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Novus 2nd Edition

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Novus 2e Overview

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For those who are interested, here is a short overview of what can be found in the core rules.



What is in the core book
CP & XP  CP stands for Character Points. These are spent in purchasing skills and other things for the character. As you spend your CP, they are converted to XP. 

XP is the total number of points spent on the character's development, and they give the overall measure of the character's development.

Every character starts with 15 CP to spend. They can also gain CP (and XP) as they make their choices for their character. For example, the items listed below will tell if they give CP and/or XP, so a player's choices could result in more CP to spend.

A starting character who has spent all CP will have a total of 100 XP.
Races

There are 8 in the Core Book

  • Humans
    • D'Anui
    • Zhuan
  • Elves
    • High Elves
    • Wood Elves
  • Dwarves
  • Dwelfs (kinda like halflings but meaner)
  • Gnomes
  • Orcs (these are a player race here)

Races give the character modifiers to their Stats, and some special racial abilities.

Upon selecting a Race, the character gains a combination of CP & XP that totals up to 30.

Kindred Talents

  These are purchasable talents/abilities, that players would use to create Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, or even Gnomes with just a touch of Dwarven blood in their veins. It is highly flexible allowing for any combination, but you are limited to no more than 2 different races beside the base race, if you want to be treated as that race for magical things. Now, these do require the player to spend CP to acquire them.


Cultures 

Novus 2e will contain 15 seperate Cultures to choose from. Each Culture provides skills to the character. The ones listed are generic, and GMs should definitely create Cultures that are unique to their setting as well.

Gaining a Culture also provides the character with 20 XP
Training Paths    Novus 2e does not have Classes like many other games have. What we have is Training Paths. This is essentially the basic training that a character receives for the profession that they wish to follow. We have separated the Training Paths into 4 Categories/Classes that reflect the basic focus of the Training Path (these categories are only for making it easier to organize the Training Paths, they have absolutely no impact otherwise).

Training Paths also give the characters ranks in skills, just like the Cultures do

  • Casters - Characters who focus on spell casting
    • Cleric - channels the power of the gods into casting spells
    • Magician - practitioners of High Magic, have spells of many different types.
    • Mystic - focuses on spells of the mind and personal empowerment
  • Fighters - characters focus on how to fight and use weapons
    • Archer - focuses on ranged weapons
    • Warder - specialized in using his shield to its best effect
    • Warrior -  more of a weapon's master
  • Adepts - these characters are more skill based
    • Bounty Hunter - hunts others for money
    • Rogue - bit of a outlaw, as home in the wilderness as they are in the cities
    • Scout - often a loner, but works with other, often going to find out what is out there
  • Hybrids - these characters combine various aspects of the other types of character
    • Elemental Guard - is able to focus magical energy into their weapon
    • Monk - combines martial arts with magic
    • Ranger - nature oriented spell user who combines that with skill in the outdoors

Upon selecting a Training Path, the character gains 35 XP. At this point the character has 100 CP and XP combined.
Stats   Next up is the chapter for determining your character's stats. Each character has 8 stats, and then there what are called Secondary Stats. There are 7 of them and they are determined by adding together two of the base stats. You are given multiple options on how to determine those base stats.
Background Options 

Each race gives the character a number of background options that they can select to help individualize their character.

Background Options are divided into Gifts and Disadvantages. If a race gets 3 Background Options, the character may then choose 3 items from the Gifts section. However, some Gifts are more powerful than other and do require that you also select a Disadvantage as well. The GM has to approve the Disadvantage as a Disadvantage that does not actually impact the character is not a disadvantage.

A character may also gain one extra Gift by also selecting a Disadvantage at the same time.

(note: I may rename Disadvantages to Drawbacks)

Skills & Special Skills  Novus 2e has a total of 27 skills. Many of these skills are what is called Base Skills, meaning that you use that skill's bonus for all applications of the skill.

We also have skills that have Proficiencies. This means different applications of the skill use either a portion of that skill, or the full bonus, if they have a full proficiency in the different applications, as skill in one Proficiency often overlaps with other Proficiencies. And finally, we have Specialties. This is where the character has to purchase the skill seperately for each instance of the skill since there is no overlap in the different instances.

Any skill gained from a Culture or Training Path is automatically considered Favored, which means it costs less to get each rank. The skills are also subject to diminishing returns, this means that the more ranks you have, the more that the skill costs per rank. These cost divisions happen after learning 10 and 20 ranks respectively.

We then also have 14 Special Skills. These are learnable abilities, but usually are learned or acquired only once because once learned, they cannot be improved any more.
Other CP Cost Items There are a few other things that a player may spend CP on for his character.  They are as follows:

  • Combat Moves - individual moves or actions that can be performed during combat
  • Combat Styles - This is a package that provides reduced costs for Combat Moves and also grant a few additional capabilities
  • Spells - These are purchased individually. Anybody can learn spells, how much they have to pay for them is based on the Training Path that they have. 
Running Novus This chapter gives rules and guidelines for the GM on how to use and adjudicate things in Novus.

As Adventurers gain experience, they are awards Character Points. This chapter also explains how this works.
Creatures   This chapter covers how to determine if there is an encounter or not. It also provides 31 creatures that can be used for those encounters.
Treasures This chapter contains guidelines on how much treasure a creature or foe might have, based on their total point value (their XP total) and provides a number of sample magical items that can be used as treasure.