Hobbits are great swimmers

Long torsos, short legs. It's an essential life skill, given that so much of their diet comes from the sea. Hobbits are both Green and blue water sailors. Foreign to Mela, they tend to wind up on the coasts and inner isles of the middle sea, which is most reminiscent of their home isles. Sometimes derided as 'midget pirates'. Aboard a bobbing boat, a low center of gravity counts for more than arms reach.

Most of the raiding/piracy/cannibalism that goes on is between hobbits. The far isles are too far from the ocumene for regular contact. Only when the currents after right is a voyage feasible. Resulting from a climactic oscillation, this happens every seven years or do, or about twice a generation.

Hobbits are considered to live 'over the horizon' and the far isles are effectively part of another continent, half an ocean away.

It's a big archipelago. Like earthsea, or Kuala Lumpur. Small islands by far the most common. Sunken mountains, rather than volcanos. Poor soil as a result. Hobbits intensly parochial. Each island had its own village (or villages, for larger islands). Not tribes, per se.

Their water craft look like proas or long ships, depending. Of the raid/trade/protect trifecta, different groups do all three.

Hobbits are foreign to Mela. As foreign as someone from Cathay in Europe. Plenty of individuals, left behind from raiding or trading parties (or just out to explore) but very few hobbit communities.

Mela: an alternative pre-history

So I'm making a setting. An 'Atlantean' past, set in an alternate pre-history, where the non-human races of Tolkien-esqe mythology actually exist.

Part of what is driving my compulsion to do this is recent research into human anthropological history. 50K years ago, we had a whole lot of 'homo' species running around, competing and interbreeding. So I'm creating 'homo' species that resemble the standard fantasy races, and then trying to retro-engineer the evolutionary pressures that would lead to that. Hobbits are easy: 'homo florensis' are tiny due to Island Dwarfism. Dwarves are beetle browed, broad chested homo neanderthalis/homo robustus. Large eyed, wide chested, thick-boned. But elves...elves are a pain. 

'Mela' itself refers to a Byzantine-esque human culture that surround the Middle Sea (circa 834, our Chronology). Post-imperial, quasi-feudal. Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits all exist, but they are all exotic: They come from place very very far away. Elves from from Argoth, a heavily forested island over the sea to the east. Dwarves live on the high plateau to the north of Mela, and hobbits on the archipelago (EarthSea style, far far to the East).

In Mela, humans think of the World in terms of the OTO, the Orbis Terram Ordinal. (pardon my pseudo-latin nonsense). Humans think of the world, (the civilized world), as a T-shape inside inside an O. The T-shape represents the three seas (Black, Red, and Blue (Middle). The spaces between the seas are the continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. And that's all the world that matter, the 'O' of civilized land set around the Middle sea. Beyond that, there is nothing by wasteland and monsters. Cosmopoligically, the people of Mela are pretty sure that there is a big body of water that surrounds all the continents (the 'Oceanus').  The climate a few hundred miles beyond the middle sea is pretty inhospitable to civilization, climactically. In Mela, this is conceived of as 'The Four Wastes', one for each Ordinal Direction: Cold (North), Grass (East), Sand (South) and Water (West).

The Cold Waste emerges from the planes near the middle Sea, and rises up to be something like the Alps...except the Alps are merely the edge of a gigantic plateau, like the Himalayan plateau, where the climate varies between Taiga, Tundra, and Cold Desert. Completely inhospitable to agriculture.

The Grass Waste is comparable to the central Asian grasslands; vast steppes, cold and arid. Also populated by roving bands of barbaric centaurs. (// Turko-Mongolic Nomads).

The 'Waste of Sand' is the Sahara desert. No water, terrible heat, trackless wastes. Populated by cyclopes and elephants. (The Melanese are a little unclear on how the two relate: They have very similar skulls, but the cyclopes are tremendous single-eyed two-legged things, and elephants are tremendous snake-nosed four-legged things. The two are often seen in company of one another, but it's not clear if the cyclopes herd the elephants, the elephants keep the cyclopes as 'guard dogs', or if one gives birth to the other. However, they are unified in their hostility to humans. While not civilized, cyclopes wield both slings and clubs. ("We call them 'Chuck'."). The sling stones range in size from croquet balls to bowling balls.

