Eden Rules Variants

These are variations that Spirits of Eden adds to the material first presented in the Skills (PHB 176-189), Actions In Combat (PHB 286-291), Death And Dying (PHB 295) and Additional Rules (DMG 42-51) sections of the D&D 4th Edition Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide. It is suggested that while you read these new rules, you have your books ready to read those pages to understand some of the additions. You can freely ignore the new rules (and your DM might decide not to use them), but they offer some additional flavor to Spirits of Eden games.

Skills

Acrobatics

Avoid Opportunity Attacks (Trained Only): Move Action.

•Opportunity Attack: This action immediately provokes an opportunity attack from an adjacent enemy.
•Check: The DC for this check is equal to the attack roll result of your enemy +2.
•Success: If you succeed on your Acrobatics check, you can shift 2 squares and the opportunity attack fails.

Arcana

Identify Spirit Aura (Trained Only): Minor Action.

•DC: DC10 + 1/2 the creature’s level.
•Success: You can tell the tier of the Spirit (Heroic, Paragon, Epic) and whether it is a Standard or Non-Standard Spirit (it does not distinguish between Elite, Solo and Minion).
•Failure: You cannot try to identify the effect again during this encounter.

In addition, the character can track a creature (as though with the Nature skill) if the creature leaves an essence trail.

Athletics

Wall Run (Trained Only): Part of a Move Action. The character can run up walls diagonally or vertically.

•Sheer Surface: You must be adjacent to a solid wall or sheer surface at least 10 feet (2 squares) high before rolling.
•Distance Moved: Roll an Athletics check and divide the result by 10 (round down). This is the number of squares of wall you can move up (each square is 5 feet).
•Catch Hold: If end your movement adjacent to a square of stable terrain, but not on it, you can choose to end your movement on that square (even if it would cost you more movement than your check allows) instead of falling. Otherwise, you fall. You can also attempt to “Catch Hold” as though you were making a “Climb” (PHB).
•Attack Leap: If you fall off the wall, you can make an Attack Leap against a creature adjacent to a square in which you will land. You must fall at least 2 squares (10 feet) to make an Attack Leap. Roll an Athletics check in place of an Acrobatics check to reduce fall damage. If you take no damage from the fall, you have a +1 bonus to your next attack roll against that creature. You can only gain this bonus once against any given creature in an encounter.

In addition, in Eden, a character can exceed his or her movement limitations when jumping or climbing with an Athletics check if he or she rolls high enough to move more squares than his or her movement would allow.

Bluff

Activate Magic Item (Trained Only): Part of the action to use a magic item.

•DC: The DC is 15 + The Item’s Level.
•Success: The following clauses apply on a success:
-Waive Prerequisites: The Bluff skill can be utilized to activate magic items regardless of class, race, skill, proficiency or ability score prerequisites. For example, a Rogue could attempt to activate a wand.
-Limitations: The Bluff skill cannot give you a feature or power the item uses, so you may be able to activate the item but not use it to its full extent unless you have the proper features.
•Failure: If the item’s power was a Daily power, it is not expended, but you cannot attempt to activate the item again until the end of your next turn.

In addition, a creature’s Bluff can be used in place of Stealth to hide its spirit aura if it has any.

Endurance: Add Taboos and Injuries to the types of hazards Endurance can stave off.

Feat of Endurance: Part of rolling initiative if you are injured, diseased or wracked by a taboo. Can be done once per day.

•DC: The DC is set by your Dungeon Master appropriate to the encounter’s difficulty.
•Success: You can attempt to overcome your injury, taboo or disease. You gain an action point that must be spent during this encounter and does not count against the number of action points that you can spend during this encounter. You must spend this action point before becoming bloodied; if you are bloodied, you cannot spend the action point and lose the benefit.
•Wrack Worsens: The DC for your next check to recover from the Injury, Disease or Taboo increases by 2.
•Failure: You do not gain the benefits for this encounter. You can try again during your next encounter.

Enduring Fall Damage: A creature can use Endurance to reduce falling damage, as though using Acrobatics (PHB).

Heal (Trained Only): The character can treat Injuries, replacing the Endurance result of the injured character with its Heal check result.

Nature: You can track in the wilderness with Nature as though using Perception.

Religion (Trained Only): The character can right a Taboo, replacing the Endurance result with its Religion check result. The character can see Spirit Auras via the use of this skill as though with the Arcana skill. You can use Religion in place of Perception to spot a hidden spirit.

Stealth: A creature’s Stealth check can be used to hide its aura, if it has a Spirit Aura.

Actions In Combat

Magic Basic Attack: A character wielding an implement can make a basic attack. A character can only make a magic basic attack if he or she could normally use the implement he or she is wielding with his or her class powers. A magic basic attack is treated as either a ranged or melee attack (the character’s choice at the time of the attack).

