes invoke spells as guided by their belief. These caster’s gain their abilities through the empowerment of their god. As they grow in levels they also grow in their Faith. Successful invocations increase their Faith during combat and make them more and more powerful as the fight wears on. This Faith and how it increases the power of the character throughout combat is the perk of the Faith system. It leads them to becoming dangerous foes if they are not shut down early in the fight. Whether empowering and protecting their allies or weakening and corrupting the minds, bodies and souls of their foes, a Faith user’s belief in her deity makes her enemies fear and respect her strength.

From the journal of the Priest Quetza:

I wasn’t even aware of the ambush when I felt the cold steel buried in my side. I didn’t take the time to gather who or what had attacked. Instead I closed my eyes and felt the warm embrace of Andrella. Crying out for her mercy and guidance I felt the dagger being pushed out by her warmth. Immediately Andrella sent to me a Vision. I saw an arrow pierce the heart of Sevarin and her lifeless body sinking into a pool of her own blood. I do not know how, but I knew this was to pass without Andrella’s intervention. I pled with Her to let Rala loose her arrow first. When I opened my eyes I saw Rala’s arrow stick into the eye of the dark armored bowmen. His arrow shot into the ceiling, and Sevarin, heedless of her plight, fought on. I felt two more daggers sink into my back, but I had no fear. Andrella’s might was with me on this day and our foes did not stand a chance.

Melee classes thrive in the chaos of battle. Where others might hesitate, or fear the results of their actions, Melee classes are bold, comfortable,and confident. Their instincts allow them to see the fight and react as it happens. The perk of the melee system is called Combat Awareness. In our combat system, players must decide their actions prior to each round and these actions take place based on their initiative. By the time it gets to be your turn, it is possible your action has been nullified by the actions of those that went before you. Melee classes do not have to abide by this rule. In each moment of the round they are aware of the situation and able to react immediately on their turn.

From Adelina’s Rage written by Dana of the Thrak Gulch Clan:

The feel of blood drying between her fingers only made Adelina feel more at home.  The fury of battle was the only place she truly felt alive anymore: watching for any opening in her opponent’s defense; constantly raining her anger down on them; watching the blood from previous kills spray onto their faces as steel rang on steel. All the while she was prepared at any moment to break her attack and use her momentum to deflect any attack her foes were bold enough to throw back at her.

Normal classes succeed, not by magic, training, or the grace of some deity but rather, by sheer force of will. These classes are often more mobile and elusive than most others, and their capacity for making the best of the worst situations sets them apart from those around them. Their talents and abilities arise from something inside of them driving them to become greater. The perk of the Normal system is called Improvise. Normal classes are able to ignore the pain and impediments of the wounds they suffer. While all other classes may suffer severe penalties from the damage they take, Normal classes do not. Instead of letting the tides of battle turn against them, they Improvise and find a new way to keep their advantage.

Overheard at a bar:

So this giant, no-brained beast of an ogre thinks he has me back against the wall. I mean, he literally did. It was the only thing holding me up after he crushed my leg. Anyhow, I heard an echo when my back hit it, so I knew what I had to do. I let him swing his big dumb club right at my head. I ducked at the last second and the beast knocked a hole into the wall. He had to gather himself from all the dust, so I dove on through. It was dark inside, so I just ducked beside the hole and waited. He yelled a few times and his stinking breath almost drove me back out to him. Only had to wait a few seconds for him to stick his ugly head in the hole and my short sword sheathed nicely in his ear.

Always impressed nonetheless

Boy has it been a while... For the one of you that might read this, I hope you missed me

Since I can't carve out the time to write up campaigns anymore, I think I'm going to use this space as a place to keep track of our progress while working on Undestined. Jacob and I have still been working on Undestined. We've been scheduling 2-4 hours once a week to work on our game and kept to that most of the time. This allows us to keep tweaking our classes and systems based on what we've learned from the week's play-testing session. It's a pretty good rotation, but the workload seems endless. It's been hard to imagine ever settling in one something we could call "complete". I'm just very grateful for our dedicated group of play-testers willing to play our home-brewed game week after week with no end in sight. 

We've got a pretty major campaign in the works at the moment. It's all pouring out of Jacob's brain and is really helping to build the lore/setting of the world. Each of us play-testers has at this point 5 characters spread throughout the world of Undestined working thru campaigns that seem to be weaving into one another. Each one presents a new threat to the status quo of the world and our characters are sometimes the driving force behind that change, and sometimes trying to stop it depending on who we are playing. He's weaving together what seems to be a masterful set of campaigns. It's not surprising given his over 20 years of experience creating and running campaings, but I'm always impressed nonetheless. I can't wait to get it all down on paper for someone else to dig into. The fact that someone else has ever gotten lost in a world that we created (like with the other posted campaigns), blows my mind. That's the dream. 

My "new" job that I got over two years ago which pulled me away from getting these campaigns posted monthly has been incredible. It does keep me busier in mind and body than my previous job, and it makes working on Undestined more difficult. It did give me one thing that will help us though. I recently learned about using the Agile methodology for software development. At the company where I work, we apply this methodology to a lot more than just software development and it works wonders. We've applied some Scrum ideas to our Undestined work, and seeing it on paper gives me hope that we can and will have a finished game. 