The 'Waste of Water' (at the foot of the 'T') is where the Middle Sea flows out onto the Oceanus. Navigation in Mela is primitive, and sailing too far out of sight of land is generally considered suicidal. Monstrous creatures like the leviathan (which eats ships) encourage this. The islands of the hobbits exist (somewhere) amidst it, but even the hobbits are hard-pressed to say exactly where. (They merely ride the currents to and from the islands, which are specks of land scattered amidst the water like stars in the sky. )

Sphere Grid and License Board for Table Top RPG

In response to Rob's comments on the thread on the RPG brain trust, I mapped out all the feats in DnD 3.5, generating about 7-9 clusters (whirlwind attack joins 3 of them). Comparing this map to the sphere grid in the different FF games, it's clear that just using a sphere grid/license board analogue for feats alone would not work: There simply aren't enough feats to populate it. For FF, this is a non-issue; they've resolved the issue by incorporating all of the the 'character progression' mechanics into the board. In the case of the license board, this means all 'proficiencies' have been included onto the board; given that each 'tier' of a weapon requires a different license, this provides a large number of slots. The same mechanism has been adopted for spells, with each tier of a spell (Ice 1, Ice 2, Ice 3).

Matt

The sphere grid itself takes this dynamic even further, integrating even more of the character progression into the 'grid': HP, MP, and primary attribute increases all form 'nodes' on the grid which can be unlocked.

Matt

The elements of a 'class level' have been discretized as linked nodes. As an example, a fighter level might be thought of as a +1 to BAB node, a +1d10 HP node, a feat node, and a 5 skillpoint node, all in sequence. For, as discussed elsewhere, the 'sphere grid' is actually very linear, with a limited number of forks, and an even more limited number of convergences.

Matt

http://gameinternals.com/post/3364162387/straightening-out-final-fantasy-xs-sphere-grid

(3 converges for Kahrimi, 0 for Tidus/Wakku/Auron, 1 for Yuna, 1 for Rikku and Lulu).

Matt

So there are not actually very many alternative path at all, but rather a question or how deeply a player explores the 'branches' of the main tree for each character. (The only exception being the 'teleport' spheres, which permit a (rare) jump to any location on the sphere grid, to treat any given node as an initial node. )

Matt

The license board, with the provision of multiple starting licenses, actually provides a much higher level of player choice and customization. However, permitting only 'rooks case' contiguity, choosing any new license permits (at most) access to 3 additional licenses, reducing the option shock that a player suffers when choosing abilities.

Matt

The number of initial licenses affects the number of options available, with the number being 4x the number of initial licenses. At 8+, players are likely getting lost in the options (like first time-players choosing a L1 spell in DnD).

Matt

One thing that the sphere grid does very well is represent pre-requisites: Dodge would be followed by Mobility, which would be followed by Spring Attack. And a sword that requires Strength 3+ would have 3 +1 STR nodes before it (unless reached by an alternate path with 3 +1 STR nodes on it).

Matt

Such a grid would also be an effective way of working in Prestige Classes, and/or 'Paragon Paths' or 'Epic Destinies'.

Elves are dumb

I always wondered why there weren't more elf wizards. I mean, human wizards tend to be freaking powerful, but (barring lich-dom) also tend to be old. But what about an elf, who lives for over a thousand years? Shouldn't the world be over-run by Elven arch-magi?

Elves live 5-20 times as long as humans. Shouldn't there be elves with 5x-20x as many levels as humans?

Part of what is driving my compulsion to do this is recent research into human anthropological history. 50K years ago, we had a whole lot of 'homo' species running around, competing and interbreeding. So I'm creating 'homo' species that resemble the standard fantasy races, and then trying to retro-engineer the evolutionary pressures that would lead to that. Hobbits are easy: 'homo florensis' are tiny due to Island Dwarfism. Dwarves are beetle browed, broad chested homo neanderthalis/homo robustus.

