Mechanics

Mechanics and Character Creation in The Strange

The following is not an official document endorsed by Monte Cook Games, but a brief synopsis of the writer's understanding of the material. The Strange or The Strange Player's Guide by Monte Cook Games should be reviewed for the complete details.

All die rolls in The Strange are performed by a Player - the game master doesn’t ever roll dice. A roll is an unmodified 1d20. The difficulty of a task is ranked from 1 to 10, and the target number that must be achieved on the 1d20 roll is 3 times the difficulty. That is, if the difficulty is 4, then you need to roll a 12 or higher.

A character has three pools: might, speed and intellect. These serve three purposes:

1. They are a form of "hit points". When you take damage, it is removed from your pools, and when you run out of all three pools, you’re down. Generally, physical damage may reduce your might pool, a poison that makes you clumsy may reduce your speed pool, and a psychic blast may reduce your intellect pool. If you’re out points in a pool, extra damage spills into another pool.

2. You may need to spend one or more points from a pool to perform certain special abilities.

3. You can decrease the difficulty of an action by putting Effort into the action, by spending 3 from the appropriate pool.

A character may also have an Edge in one or more of the pools. An Edge reduces the cost of spending from that pool (other than taking damage). For example, if you have a Might Edge of 1 and you wish to use Effort on a physical attack, the Effort only costs 2 (3 normally less the 1 Might Edge).

A character may have one or more Skills. If you have a Skill, you are said to be Trained in that Skill. If you gain a Skill that you are already Trained in, you become Specialized in that Skill. If you are Trained in a Skill, your difficulty in an action involving that Skill is reduced by 1 (i.e., the target number you need is reduced by 3). If you are Specialized, the difficulty is reduced by 2.

Lastly, a character may have an Asset. This is usually an object or circumstance that grants assistance in achieving a task. Having an Asset reduces the difficulty of a relevant task by 1.

As characters progress, then may "level up". Levels in The Strange are called Tiers, and range from 1 to 6. Your Tier represents a limit to the types of special abilities that you have access to. As you progress into new Tiers, more powerful versions of existing abilities or entirely new abilities become available.

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Helping: If a character attempts a task and gets help from another character who is trained or specialized in that task, the acting character gets the benefit of the helping character. The helping character uses his action to provide this help. If the helper does not have training or specialization in that task, or if the acting character already is as trained or specialized as the helper, the acting character instead gets a +1 bonus to the roll. For example, if Scott is trying to climb a steep incline but has no skill at climbing, and Sarah (who is trained in climbing) spends her turn helping him, Scott can decrease the difficulty of the task by one step. If Scott were also trained in climbing, or if neither character were, he would gain a +1 bonus to the roll instead. A character with an inability in a task cannot help another character with that task—the character with the inability provides no benefit in that situation.

The following is not an official document endorsed by Monte Cook Games, but a brief synopsis of the writer's understanding of the material. The Strange or The Strange Player's Guide by Monte Cook Games should be reviewed for the complete details.

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In The Strange, a characters main attributes by three terms, called Descriptor, Type and Focus. These are expressed as the phrase: I am a D T who F’s. For example, you might be Lucky Spinner who Solves Mysteries.

Characters will start at Tier 1.

Choose your Descriptor, Type and Focus. Note that only specific Foci will be available during character creation as decided by your game master, but don’t worry, you’ll have opportunities to try other Foci.

1. Choose one Descriptor: Appealing, Brash, Clever, Fast, Graceful, Intelligent, Lucky, Sharp-Eyed, Skeptical, Stealthy, Strange, Strong, Tough. Other descriptors from Numenera may be available on a case by case basis

2. Choose one Type: Vector, Paradox, or Spinner

3. Choose one Focus appropriate for Earth

4. Fill in your stat pools, as determined by Type

5. Fill in your Edge stats, as determined by Type

6. Additional Stats and Abilities, as determined by Type

7. Write in additional stats and abilities as determined by your Descriptor and Focus

8. Choose your possessions as determined by your Focus

9. List your attacks

10. Add your starting cyphers (none for now)

11. Add a brief background to the Notes

The following is not an official document endorsed by Monte Cook Games, but a brief synopsis of the writer's understanding of the material. The Strange or The Strange Player's Guide by Monte Cook Games should be reviewed for the complete details.

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Special Rolls

1: Intrusion. The GM makes a free intrusion and doesn’t award experience points (XP) for it.

17: Damage Bonus. If the roll was an attack, it deals 1 additional point of damage.

18: Damage Bonus. If the roll was an attack, it deals 2 additional points of damage.

19: Minor Effect. The PC gets a minor effect in addition to the normal results of the task if it was not an attack. If the roll was an attack, it deals 3 additional points of damage, or the PC gets a minor effect, such as:
- Strike a specific body part: The attacker strikes a specific spot on the defender’s body. The GM rules what special effect, if any, results.
- Knock back: The foe is knocked or forced back a few feet.
- Move past: The character can move a short distance at the end of the attack.
- Distract: For one round, the difficulty of all tasks the foe attempts is modified by one step to its detriment.