Speaking of the actual game, Undestined, I don't think I've ever discussed what it is in too much detail. It's a medieval fantasy tabletop RPG. We currently have 7 races and 32 unique classes. Each class has 8 unique abilities that you gain as you level up. Each of these abilities starts out as a core ability and can be mastered up to 4 times to increase its power. To fully unlock any one class you'd have to get to level 40. That's up to at least 40 levels for all 32 classes. There's a lot of content we've been working on and I'm surprised with how close we are on the classes. They feel like they are in a really good place finally. One of our primary goals with Undestined is to allow for player creativity as much as possible. One of the most enjoyable things in roleplaying for us is finding new and unique ways to build our heroes into what we want them to be. Our masteries and the choices involved in picking them is the driving force behind this. It's a lot of fun and I can't wait to share it with more people someday. 

There's an enormous amount more I'd love to ramble on about for Undestined, but I'll save it for future blog posts. Hopefully I'll have another in about a month. Feel free to share this around if you know someone who might be interested in our journey to a complete game. 

Jason McCracken

#WinkyFace #Hashtag

Work in Progress

Hello,

It has been a long time since I have written on here and I apologize. Maybe someday I'll be in a position to get things going on a monthly basis again. Until then I just thought I'd drop a line to say that I am working on the next part of Ragnok's story. I'm expecting to get it ready by early next year. I'd be more confident and say by the end of this year, but holidays certainly don't free up more time. 

I'm having a great time writing this campaign in a narrative format. We are still playing through it and our heroes have been through a lot. Some have fallen, some have gained nearly impossible power... It is fun writing these from only the perspective of my own characters, leaving out any scenes they miss. Not sure why I've never done this before...

Anyways, more to come eventually. 

Small teaser for fun:

"Ragnok of the Thrak Gulch clan, I have seen your deeds. You and Bashuk, the She-bear, comprise the whole of what remains of our glorious clan. I have brought you here against your will at great cost. The Realm of the Ancients stands before you and little is left even here besides memories. I have brought you to this place for a purpose. There is a power here that does not belong..." - Brak'Zul, The Reaver

Delays

Hello,

I just wanted to post an update that I will be postponing part two of "Ragnok, the Immortal" for an undisclosed period of time. I simply am not ready to post it yet. I will keep working on it and get it up as soon as I am. 

Sorry for the delay. Life has been busy. Sad faces all around.

To anyone who is reading this, you are the best!

Thanks!

Jason

Format Change

The next few campaigns I plan to post I am writing as a narrative. These are all based on a campaign that I have been playing through with my friends. This campaign was written by Jacob Woods, and I just can't imagine writing this story any other way than the way in which it happened for us. 

There are a few things being woven together in this story and we'll get to that, but I will be writing it from the perspective of the character(s) I played. All of the other characters are my portayals of characters played by my friends and our beloved Game Master. I hope you all enjoy reading these as much as I am enjoying writing them. If you don't enjoy, the good news is it didn't cost you a thing. Feel free to steal the ideas from it, as you would with any other campaign I have written, and use them for your own games. 

Thanks for spending some time with me here!

Jason

Patreon

I finally found the time to complete the setup of our Patreon account. I'm using this as a tool to set some specific goals for the site. These include removing all of the ads from the site and even creating some Undestined Merchandise. For more information you can see our Patreon page here. 

As a further update, I am still on track to have the next Campaign ready by May 1st. It is currently looking like my free time is a bit more limited than it was a few months ago. With this in mind I plan to only be releasing these campaigns every-other month going forward unless I get into a position where I have a bit more time. I'm proud of the campaigns that I've written so far, and I don't want to release anything before I am confident it is ready. 

I've been working on getting the previous campaigns converted into a PDF/ebook format. I have "The Vale" about ready in this format. If anyone is interested in the concept of having these in a PDF format or even in receiving a copy of "The Vale" in PDF, just comment below or use the Contact page so you can privately send me your email address and I'd be happy to send you a copy.

Can't wait to release the next Campaign. The core concepts are based on a game my wife ran which drove all of our characters (and even a couple of our players) completely mad, leaving them unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality. 

Talk to you soon!

Jason

Unpause

I planned to check in a bit more often, but I truly lost myself in my studies. I have finally achieved one of my core goals with the time I've been dedicating to my "real life" and now I should have a bit of time for Undestined again.

I'll be adding some features to the site in the coming weeks (Including a way to download the campaigns as PDFs!). I'm tentatively hoping that May 1st will be the release date for the next Campaign. I'm also working towards a plan to set some goals for removing all ads from the site which I will tell you more about once I get more campaigns up and ready for posting. 

Sorry for the long silence. I would greatly appreciate if anyone has played one of our campaigns and wants to share any sort of feedback or stories from your experience. I'm extremely excited to have time to write again. 

Life Changes

The past 6 months have been amazing. I've been writing campaigns like this for years, but I've only been able to share them with the group of people with whom I play. The idea that these are now on the internet for anyone to see excites me. The fact that some of you have reached out to me and are actually playing and enjoying these is one of the most fulfilling experiences I have ever had. I will continue writing, and I'm excited about the new one I'll be posting New Year's Day. 

I just wanted to say two things. First of all a huge thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read and/or play these campaigns. You have brought me a great deal of joy and excitement. I will continue to write and post campaigns simply because I love doing it, but the idea that some people are playing and enjoying these motivates me that much more. It also excites me that I am able to use these campaigns to help build the world of Undestined, our forthcoming RPG of the very distant future.

Secondly, I do have bills to pay and this site actually costs me money rather than bringing anything in. With this in mind I am constantly working to advance my real-life career (as opposed to the fantasy one of writing campaigns for all of my life). I just recently got a job that is helping with this, but is going to be extremely demanding of my time for at least the next few months. That being said I simply wanted to say that I can't promise a new campaign will be coming out each month for the foreseeable future. I will continue writing, and hopefully once I get settled in things can get back to normal and I will have more time to write.

Thanks,

Jason