The thing that drives long-life in humans is the age of parents at conception, especially of the father. So we need some sort of biological mechanism that creates a feedback loop that results in a species with crazily long lifespans, enough to overcome the 'disposable soma' that Dawkin's selfish gene predicts? So elves should likely have ridiculous recuperative/healing abilities to fully recover to crippling injuries as well.

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Let's be honest here: Elves aren't exactly the brightest people in the world. Orcs get a reputation for brutishness and cruelty, but they at least live in tribes, and the ability to grasp that someone is about to betray you is pretty important to have.

For elves, it's much simpler. There is the queen, and everyone does what she says. And if an elf doesn't like it, he can bugger off. And not a few elves do, choosing solitary lives in the wilderness over living 'at court' with the local elf-queen. A few join other courts.

Elf society revolves around the queen. And taking care of her offspring.

Elves didn't always have long lives. It's an evolutionary adaptation to elven social circumstances: The oldest female is queen. The oldest female is queen only as long as she is fertile. And while the standards vary among tribes, a child annually is considered the minimum. THis is because the queen is the only elf permitted to bear children, a position she maintains by keeping all other females in a state of constant distress. (Constant emotional distress isn't just a habit--it's an evolutionary imperative). So the reproductive capacity of the entire 'court' of the elves relies on a single individual. So elf-queens maximize their reproductive potential by having many offspring, very quickly. Sadly, one of the costs of this is a very high infant (and child) mortality rate. Being born at six months tends to be part of the problem, as all elf infants are effectively premature.

Female elves flee into the wilderness with some regularity. They tend to be even more hermetic then their male counter-parts; elf-queens regard these 'wild maidens'  as potential rivals. (While all the other female elves are also rivals, they also tend to be sisters, daughters, nieces, grand-daughters, or otherwise related individuals).

Two wild elves may also meet, mate, and begin their own 'court'. The different elf 'courts' and their queens are more or less constantly at war. Or rather, in a constant state of war, in a series of raids and counter-raids. It's one of the ways in which elf lords can distinguish themselves, win the attention of the queen, and have some hope of offspring. Thence, anything to win the attention (and affection) of the elf queen. What wins that favor of the queen may vary from day to day, for an elf queen, over-all, must maintain her court in constant chaos: the females in terrorized dismay, and the males in frenetic and hopeful yearning.

For any elf, live is a long long period of waiting. For the elf ladies, to become queen. For the elf-Lords, to achieve the notice and favor of the queen.

To achieve the notice of the queen, elf-lords attempt all sorts of endeavors. Martial prowess is well regarded, but so are other achievements of all sorts, often the more esoteric the better. Hence, many elves acquire a bizarre array of skills. Music, dancing, archery, hunting, and running are merely the most common. Bird-song contests, horn scrim-shander, tree climbing, breath-holding, drinking contests, the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms have all been known to occur. (It is not unknown for such contests to be fatal, especially for younger elves-lords). It is to the advantage of the elf-queen to be as fey and volatile as possible in her choice of desired achievement, lest one elf-lord grow too dominant, and the striving for favor end.

In such a society, the sustained pursuit of magical skill tends to be ill-rewarded. (Did I mention that the penalty for displeasing the queen is death?)

So, living in scattered settlements, in constant contest for survival and advantage, elves have little enough time to devote to esoteric disputes. Minor skills in many (or even most things) are common achievements.

Did I mention that elves are terrible parents? While an elf-queen must bear a (living) child, the child's survival is far from assured. And indeed, placing an elf-child with a human family (abandoning them nearby) can be a highly successful parenting strategy. And with long lives, what matter is it to wait another half year or year for another child?

Even elven 'exiles', or leave Argoth and go adventuring in the world...don't tend to be very bright. For there is no reason for an elf to be bright: The queen is winsome, chaotic, and deliberately contrary: deliberate practice in any skill is unlikely to be rewarded. Nor is there a reason to share skill with another contender.

