An updated version of Odd Goblin is live! 0.7 brings a fairly major rewrite of the rules for additional clarity, many tweaks to classes, and 43 sample monsters. Some of the classes and monsters had abilities that were either stronger, weaker, or nonsensical in the face of previous rules tweaks, so all of those have been ironed out and rebalanced.
The most significant rules change is stealing the concept of Mortal Wounds from Mythic Bastionland--needing to roll a save to keep standing after taking damage beyond your hp in most Oddlikes was always one step too fussy for me, so removing the roll from that does a great job to keep the dynamic but reduce the complexity--and also bring Odd Goblin slightly closer in mechanical compatibility to other Oddlikes. It effectively gives everyone a +50% hp boost, which has felt needed--it makes it much easier for player characters to die, while giving monsters a bit more staying power (which they were proving to need--my level 1-4 players recently ran off an Ancient Dragon with only one loss, something I thought was completely impossible).
Monsters are especially fun to write for Odd Goblin--I try to make sure almost all of them have some sort of special twist or unusual situation they can put the players into. They should all be fairly easy to convert to any Oddlike system.
There are also a few character classes that I loved conceptually but just weren't clicking, mechanically. Each of those have been reworked to grant a few more concretely helpful abilities while still keeping their original charm.
The full changelog can be found below.
Changelog
Removed the GM pdf, since the polished parts of it have been moved to the main document. The spell/treasure lists are still available on the google doc as a tab: Here
Added credits page, including a link to the itch page and a discussion discord
Rulebook now contains both pages meant for players (2-40) and GM-facing material (41+).
Increased font size of rule pages.
Rewrote most rules pages. Most rules did not change in practice, but many were rewritten to be more clear.
Added an explicit flow for resolving damage each combat turn. The effect is largely the same as before, but hopefully smoother to resolve
Changed some terminology
HP is now guard. Max HP is now health.
Added a notation for ability checks and saves: 6STR means a strength save of difficulty 6.
An attack that rolls over the target’s armor is a ‘hit’
An attack that rolls over armor and leaves the target with zero guard is a ‘critical hit’. Some monster abilities can critically hit any time they roll high enough
Attacks that fail to do the most damage in a round but still hit are called assists.
A few old rules didn’t work as well after adding the ‘each round you only get hurt by your biggest attack’ mechanic, so did a pass cleaning those up
Every assist adds +1 damage to the biggest attack
Dual wielding now grants two attacks instead of upscaling damage.
Got rid of the distinction between actions and attacks. You now just get one move and one action, which can be an attack. The intent of giving a move, action, and attack was to encourage characters to take non-damaging actions in combat, but diminishing returns on attack damage already do this
Spells that did [sum] damage have been dialed back to match the new damage rules
Stole the concept of ‘mortal wounds’ from Mythic Bastionland. You no longer fall unconscious at 0hp, now you fall unconscious when a single attack reduces your health by half or more
This implicitly gives most monsters a health boost, which playtesting was revealing to be needed
Players always go first if they take the initiative in the fight. If they are passive or surprised, they go second. If ambiguous, only those who pass a WIL save go first.
The Resilient background now gives you a health bonus at levels 1 and 2, since the faster healing was proving rarely relevant.
Dwarves always know which way is north.
Got rid of the concept of ‘reactions’.
A few character abilities that were reactions can now just be done once per turn
Guide protect now must be before damage is dealt, but grants 1 armor against the attack
Fighter regains Upscale Damage at template C. Swap can be used on 0 guard enemies and protects allies from opportunity attacks. Whirlwind grants bonus points on next round.
Rogue backstab ignores armor on a sneak attack, and sneak attacks more easily. Upscale Damage upscales one handed weapons an additional time.
Noble’s Natural Leader ability applies to NPCs under them, or all allies if the noble spends their action giving orders
Dream Thief now puts people to sleep at half health, regardless of their attack strength
Devourer claw attacks now attack once per free hand
Removed the damage penalty to the gunslinger when making multiple attacks, but capped shots per round at level.
Beastfriend’s companion now gains health as they do. Human speech moved to B template, C template gains Enhanced Companion, raising the companion’s damage.
Bard gains spell dice at B,C,D. Song of Healing allows them to transmit spell dice to other characters. Song of Rest moved to A, Song of Bravery moved to B. Celebrity changed to [level]-in-6 instead of [level]-in-10 odds, since level no longer refers to total character level.
Hero’s extra attacks and extra damage traded place in the templates. Armored split into Unstoppable, which ignores armor movement penalties, and Armored, which grants 1 armor.
Pointer ability into Scentsight and moved it to template C. Removed Growl. Upgraded Pack Hunter and Painful Bite. Split Painful Bite into Painful Bite and Teamwork.
Chaos Warrior exoskeleton raises health. Extra heads grant spell dice. Replaced their abilities that grant bonus dice (boring!) with new ways to trigger mutations.
Sentient Ooze folded camouflage into mimic, moved mimic to C, and gained Harden at D--granting armor and the ability to solidify into a ladder/etc.
Nasty Little Freak’s Filthy now grants immunity from things trying to eat you. Scavenger now works like Guide’s Forage. Coward now allows them to run instead of fall unconscious. Bully forces adjacent enemies to make saves with disadvantage.
Sage spellbook mastery changed to allow a single reroll of spell dice, since it stacked weird with spell mastery. Sorcerer spell mastery changed to a reroll, as well.
Spellblade cantrip now only affects weapons, but grants the armor penalty bonus while carried. Smite and Slice Air damage both reduced. Shield can no longer be cast as a reaction.
Druid’s Commune With Nature moved to [dice] hours instead of concentration, but ends if the greater power is invoked. Polymorph duration scales with dice instead of being concentration. Fog Cloud no longer fully blocks caster’s vision, scales up in range, and may travel with the caster, and has duration set to concentration + [dice] rounds.
Enchanter’s Bottle can no longer target containers. The spell gets confused.
Historian’s knock range scales with dice.
Internist Miniature Sun now does 1d4/1d8 damage, Fireball damage reduced.
Kleptomancer Ranged Touch only allows for empty hands to be projected. Silence range enhanced by dice.
Mentalist Perfect Recall also grants the ability to perfectly draw memories. Circle of Truth range expands with dice.
Necromancer Darkness may be cast on an object. Rules for being unable to return to your body after Release Ghost. Bind Soul can target a corpse’s original soul.
Puppeteer’s True Puppetry health caps raised slightly.
Seer’s See Future always exhausts spell dice used to cast it.
Summoner’s Summoning Mark, the most nerfed spell of the most nerfed class, suffers a (final?) nerf--the mark always vanishes on use, and applying to a creature now costs a spell die. Return Home now requires 10 minutes of chanting and 1 spell die to trigger the return trip. Gate may randomly drift in a random direction and has a duration of concentration.
Telekinetic Flight speed scales with dice. Catapult damage lowered. Shield replaced with Control Water, Poltergeist replaced with Magnetism. Removed drawbacks from Empower Limb but lessened damage.
Added a few FAQ examples
Added 43 monsters to the main document
