Come ye, Knaves and Ne'er-do-wells! Come ye, rapscallions, rat catchers, and roustabouts! Adventure beckons!
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Please feel free to generate characters, even if you have no interest in playing them in any of the scenarios. You can find links to the rules under "Knave Resources."
Further, there's this:
So, with all due credit to Ben Milton, I will be quoting extensively from the document.Knave wrote:CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE
You are free to share and adapt this material for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you give attribution.
Knave will look familiar to anyone used to the OSR. There are a few key differences to pay attention to, however.
Also, spells are level-less and based on inventory (think of it as less "you are a spell caster" and more "you have a magic geegaw that will let you cast a spell."Knave wrote:HIGH COMPATIBILITY WITH OSR GAMES
If you have a library of OSR bestiaries, adventure and spell books, little or no conversion is needed to use them with Knave.
FAST TO TEACH, EASY TO RUN.
If you are introducing a group of new players to OSR games, Knave allows them to make characters and understand all the rules in minutes.
NO CLASSES
Every PC is a Knave, a tomb-raiding, adventure-seeking ne’er-do-well who wields a spell book just as easily as a blade. This is an ideal system for players who like to switch up their character’s focus from time to time and don’t like being pigeonholed. A PC’s role in the party is determined largely by the equipment they carry.
ABILITIES ARE KING
All d20 rolls use the six standard abilities. The way that ability scores and bonuses work has also been cleaned up, rationalized, and made consistent with how other systems like armor work.
OPTIONAL PLAYER-FACING ROLLS
Knave easily accommodates referees who want the players to do all the rolling. Switching between the traditional shared-rolling model and players-only rolling can be done effortlessly on the fly.
COPPER STANDARD
Knave assumes that the common unit of currency is the copper penny. All item prices use this denomination and approximate actual medieval prices.
Abilities
Knave has the classic six abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. These abilities have two numbers associated with them: Ability Bonus and Ability Defense.
The highlights here are that Constitution determines how much inventory you can carry and Wisdom is your bonus for ranged attacks.Knave wrote:Strength: Used for melee attacks and saves requiring physical power, like lifting gates,
bending bars, etc.
Dexterity: Used for saves requiring poise, speed, and reflexes, like dodging, climbing,
sneaking, balancing, etc.
Constitution: Used for saves to resist poison, sickness, cold, etc. The Constitution
Bonus is added to healing rolls. A PC’s number of item slots is always equal to their
Constitution Defense.
Intelligence: Used for saves requiring concentration and precision, such as wielding
magic, resisting magical effects, recalling lore, crafting objects, tinkering with machinery,
picking pockets, etc.
Wisdom: Used for ranged attacks and saves requiring perception and intuition, such as
tracking, navigating, searching for secret doors, detecting illusions, etc.
Charisma: Used for saves to persuade, deceive, interrogate, intimidate, charm,
provoke, etc. PCs may employ a number of henchmen equal to their Charisma Bonus.
To generate your abilities:
Ability Bonus is the number you add to a d20 when you are trying to do something. Ability Defense is the target number an opponent is trying to beat when they want to do something to you.Knave wrote:When creating a PC, roll three six-sided dice for each of their abilities, in order. The lowest of the three dice on each
roll is that Ability’s Bonus. Add 10 to find its Defense.
Example: You roll a 2, 2, and 5 for Strength. The lowest die is a 2, so your PC’s Strength has a Bonus of +2 and a Defense of 12. Repeat this process for the rest of the abilities.
After you’ve finished rolling, you may optionally swap the scores of two abilities.
Inventory
Characters start out with 2 days worth of rations and a choice of weapon.
The rest of your starting equipment is determined randomly.
- Armor: 1d20
- Helmet/Shield: 1d20
- Dungeoneering Gear: 1d20, twice
- General Gear 1: 1d20
- General Gear 2: 1d20
Roll for gear, and either look up the results in the PDF, or post the die rolls here and I'll look them up for you.
Inventory is very important in Knave, and goes a long way towards defining your character.
Knave wrote:PCs have a number of item slots equal to their Constitution Defense. Most items, including spellbooks, potions, a day’s rations, light weapons, tools and so on take up 1 slot, but particularly heavy or bulky items like armor or medium to heavy weapons may take up more slots. Groups of small, identical items may be bundled into the same slot, at the referee’s discretion. 100 coins can fit in a slot. As a general guideline, a slot holds around 5 pounds of weight.
Knave wrote:Armor comes with an Armor Defense value. Note that value on your character sheet with its corresponding Armor Bonus (always 10 less than the Defense). If the PC is not wearing any armor, their Armor Defense is 11 and their Armor Bonus is +1.
Additional Statistics
Knave wrote:Roll 1d8 to determine your PC’s starting and maximum hit points.
A PC’s healing rate is 1d8+ Constitution Bonus.
Their exploration speed is 120ft per exploration turn, and their combat speed is 40ft per round.
Character Details
Roll a d20 for each of the following attributes, or come up with your own one-word descriptor.
- Physique
- Face
- Skin
- Hair
- Clothing
- Virtue
- Vice
- Speech
- Background
- Misfortune
- Alignment (Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic)
Finishing Touch
And that's your Knave!Knave wrote:Choose a gender and a name for your character, but don’t get too attached. It’s a
dangerous world out there.
You can, of course, use a character generator, but there's magic in letting the random tables reveal your character to you, one roll at a time. Right?