Elven parentage is, to say the least, confused. Which elf-lord is the father of any child is almost unknowable, elf-courts being in a state of general polygyny. And an elf-queen is mother to most of the children in a court, so all children are largely interchangeable, insofar as she is concerned.

Elves know neither trade nor manufacture: They make what they need, and the fierce contest between courts (and depredations of wild elves) make any journey a perilous one.

Final Fantasy Progress/Battle Mechanics Rundown

FF1: No character, pick a class, roll with it; upgrade to prestige class

FF2: Jobs attached to characters

FF3: Characters, Job changes allowed; leveling up under jobs determine stats. //DnD 3e Multi-classing. 1 class skill/job, only usable when job equipped.

FF4: Callers...

FF5: Chosen job has multiple skills, which can be leveled up using Ability Points; point-buy paradigm within the job.

FF6: Relics, Character Abilities, Espers act as Summons and teach spells 

FF7: Materia, materia slots on equipment, materia level up; 'Summon' is a type of Materia

FF8: Guardian Forces, Draw System, Junction System, Limit Breaks

FF9: Equipped items like espers: provide ability, and also teach that ability. Action and Support abilities; character abilities & triggered/conditonal; Trance (//Limit Breaks); Summons (Eidolons)

FF10: Sphere Grid; Summons (Aeons); Sphere levels allow you to move around the grid, other spheres act to unlock the node you are on. Key spheres bypass lock nodes; later on, cyan spheres teleport you all over the grid. Purple spheres transform empty nodes into stat nodes; clear spheres remove these. 'Summon' is a character specific ability; 'Aeons' are collected by visiting temples. C

FF11: MMORPG...Job System: Modified class system, with Primary and Support Job. // to DnD 2.0 dual-class; Can obtain 'Advanced Jobs'; 6 basic jobs, 16 'Advanced Jobs'. //Prestige classes? Job controls abilities, traits and spells... and equipment. Summoner Job has two types of Summons: Avatars, which at as pets, and Elementals, which act like FF6 Espers. Level things up with 'merit points', which are obtained instead of XP at the level cap.

FF12: License Board and Gambit System. Gambits are heuristics, with a 'target, action, priority' framework. Defeat Espers to gain their help; Esper as time-limited character; espers are unique; License Board a checkerboard grid; rook-case adjacent expansion; single license board, although expansion adds 12 more. 

Original Board:  http://faqsmedia.ign.com/faqs/image/article/743/743186/mike_jarod_ff12_license_gri.jpg

Different characters get different initial licenses, and are hence able to expand into different areas more easily

Licenses cover not just abilities, but also ability to equip armor/weapon. Cost ('License Points) varies by grid-square.

FF13: All but the main character become programmed agents ('Paradigms' with a specific role, which can be switched mid-battle. Crystarium System, a personal sphere grid with paths defined by each possible role; //4e Combat class roles. Use XP to buy stat-boosts, spells and abilties on the chart. Spell tiers available along the chart, progression along the chart is game-progress locked by 'crystimarium levels'; Summon Eidolons as pet...they can also be 'vehicles'. Gear leveling up also a part. Acquire summons by defeating Eidolons to get Eidoliths. 

FF14: Failed MMORPG; Armory System+Job System. Class determined by equipped item. 4 classes: fighting, magic, crafting, and gathering, aka: War, Magic, Hand, & Land. (Virtual Economy). Base components from Gatherers, special components f/ Monster Hunts. Character+XP? Materia upgrades equipment. Armory (class)-specific jobs; limit what abilities from other classes can be equipped. 5 expected 'roles' in play: DPS, Tank, Healer, Crafter, Gatherer

FF15: Open-World Action roleplaying game...aka Darksouls. 

Final Fantasy Tactics: Job system, with job access 'licensed' by attribute requirements. 

Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced: Skills learned from equipped items (//Espers in FF6 or gear in FF9)

Should make a table of this, following categories:

.Summons: Pets or recurring effect?

.Equips: Wpn/Armor, relics; espers? Are there slots? Are there levels?; jobs?

