Clash of Steel Character Generation

Zozer Games recently released the second edition of their RPG Clash of Steel. It’s been on my radar for a while. I bought the first edition but didn’t read too far in. (I noticed some characteristics were renamed in this edition.)

Having finally read¹ this second edition cover to cover, I’m ready to at least create some characters, and maybe compare it to the other sword-and-sorcery games I’ve read.

Making Characters

The procedure for creating a general adventurer differs from that of a Priest or a Sorcerer. Priests and Sorcerers are discouraged as regular player character adventurers, but I’m going to try one of each anyway.

Adventurer

For our adventurer I’m going to avoid the Conan route and attempt to create a civilized commoner.

Occupations

The book lists several occupations. I’ll pick Boxer and Caravan Guard.

Each occupation gives the character Feats: “Bare Knuckle” and “Scout”, respectively. Only one yields bonus equipment; I’ll pick the Caravan Guard’s scimitar and helm.

Name and Age

I’m feeling uncreative, so I’ll pick a name from the sample setting of Tethys: “Milo”. Our Milo is about 23 years old, young but not too young. He’s sort of handsome, but with scars and a broken nose that never healed right.

Attributes

Characters divide 12 points among MIGHT, FATE, SKILL, WITS, and BASE HITS, with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 4 in each. We’ll give Milo MIGHT 3, FATE 2, SKILL 2, WITS 1, and BASE HITS 4. Milo is tough but not the brightest.

HITS is derived from BASE HITS: 10 + (BASE HITS) × 3 = 22.

Family Origins

The book lists six social classes: Outsider, Slave, Peasant, City-Dweller, Scribe, and Noble. The book also provides a list of possible family relationships.

Milo’s parents were slaves, but Milo was freed by his father’s dilligent service. He grew up in the slums of a city (TBD), and lacking his father’s dilligence and restraint secretly earned money with semi-legal boxing matches. His father disowned him, and he found a new career as a caravan guard.

Being of the Slave class, Milo gains the talent Streetwise.

Allies & Enemies

Each adventuring character has one ally and one enemy, each associated with their occupation. Milo’s ally is the merchant Zarimedes whose caravans Milo often guards. His enemy is the gambler Sorun, who lost a lot of silver on a boxing match in which Milo should have taken a dive.

Agent of Change

The “Agent of Change” is the event that set the character on the path of an adventurer. The rules imply it’s always randomly rolled. I rolled “Intervention of a god”.

While guarding a caravan, Milo received a vision of the sun goddess Ishana. The goddess bade Milo go forth into the world and “defend the defenseless”. (Milo interprets those words somewhat liberally.)

Attitudes

The text asks players to answer the following questions:

1. Describe a terrible failure or mistake that the adventurer once made.
2. What quality do they admire in a person?
3. What quality do they despise in a person?

As a kid Milo made the mistake of taking money to take a dive in a boxing match. The act haunted him; he ended up donating the money (not much) to a temple, and swore never again to cheat, and to always give his best effort.

Milo admires honesty and integrity; he’s a man of his word, and expects others to be the same. Conversely, he despises those who have to trick, bribe, or cheat to get what they want. (Little white lies don’t count, naturally. Milo’s a bit of a hypocrite.)

Languages

To quote the text, Every character knows how to speak their mother tongue. In addition, all characters have the capacity to learn three other languages. That’s pretty generous.

Since I don’t really have a setting in mind, I’m going to just leave a note.

Equipment

All characters have a CARRY attribute equal to MIGHT + 8. This is the number of items they can carry.

Adventurers begin with a Dagger, Flint & Steel, Waterskin, Belt Pouch, Cloak, and 1D6 x 20 silver coins. (Let’s call it 60 sc.) Add that to the Helm and Scimitar.

Final

COMBAT is equal to MIGHT + Weapon Bonus. Divine Aid is equal to FATE + 2. Armor Dice come, unsurprisingly, from Armor. New characters lack Experience Points (EP), and thus have no Reputation bonus.

