fabio milito pagliara said:
could we have some (small) anticipation on what difference it will have from standard d20?
I would like some form of wound/critical system and fate system
you know in mythical tales you get lots of horrible wounds or nearly impossible feats
Funny you should mention those two points, as they are *exactly* what the system focuses on! I read sections from the Iliad over and over again while writing Ancients...
Players can use Divine Points to influence rolls (the fate system you mention) and pull off incredible stunts. Deities are very important, as they award you Divine Points when you please them. Any person can spend Divine Points to influence any check, but the deity you worship influences the efficiency with which you spend Divine Points on specific tasks, depending on the deity's own spheres of influence - for example, worshippers of Hecate can spend Divine Points for a larger-than-usual bonus to their Witchcraft checks, while worshippers of Horus can spend them for additional combat bonuses.
Combat is a lot messier than standard d20, with damage being received as wounds and especially large amounts of damage possibly being taken as grievous wounds. (All creatures have a 'grievous wound threshold' and damage over this amount is grievous.) It is much harder to recover from grievous wounds than ordinary ones. Only such radical methods as Egyptian surgical techniques or cautery (use of hot irons - ouch!) can help.
Armour is handled very differently. Without bogging down combat too much, armour reduces damage, but ONLY if the blow actually hits the armour rather than your exposed flesh. For example, an Assyrian leather cloak (such as the archers wore) covers a lot but offers thin armour, whereas a metal breastplate only covers the torso but offers strong armour. As for shields, you actively roll to ward off a blow with your shield, instead of just having the shield sit there.
The biggest difference is in the magic system. There are no spells as such, only 'magical effects'. There are three magic skills, being Prayer, Hekau (Egyptian magic) and Witchcraft. Greek priests use Prayer to petition for miracles, Egyptian priests use Hekau to influence the spirit world and witches use Witchcraft to make charms, enchant creatures and make potions. The system is flexible in that some magical effects can be produced by any of the skills (with witchcraft being better for bewitchment effects, for example) while some can only be produced with one of the skills.