.Learns: Permanently gained new abilities or spells

UDOM

UDOM is the presumptive name of my 'small press' RPG. UDOM stands for 'Unnamed Dungeons of Mystery", which is a bit of joke for a draft system by friend Jake and I were working on, but could not be bothered to name.

UDOM uses the Middie System. Middie can be thought an an ancestor to Mayhem (Midnight Campaign), and is the game Mayhem is descended from. It is far less cool than Mayhem. It was originally designed by a math major (Jake) as an alternate to D20. You can think of UDOM as a cousin to Mayhem, as they both share roots in Middie. But...then it gets a bits incestuous, as it would be prevarication to say UDOM isn't influenced by Mayhem (since I worked on both). UDOM is less pretty than Mayhem, because, well, no art and no graphic design. It is also cheaper (free).

Two big differences: There is no skillcap in UDOM. Gaining ranks works differently. And uh, a bunch of other stuff.

SETTING
UDOM is a game about dungeons. The most fun parts of any adventure take place in the dungeon, and so the whole world is basically made up of dungeons. In UDOM, pretty much everyone lives in a cave of some sort. Caves are plentiful. And not living in a cave is dangerous. UDOM is set in a World of Goo. It's so called, because, well, it tends to 'rain' goo. Intermittantly large gobs of goo fall from the sky. The goo is alive, and it feeds on any organic matter it touches. It's mobile, voracious, and grows as it eats. Goo would probably take over the whole planet, except for that it dessicates pretty quickly. The heat of a summers day is typically fatal. But it does making living (unprotected) on the surface crazily dangerous. Anything made of organic matter tends to get eaten--only wood and stone are immune.

Goo both flammable and exothermic. Once you start it burning, it releases heat. The dryer the goo, the faster it burns. Dried goo has a consistency something like cooked chicken. Some regions specialize harvesting goo: Using large sheets of slate-like materials, goo is collected, let dry in the sun, tinned and shipped. Suitable processed, it provides a gel not unlike petroleum.

Travel accross the surface is very dangerous. Anyplace water collects, or which doesn't get regularly dried out may hold lurking goo. Habitually damp places (swamps, wetlands, tidal areas, river banks) are especially dangerous. There are different kinds of goo in different places, in different conditions. Skyfall goo is similar, but not the same; it varies in color and sizes.

While a full suit of plate might protect from the effects of a direct hit of goo, the resulting splatter would climb up and over edges, and inside the suit. Slowly, but surely.  Goo doesn't move particularly fast on the ground (meters per minute, not meters per second), but being struck by a falling gob tends to be harmful. Most surface life is adapted to either avoiding the goo or surviving it. Trees have dry thick bark, or fronds that break. Most animals are small, and burrow. Larger animals take shelter in caves. And so does all of civilization. All structures are mix of excavation and stone construction.  Any structure of organic material tends to get eaten by goo.

GAME
UDOM is mostly played in dungeons. The world is full of cave systems of various sizes. Many of them have been excavated and expanded over time. Most of them aren't connected to one another, and so the only way to go from cave to cave is over-ground, which is dangerous. There are five types of challenges a player can be expected to face: Social, Combat, Stealth, Chase, and Hardship.  UDOM is not all about stabbing people.

GAME

Core Mechanic
The Middie roll is the core mechanic. Anytime you need to make a check, you roll three dice, and choose the middle (not the high, not the low, but the middle die), and compare it to an opposed middie role. You will never roll more than 3 dice (although you may roll less). Sometimes, you will have a fixed number, rather than a die. Treat that number as if it was the die result. What determines which dice you use will vary. Typically, die will be determined by attributes, skills, gear or magic.

Primary Attributes
UDOM has 8 primary attributes: Strength, Agility, Endurance, Willpower, Intelligence, Intuition, Cunning and Charisma. All 8 attributes will sum to be about 40. (Will talk more about in Character Generation).