Sorcerer

To quote the text:

Sorcerers in Clash of Steel should not ordinarily be player character adventurers, since these mages are consumed by the dark magic that will inevitably twist them into a ghoulish, obsessed and physically scarred individual. They make fantastic villains, however. A sorcerous player character is a powerful and useful member of a roleplaying group, but one that leaves fighting to others, while he or she tackles problems with the Dark Arts and gets sucked into destructive pacts with demons.

But let’s make one anyway …

Name, Age, Attributes

Our sorcerer Vardamis appears to be in his early thirties, with a touch of gray at his temples. WITS and FATE are the two most important attributes for a sorcerer, so we’ll give him MIGHT 1, FATE 3, SKILL 2, WITS 4, and BASE HITS 2.

All Sorcerers get the Decode Script feat.

Magical Domains

Clash of Steel uses a freeform magic system. All “spells” are improvised based on the Domains a sorcerer controls. Vardamis has three Domains because of his high WITS score, so we’ll choose Control, Illusion, and Knowledge.

Family, Agent of Change, Attitudes, Enemy

Vardamis comes from a City-Dweller family. He learned sorcery from an old man named Hesperion, along with another apprentice named Khosrovad. However, the two apprentices became bitter rivals, and after Hesperion named Vardamis his successor Khosrovad killed Hesperion and framed Vardamis for the murder. Vardamis blames himself for letting Hesperion die. He trusts only that which he can see and despises treachery.

Languages, Equipment

Vardamis gets the usual four languages.

All Sorcerers get a Shoulder Bag, Flint & Steel, Waterskin, Cloak, Pouch, and 1D6x50 silver coins, plus a random item from the Sorcerer’s Treasure Table. We rolled a Healing Potion worth 24 HITS.

We also rolled a 6 for Vardamis’s number of coins, so we’ll buy him a a Bow, 20 Arrows, and a Quiver, which puts him right at his CARRY limit. (Why a bow? Because throwing bolts of magic can be dangerous.)

Priest

Adventuring priests are even rarer. To quote the text:

The priest may be part of a special itinerant or crusading cult that goes out into the world, but few cults will allow their priests to leave the temple and their duties and take up a life of travel.

Once again we pick Name, Age, Attributes (12 points), Agent of Change, Attitudes, Allies, Enemies, and Languages. Profession is always “Priest”; Family is almost always “Scribe” (for the Decode Script feat).

Rituals

A Priest knows one to three of the following rituals based on their WITS.

• Divination: Ask the god a question.
• Hold Off The Dead: Halt the advance of a wraith or revenant (i.e. undead).
• Holy Healing: Restore all HITS or remove one affliction.
• Purification: Sanctify a person or place; repels wraiths, revenants, and demons.
• Sacrifice: Sacrifice an animal to restore a character’s Divine Aid.

For our priestess Lysandra with WITS 3 we can choose two: Hold Off The Dead and Holy Healing.

Playing The Game

Nearly all actions with a chance of failure boil down to a roll of 2D6² plus modifiers against a difficulty number, typically 10. A natural 12 on the dice indicates a critical success; a natural 2 on the dice indicates a critical failure.

Tasks

Physical actions requiring brute strength add MIGHT to the die roll; those requiring agility or manual dexterity add SKILL. WITS governs memory, persuasion, calculation, and other mental tasks. If an action relies on pure luck or “the will of the gods”, use FATE.

FATE also reflects magical resistance and magical aptitude. Sorcerers cast spells, and Priests perform rituals, with a FATE check, and the targets of spells use FATE to resist.

Divine Aid

If a character spends a point of Divine Aid to utter a prayer to a god, an action will succeed automatically. Actions that cannot benefit from Divine Aid include combat actions, spell-casting checks, and checks against the Terror ability of wraiths and demons.

Characters can regain all their Divine Aid by sacrificing at a temple (and paying a fee); they can regain one point with a food offering at a shrine.

Combat

Combat is simultaneous. Each combatant picks a target and rolls once, adding their COMBAT value to the die roll. The highest total hits, and does the difference between totals as damage to HITS. If an armored character takes a hit, they roll their Armor Dice; each 6 rolls absorbs one point of damage.

Some monsters can attack more than one target every turn. They can only attack each target once a turn.

