Pondering including some sort of "less-than-Heroic" ability.

[Tias]

..by this I don't mean dishonourable or evil abilties, just "special feats" that are not as powerful as those listed under Heroic Abilities, but still require some expenditure of hero points and status of respected peer in a faction to learn.

I came up with the idea while writing a martial order for my setting, the Standingmen of Sydplains, farmers and devotees of nature gods who combine rudimentary awareness of earth and water elementalism with hard training in unarmed combat. I love eastern martial arts, and wanted a "euro-fantasy" take on it. Now then, on to the idea: I feel as if my PCs should be able to get something out of becoming rank 2, rather than grinding service and training up until 3 and 4 and then get something off-the-wall powerful like Tireless or Deflecting Parry.

For instance, I would consider something like (and I'm just making this up as I go along) "Grounding Stance" that gives a bonus to resist knockdown, or "Be Water" that lets the practicioner resist grappling or dodge easier.

Have there been written something like this for the system before, or have any of you worked with similar medium-scale advances? Please let me know what you think, as I'm new to the system and tweaking it is still a daunting task.

 

[Harshlax]

This kinds of abilities are easily represented by common magic - there are a range of skill boost and similar spells in the common magic section to use as a model. Each order or organisation can have a small number that mark them out that they teach to their members at various levels of trust.

This is the main aspect that prevalant common magic fills, so lower level "heroic abilities" are not really needed. Common Magic for "feats", higher magics for "class abilities", with heroic abilities being kept for big rewards for mighty deeds.

 

[Tias]

That's actually... a pretty good idea. I just wanted "spell-like abilities" instead of actual spells - but I guess I could just make "those spells" less flashy in practice. I'll have to work on that.

 

[Harshlax]

That's actually... a pretty good idea. I just wanted "spell-like abilities" instead of actual spells - but I guess I could just make "those spells" less flashy in practice. I'll have to work on that.

I have to admit, I cannot claim any originality in this suggestion. It is how RuneQuest, which Legend is a variant of, has been doing this for years. In fact, if you want a whole raft of groups and spells tied to them by theme and purpose, get "Cults of Glorantha" for MRQ2 (Mongoose RuneQuest). It uses this rule set and offers many example religions and sorcery orders to use as inspiration. And I believe its still only 1 dollar for the pdf!