20: Major Effect. If the PC spent points from a stat Pool on the action, the point cost for the action decreases to 0, meaning the character regains those points as if she had not spent them at all. The PC gets a major effect in addition to the normal results of the task if it was not an attack. If the roll was an attack, it deals 4 additional points of damage, or the PC gets a major effect, such as:
- Knock down: The foe is knocked prone. It can get up on its turn if it wishes.
- Disarm: The foe drops one object that it is holding.
- Stun: The foe loses its next action.
- Impair: For the rest of the combat, the difficulty of all tasks the foe attempts is modified by one step to its detriment.

In game terms, a:
- An Immediate distance within reach or a few steps, but no more than 3m (10 feet).
- Short distance is greater than Immediate but less than 15m (50 feet).
- Long distance is greater than Short but less than 30m (100 feet).

A character can move:
- an Immediate distance as part of another action,
- a Short distance as the entire action for a turn, and
- can try to move a Long distance as the entire action perhaps with a check to avoid slips, trips, or stumbles.

Damage Track

In addition to taking damage from their Might Pool, Speed Pool, or Intellect Pool, PCs also have a damage track. The damage track has four states (from best to worst): hale, impaired, debilitated, and dead. When one of a PC’s stat Pools reaches 0, he moves one step down the damage track. Thus, if he is hale, he becomes impaired. If he is already impaired, he becomes debilitated. If he is already debilitated, he becomes dead.

Some effects can immediately shift a PC one or more steps on the damage track.

These include rare poisons, cellular disruption attacks, and massive traumas (such as falls from very great heights, being run over by a speeding vehicle, and so on, as determined by the GM).

Some attacks, like a serpent’s poisonous bite or a spinner’s Enthrall, have effects other than damage to a stat Pool or shifting the PC on the damage track. These attacks can cause unconsciousness, paralysis, and so on.

THE DAMAGE TRACK

Hale is the normal state for a character: all three stat Pools are at 1 or higher, and the PC has no penalties from harmful conditions. When a hale PC takes enough damage to reduce one of his stat Pools to 0, he becomes impaired. Note that a character whose stat Pools are much lower than normal can still be hale.

Impaired is a wounded or injured state. When an impaired character applies Effort, it costs 1 extra point per level applied. For example, applying one level of Effort costs 4 points instead of 3, and applying two levels of Effort costs 7 points instead of 5.

An impaired character ignores minor and major effect results on his rolls, and he doesn’t deal as much extra damage in combat with a special roll. In combat, a roll of 17 or higher deals only 1 additional point of damage.

When an impaired PC takes enough damage to reduce one of his stat Pools to 0, he becomes debilitated.

Debilitated is a critically injured state. A debilitated character may not take any actions other than to move (probably crawl) no more than an immediate distance. If a debilitated character’s Speed Pool is 0, he can’t move at all.

When a debilitated PC takes enough damage to reduce a stat Pool to 0, he is dead.

Dead is dead.

Translation

Initiating, Hastening, Easing, and Helping

There are three tasks to a translation.

Initiating: The PC initiating a translation rolls for success, the difficulty being unique to the recursion. For example, translating to Earth is difficulty 5, so the TN is 15. Failure has consequences, from penalties to your actions for some time, or going to the wrong recursion. Paradoxes get a free re-roll if they fail.

Hastening: An unassisted translation takes 4 hours to complete. A second PC can assist, Hastening it to two hours. A Spinner hastens it down to 10 minutes.

Easing: An unassisted translation leaves the PCs weakened for 1 hour following the translation. An additional PC can Ease, which decreases the acclimation time.

Helping: Additional PCs can assist under the rules for helping (see top post).

Three PCs (1 initiating, 1 hastening, 1 easing)
Trance Time.... Acclimation Time
10 minutes.... 1 round (if vector eases and spinner hastens)
2 hours......... 10 minutes

Two PCs (1 initiating, 1 hastening)
Trance Time.... Acclimation Time
10 minutes.... 1 hour (if spinner hastens)
2 hours......... 10 minutes

Two PCs (1 initiating, 1 easing)
Trance Time.... Acclimation Time
4 hours......... 1 round (if vector eases)
4 hours......... 10 minutes

One PC (1 initiating)
Trance Time.... Acclimation Time
4 hours......... 1 hour

Translating Too Often

Translation puts a certain amount of strain on a creature. Thus, any character attempting to translate more than once within a single day finds that the process grows more difficult each time. The second time someone attempts to initiate, ease, hasten, or help with a translation in a given day, the difficulty of the task increases by one step.

This is true for the whole group, even if only one of the characters participated in a translation earlier that day. For example, a paradox who was participating in her first translation of the day would still find the difficulty of the translation roll increased by one step if any other participant has initiated, eased, hastened, or helped another translation within the previous 24 hours.

All penalties are cumulative, which means that if two characters had participated in one translation in the last 24 hours, the difficulty for the paradox would increase by two steps. If two characters had participated in two translations each during the last 24 hours, the difficulty of the paradox’s translation roll would increase by four steps.

Special effects

Rolling very well (19 or 20) during translation results in potentially great benefits to the translating characters.

Minor Effect (19): Acclimation time is zero. The difficulty of all tasks relating to the translating characters’ new foci is decreased by one step for one hour.
Major Effect (20): Acclimation time is zero. The difficulty of all tasks relating to translating characters’ new foci is decreased by one step for one day.