Damage and Healing

Normally when a player character, NPC, or monster reaches 0 HITS they die. Characters with at least one point of Divine Aid, however, can spend all their Divine Aid as a combat bonus in a rage-fueled fight to defeat their opponent. One failed roll means death. Those who have no foe to fight can use their Divine Aid on a saving throw instead; failure equals death.

If a character did not go to 0, they recover all HITS after a few hours of rest and eating.

If the character did go to 0 HITS, they’re badly beaten, and recover only 1 HIT per day of rest without medical intervention or magic.

Advancement

After every adventure, every participating player character earns one Experience Point (EP) (“if they deserve it”). Players track both the total number of EP they earn and the number of unspent EP.

Players can spend EP (and 500 Silvers per EP) to increase an attribute, increase HITS, add a Feat, add a Sorcerer’s Domain, or add a Priestly Ritual.

The total number of EP determines the character’s level, which in turn determines the character’s Reputation Bonus. With a successful Reputation check one can convince a barbarian chief, rally a crowd, browbeat an arrogant noble, etc.

Sorcery

A sorcerer must take a full combat round to cast a spell, then succeed in a FATE check against the difficulty of the spell. Success means the spell takes effect; failure means the spell goes awry, and the caster suffers a penalty to further casting checks. A Critical Failure triggers a random event on the Magical Catastrophe Table, which is frequently horrific if not fatal.

While the book contains sample spells, a player (or GM) can improvise any effect that fits one (or more) of their Magic Domains. The GM judges the difficulty number based on the scale of the effect, range to the target, area of effect, the amount of preparation for the spell, magical components used, and so on.

Priest Rituals

Except for Hold Back The Dead, all Priest rituals take an hour of chanting and gestures. (Hold Back The Dead takes only one action.) At the end of the ritual, if not performed at a temple, the priest must succeed at a FATE check and pay the HITS cost of performing the ritual, typically 1-3 HITS. Only five rituals are defined.

GM Resources

At least half the 200 page book is GM resources: dungeon generation, wilderness generation, city generation, sample NPCs, rules on hired help, and the expected chapter on Referee advice.

All the map and encounter generation serves not only the busy GM but the solo player. A chapter on solo play provides a basic “oracle” and other advice.

Assessing The Game

My library contains quite a number of sword-and-sorcery games, including Barbarians of Lemuria³, Barbaric!, Crypts & Things, Red Mists, Sword of Cepheus, and Tales of Argosa, not to mention all the fantasy and multi-genre games that support Bronze Age / Iron Age settings with low or no magic. With all these choices, it’s hard to decide whether and when to pick CoS.

Ostensibly Clash of Steel is closest to other light 2D6-based games, including Barbarians of Lemuria and Barbaric!.

• CoS has four primary attributes, including one for magic and luck. BoL also has four primary attributes, including one for “Appeal”, plus secondary attributes for specific types of combat and Careers. Barbaric has six primary attributes, each designated for a particular type of action (Combat, Craft, Lore, Physical, Social, Stealth).

• CoS has concrete “Feats” that either enable actions or make them automatic. BoL has freeform Careers and broad Boons that grant a bonus to a die roll. Barbaric has broad Archetypes and a few “Combat Moves”.

• CoS has no initiative roll and minimizes the number of dice rolled per turn. BoL has a unique initiative system and standard “to-hit” rolls. Barbaric! has a standard initiative rolls and “to-hit” rolls.

• CoS has a freeform sorcery system somewhat like BoL, and wholly unlike Barbaric!.

Not having played Clash of Steel (yet) I would hazard a guess that the system is lighter than Barbarians of Lemuria but supports extended play better than Barbaric!. Barbaric works well for one-shots, but BoL and CoS give campaign players more to do than just amass commodity metals and experience. CoS has a couple of pages on players building their own fortresses (assuming the local lord grants them land), as well as chapters on hirelings, seafaring, and mass battles.

Clash of Steel also has a different flavor from Barbaric! and Barbarians of Lemuria. It’s not as bare-bones as Barbaric!, and not quite the romp that BoL sometimes tends to be. Sorcery is darker and more demonic, player characters are more fragile, the gods are slightly more present (but still not that involved): instead of Hero Points we have Divine Aid. I’d really like to take this for a spin, and maybe try for more than a one-shot.