Introduction
What's Worth Browsing?
The following sections are probably the most interesting, and good places to start:
Why Winds of Ruin?
I liked D&D 3.5e. I liked the pulpy, dangerous heroics of levels 3 through 8, and the variety of possible builds. I also liked that I knew the system very well.
But over time, I found more and more things I didn't like about the system.
- Too much of the material was bad. Bad spells, hundreds of worthless feats, dull classes, all of which only served to obscure the things I liked.
- I didn't like its assumptions about the world. The game always seemed to imply a high level of magic, or even magitech. Yet, the game also seemed to assume a basic medieval world with armies of knights and men at arms.
- Godlike characters. A level 20 Barbarian can fight an army by herself. She is totally beyond the level of human struggle--she's here to kill the gods. These characters shape the world, but they also outgrow adventuring, climbing Olympus to play tedious rocket-tag with Zeus (and his multi-layered contingencies).
So, though it worked well enough, I found I was doing more and more work to fight these concerns. I examined other systems, but I found many of their assumptions to be even worse than third edition's. None of the systems I examined focused on the level of play or kind of world I wanted.
This system is the ultimate result of that struggle: D&D 3.5 rewritten from the ground up.
The Level of Play
The player characters are adventurers, swordsmen, renegades, and outcast-mages, seeking their fortunes in the ruins of more prosperous days. They are extraordinary, but not peerless. They will never become gods, but with skill and luck they might live long enough to strike it rich.
The World
The player characters find themselves at the frontier, the edge of a fraying civilization. Their world slides inexorably into a dark age; danger and desperation take root in lands once peaceful. Magic is wielded by cultists, druids, and the scions of ancient traditions; it is potent, dangerous, and endlessly mysterious.
Expanding the System
I will continue to expand WoR over time. New spells, feats, and traditions will be created based on your ideas, and with your input. Much of the world is mere outline, ready to be claimed and detailed in character backstories. I intend to steal all your ideas and write them down in this book.
What's Changed
The core frame mechanic is still there: roll 1d20+bonuses against a DC set by the GM. But beyond the most basic level, almost every aspect of the game has been revised from 3.5. Here are some of the most significant changes.
Epic 6
Characters improve by taking class levels, as in other systems. But once a character achieves 6th level, they have reached the limits of their abilities. Past this point, they can only gain epic levels, which belong to no specific class. Each epic level grants an additional feat, skill point, and hit point. A 6th level fighter and a 10th level fighter are both masters at the top of their game, but the 10th level fighter knows a few more tricks than his rival.
The Classes
There are six classes to choose from (and no prestige classes), but each class can represent a much greater variety of characters. A character can multiclass, but they are still limited to 6 class levels (you can be a master warrior or a master wizard, but you can't be both).
- Aristocrats are the rich and privileged. They have the respectability all other adventurers lack, and can use it to great effect.
- Barbarians are fearsome warriors, possessing extraordinary abilities in times of need.
- Fighters have access to more skills than before, and also benefit from numerous new feats and combat maneuvers.
- Mages wield magic. They are more internally diverse than any other class--each magical tradition is unique in its approach to magic.
- Rangers remain able combatants and expert survivalists. Their skills are very useful, given the rugged nature of the frontier.
- Rogues are experts, able to fill a variety of niches. They are less focused on combat than they were in 3.5.
Combat
Unlike in 3.5, your skill with a weapon increases the damage you deal (and not just your chance of hitting). This is part of a greater effort to increase the effectiveness and variety of martial characters.
More than a hundred feats allow for a great variety of combat styles, from nimble duelists who follow up their parries with instant counter attacks, to archers who can drop an enemy with a single deadly shot, to burly axemen who can cleave through enemy after enemy.
Attacks of opportunity have been replaced with a more extensive system of stackable Reactions. Numerous new combat maneuvers reward teamwork and strategic play.
Magic is still powerful, and more flexible than before, but also cumbersome to use in combat. For this reason, melee combatants are more important to keep any spellcasters safe.
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