Magic Basic Attack (Basic Attack)
You resort to a simple magic trick learned when you first learned to wield magic.
At Will @ Implement
Standard Action Melee 1 or Ranged 5
Target: One creature
Attack: Wisdom vs Reflex
Hit: 1d6 + Wisdom modifier damage
Increase to 2d6 + Wisdom modifier damage at 21st level.

Trip: You can trip to attempt to knock an enemy prone. This tactic is useful for helping an ally get in a good shot, but precludes you dealing meaningful damage to a target with your action.

TRIP: STANDARD ACTION
•Prior Movement: You must move at least 1 square before making a Trip attack. If you do not, you take a -2 penalty to your attack roll.
•Target: You can trip a target in an adjacent square that is smaller than you, the same size category as you or one size category larger than you.
•Strength or Dexterity Attack: Make a Strength or Dexterity attack vs Fortitude Defense. Do not add any modifiers for the weapon you use.
•Hit: You knock the target prone.

Withhold: You can make an attack with a power that does not deal damage but carries that power’s effects. This is good for sparring or if you are against dealing death to the enemy in question, or if you do not want to deal damage, only an effect.

WITHHOLD: FREE ACTION
•Use With: An At-Will or Encounter attack power that has a damage expression (XdY+Z) on its “Hit” line.
•Target: If a power had multiple targets, when Withheld it has only 1 target.
•Attack With A Power: You attack with the power and then declare your intention to Withhold on dealing damage, before you know if your attack was successful. If you do so, you gain a +2 bonus to your attack roll.
•Hit: You are treated as having dealt 0 damage with the damage expression (or expressions) shown on the “Hit” line of the power. Other effects of a successful Hit happen as they normally would, except Secondary Attacks , which do not occur. Ongoing damage and other effects a saving throw would end are dealt normally.
•Effect: If the power has an Effect line which deals damage, the effect occurs and it deals its damage normally. Any other effects of the effect line are dealt normally.

Death And Dying

Suffering Injury: In combat, death is not the first stop for a wounded character. A character that has been reduced below 0 HP has a chance of suffering an injury, in addition or rather than dying.

•The first time in a day that a player might be killed by damage or a final death saving throw, the player can choose to take an injury to spend a healing surge to return to hit points equal to its healing surge value and continue fighting, now under the effects of the injury, instead of dying. An already injured player can lose one of its successes on the injury track for the same benefit. The Dungeon Master is the one to select which injury effects apply when the player chooses to receive an injury.

•A Dungeon Master may rule a player becomes injured if it fails spectacularly in a roll for physical skill challenge or an attempt to disarm a trap of a higher level than the player, or if the player is stricken by a Coup De Grace.

Handling of Injuries: Various injuries can occur in battle if a character isn’t lucky or if its enemies are particularly malicious in combat. The Endurance skill can help to resist an injury or recover from its effects, but injuries do not all go away so quickly.

An injury has a certain number of skill successes that a player must attain t in order to be cured. This is called the Injury Track. You can roll one Endurance check each Extended Rest to try to achieve an Injury success on your injury track. The number of successes necessary and the DCs for the checks are listed by your DM, using the same framework as a Skill Challenge.

If a player fails the Injury Track Skill Challenge, then the player suffers Degeneration depending on its condition.

A character’s companions can help it to heal using certain skills, items and abilities to help its endurance checks. A character being attended by another character during an extended rest has a +2 bonus to its Endurance check. If a character rolls a natural 20 on its Endurance check (or another character a natural 20 on its Heal skill check) it counts as 2 Injury successes.

List of Injuries: You suffer from one or more effects below when you become injured, decided by the dungeon master at the time the injury is suffered. The Dungeon Master also decides the successes and failures of the Injury Track and the DCs of the Endurance or Heal checks, unless otherwise noted. If an injury degenerates more than once, the Dungeon Master may rule a permanent effect, such as losing a healing surge – or death – results from such constant ill health.

A DM can rule that the effects of the Injury are more limited. For example, the DM might rule that the injury bonus may only be granted during the first attack dealt to you each round, or only apply once per encounter per enemy. This can be done to present a lesser injury, or to be able to combine multiple “smaller” injuries into a more complex major injury. DMs can also increase numerical injuries by 1 or 2 points to represent more serious injury. Such injuries, however, can be far more crippling than those presented here, and more problematic in the long run. Joining two minor injuries is a better way to present a single larger injury.

General Injury
•Enemies have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls against you.
-Degeneration: Enemies have a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls against you.