Derived Attributes
UDOM has five derived attributes: These are your default saving throws, when you lack the relevant skill. There is one for each of the challenge types (Social, Combat, Stealth, Chase, Hardship). Each of the derived attributes uses 3 dice, one each from 3 different attributes).
They are:
*Social: First Impression
*Combat: Defense
*Stealth: Awareness
*Chase: Athletics
*Hardship: Toughness

Skills
Rather than your character leveling up, your skills level up. Your skills level up when you use them; specifically, when you fail a skill check, you get a skill point. You can use skillpoints to buy ranks in a skill. Each rank costs as many skillpoints as that rank: getting a second rank costs 2 points, getting a third rank costs 3 points, getting a 7th rank cost 7 points, etc. (Keep an account of your used/remaining SP). Double the ranks in a skill to get the die used for middie rolls. A rank 6 would use a d12, for example, while a rank 2 would use a d4. (At rank 7+, either roll a d20 or buy some special dice).

Abilities
You don't have to spent skillpoints to buy ranks. You can use them to buy abilities. (An ability lets you do something you couldn't otherwise do).

Weapons
Middie has a weapons list, but that's not really where the action is. The action is in the fighting styles, which provide a list of abilies you can use in combination with a specific weapon. Each fighting style is a distinct skill. They include things like sword and shield combos, pole-arms, 2 handed swords, and kusurigama and chain. Every weapon has a bonus to hit, a critical number, and a damage die. When comparing middie, if the difference is larger than the margin, you get an additional die of damage. This can happen multiple times; a difference of 6 with a critical number of 3 would result in two extra damage dice. Weapons also have a 'guard' number, which is the amount of defense they provide.

Armor
Armor does two things in UDOM: It acts as bonus HP, and it prevents critical hits.

Pathfinder Chases

From: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/chases/

While chases are a signature action scene in countless stories, they present a singular challenge in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, thanks to static movement rates. Since every creature in the game has a set movement rate, it might seem like you’d either automatically (or never) catch up to a fleeing foe! Obviously, this isn’t the case, because there’s more to catching a foe or avoiding being caught than simple speed.

Building a Chase
To simulate a chase, you’ll need to do a little bit of prep work. Take about 10 small pieces of paper—pieces the size of playing cards or sticky notes work perfectly. These “chase cards” represent the chase’s route, like the route a board game takes. Using 10 cards works well for a standard chase, but you can use more cards for a longer chase. When laying out your chase into a “track” you should decide if there’s a preset ending (a “finish line”), be it a contested resource, an escape vehicle, a portal that whisks away the pursued foe to an unknown location before winking out, or some similar goal that the fleeing character is trying to reach before he gets caught by the pursuers. If the chase has a finish line, mark one of the cards as such. If the pursuers haven’t caught the fleeing character by the time he reaches this card, the chase ends. If your chase doesn’t have a finish line, and it’s merely a race of attrition, you should lay your chase cards out in a square, circle, or similar shape so that there’s no obvious beginning or ending. You can even lay out chase cards in a grid pattern, allowing the participants to move about a field of obstacles in any direction they wish.
Pick two chase obstacles for each card. Not every card needs obstacles—there’s no need to place obstacles on the finish line card, and if you want a faster chase, you can place obstacles on fewer cards—but if a card has obstacles, it should have two choices. When the chase begins, place miniatures or tokens representing the creatures involved in the chase on the cards as described by the following starting conditions.

• Sudden Start: In a chase that assumes that everyone begins at the same starting point, all participants start on the same card.
• Head Start: If a participant has a head start on the other creatures involved in the chase, he begins three cards ahead of the rest of the participants.
• Long Shot: If one participant is so far ahead that he has practically already won the chase, he begins the chase either three cards from the end of the chase or 10 cards away from the rest of the chase’s participants, whichever is the greater distance between the two sides.