Crippling Injury
•Enemies with combat advantage against you deal +2 damage and can slide you 1 square on a successful hit.
-Degeneration: The damage improves to +1d4 and they can knock you prone instead of sliding you.

Wearying Injury
•Enemies always have combat damage against you except if they are marked by one of your allies.
-Degeneration: In addition, they score critical hits on rolls of 18 or higher against you.

Slowing Injury
•You treat squares adjacent to enemies as difficult terrain.
-Degeneration: Enemies can make opportunity attacks against you even if you shift.

Upper Injury
•Enemies have Resist 2 to all damage you deal to them.
-Degeneration: Enemies have Resist 4 to all damage you deal to them.

Lower Injury
•Whenever an enemy makes an attack against you that forces you to move, that enemy can knock you prone at the end of the movement. It has a +1 bonus to damage rolls with attacks that force you to move.
-Degeneration: The damage bonus improves to +3.

Muscle Injury
•Enemies have a +2 bonus to attack rolls and a +1 bonus to damage rolls when targeting your Reflex defense.
-Degeneration: The bonuses improve to +4 and +2 respectively.

Organ Injury
•Enemies have a +2 bonus to attack rolls and a +1 bonus to damage rolls when targeting your Fortitude defense
-Degeneration: The bonuses improve to +4 and +2 respectively.

Mental Injury
•Enemies have a +2 bonus to attack rolls and a +1 bonus to damage rolls when targeting your Will defense.
-Degeneration: The bonuses improve to +4 and +2 respectively.

Bleeding Injury
•Enemies have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls against you while you are bloodied.
-Degeneration: The bonus improves to +2.
-Special: This injury can be used to accompany any other injury. If accompanied, it is rolled for separately, and removed with one Injury success, or degenerated in 2 injury failures.

Additional Rules

Actions The Rules Don’t Cover: Here are a few examples of actions the rules don’t cover and how they might be used in Spirits of Eden. These are situational and must still be approved by a dungeon master as all such actions are. The Dungeon Master selects the DC and damage for such stunts.

•Performing For Money: Performing a dance or song for money is a Charisma-based ability check. Performing just for your friends or with no intent to get paid needs no roll, but for a monetary benefit, an improvised roll is needed. Your charisma-based check result is compared to a DC depending on the crowd, the time spent performing, and what moves, songs, accompanying music, and any aid that you have for your performance. The damage rolled is instead the amount of money that you earned with your performance if successful, and what “damage expression” is rolled also depends on the same concerns as those for choosing the proper DC. The monetary unit you are paid in varies by crowd and locale.

•Crafting A Non-Magical Item: Crafting a mundane item can usually take one or two days of leisurely time and can even be done during an adventuring day sometimes. For others, you may need proper tools, a proper location (such as a forge), and actual skill in what you are doing. This is an Intelligence-based ability check, and is only necessary to roll if you want to complete the item in less time than your DM would normally allow. Otherwise, you can just spend the time he says. The DC depends on the tools at hand, the item you want to make, the availability of materials, and how fast you want to finish.

•Disarming An Opponent: A flourish of your weapon can knock your opponent’s own out of his hand, but this would be a lucky break indeed. You can only perform this maneuver on enemies with light or one-handed weapons that are bloodied and that you have combat advantage against. If you are bloodied, you cannot perform this maneuver. It is a Strength or Dexterity-based ability check, and the DC is either set by your DM or the enemy’s Reflex defense, your DM’s choice. It can only be performed against enemies you could strike with a melee basic attack. This move deals no damage and the enemy’s weapon drops in a square of your DM’s choice. It may launch an opportunity attack if you attempt to pick up its weapon.

•Prophetic Vision: A Cleric or Paladin of good faith and standing might be able to make out vague details about a coming journey if he or she empties his or her mind and touches upon the essence flow of its God. This is a Wisdom-based check that can only be performed during an extended rest, and only after particularly shaking events (such as the end of an adventure or quest you were on that you received Quest XP for). The DC depends on your character’s personality and on the nature of coming events. Only your DM can decide what you see, why you see it or who shows it to you, and how difficult it is to see.

Taboos:

Whenever the character does something (or is forced to do something) horribly against its own established nature, or witnesses a shocking or blasphemous event that it was not prepared for, it suffers a taboo. A taboo imposes any one injury or disease of the DM’s choice and is applied as a penalty for either being grossly out of character, or as a dramatic penalty for failure or for witnessing a horrific event. A taboo can end whenever the DM wants it to or when you succeed in becoming clear of it (as per the Disease or Injury rules, depending on whether the taboo inflicted a disease or injury), whichever happens first. If you are affected by a taboo, this fact is plain to nearly anyone who sees you (it takes a Religion DC13 check to notice.)