Chase Obstacles
You should tailor your chase’s obstacles to match the location where the chase takes place. A rooftop chase might include things like crumbling rooftops, narrow gaps to leap across, tightropes to run along, or steep roofs to clamber up. A chase through a crumbling ruin in a swamp might involve crumbling walkways, narrow passageways, grasping vines, leaps over quicksand, or stinking clouds of nauseating miasma. Try to mix up the flavor of the obstacles as well as the types of checks and DCs needed to navigate them. Assign each obstacle a DC to successfully navigate or overcome. A trivial obstacle is DC 10, a simple obstacle is DC 15, a standard obstacle is DC 20, a difficult obstacle is DC 25, and a very difficult obstacle is DC 30. For high level chases, feel free to assign correspondingly high level DCs. When assigning obstacles, it’s best to have the DCs of both obstacles on a card be within 5 points of each other, but never identical—this forces participants to make tactical choices.

As a general rule, obstacles should be overcome by physical skill checks, such as Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, Ride, or Swim. Perception can be used for obstacles like short cuts, Stealth can be rolled for obstacles requiring someone to move through a square quietly, or Bluff might be required to navigate a square by convincing a city guard you should be allowed to pass. You can even use saving throws to resolve obstacles (a Fortitude save to avoid being sickened by passing through a pool of filth, for example, or a Will save to evade the strange wailing spirits haunting that area). Be creative! It’s okay to reuse obstacles, but try to vary them between cards and remember not to get bogged down with repetitive DCs or certain types of checks!

Running a Chase
The first thing to do when a chase starts is to determine the baseline speed—the movement rate of the majority of the chase’s participants. In most cases, this is a land speed of 30 feet, but in some cases you’ll start out with different assumptions. This base speed sets the “distance” of each chase card, so in most cases, each card represents 30 feet of space.

In some instances, such as a chase between two sailing ships racing to reach a distant island, or a long overland journey through a desert that separates a bounty hunter from his quarry, you’ll want to adjust the timing of a chase. Doing so alters the distance of each card, and also gives the participants multiple options each turn to do things like cast spells. You can still use these chase rules, though— simply decide on how long each round of the chase takes and adjust the distance of each card as appropriate. At the start of a chase, each participant makes an Initiative check to determine the order in which he moves. (If a participant triggers the chase with an initial action, such as a prisoner suddenly making a mad dash for freedom, that participant gets to go first in a surprise round if he successfully surprises the other creatures.) While a character’s actual speed doesn’t directly affect how often he moves between cards, it does affect how quickly he navigates obstacles. For each 10 feet slower than the chase’s baseline speed a character moves, he suffers a cumulative –2 penalty on any check made to navigate obstacles. Likewise, for every 10 feet faster than the baseline speed he moves, he gains a cumulative +2 bonus on these checks. Significant mobility advantages over the baseline speed type (such as flight) grant an additional +10 bonus on checks made to avoid obstacles, simulating the character’s use of enhanced movement to bypass obstacles entirely. Used properly, extremely powerful effects (such as teleportation) allow a character to instantly move forward a number of cards (use each card’s distance to determine ranges).

Using the base assumption of 30-foot cards, it takes a move action to move through a single card. When a character exits from a card, he must choose one of that card’s two obstacles to face as a standard action before moving to the next card. Success means the character moves to the next card, while failure means the character must face the obstacle again on the next round. Instead of exiting a card, a character can choose to take another action not directly related to navigating the chase’s course, such as casting a spell or drawing a weapon.

A character who wants to attempt to move three cards during his turn can do so by taking a full-round action. That character must overcome both obstacles on the card he is leaving. In this case, if a character fails either obstacle check by 5 or less, he only moves one card forward and his turn ends. If a character fails either obstacle check by more than 5, he cannot move at all that turn. A character unfortunate enough to fail two obstacle checks in a turn becomes mired in his current square (he might have fallen from a ledge, gotten a foot stuck amid roots, or got caught in a crowd, for example). A character who is mired must spend another full-round action becoming unmired and effectively loses his next turn in the chase. In some cases, becoming mired might impart additional penalties (such as falling damage).

A character can also choose to make a ranged attack or cast a spell during his turn in a chase. If the action is a full-round action, he can’t move at all. Use the number of cards and their established distances to determine ranges as necessary. The terrain where the chase takes place might provide the target partial or even full cover or concealment, as you wish. A character can only choose to make melee attacks against targets that are on the same card.