As a result, the immediate oh, let's hack this element to Knave is formatting some sort of class-analogue structure to the otherwise-class-less rules system. Among the various Discord channels this structure has come to be known as Knacks, mainly because Knack and Knave sound so canny together. Check out Laughing Leviathan's excellent Knave-Knacks and A Man With A Hammer's Knacks for Knaves for other posted variables on the formula. More are floating around, currently unpublished in various ways and means, and I highly recommend you check them out as you find them.
For my own Knack system, I've been thinking about how to integrate class-adjacent specialities into my burgeoning homebrew game, for which I still have yet to determine a name or proper identity. However, I am looking to frame them as talents, and negate the expectation that there are any requirements or gates to gaining or earning them as player characters progress.
I plan to have six categories of talents: Martial, Specialist, Survivalist, Arcane, Divine, and Weird. Each category will roughly approximate and expand upon traditional class tropes. There will be six of each (of course, leading to a d66 table of possible talents, becuase I have a fetish for d66 tables). You start with two, randomly rolled, and are later able to select specific new talents as you progress in level. For a bit of mechanical reference, my WIP game has six traditional roll-under ability scores without any ability modifiers, three roll-under saving throws, and talents. When you level-up, you can grab +1 to three scores, -1 to two saving throws, or pick a new talent.
Let's get cracking.
To start, let's take a look at martial and specialist talents, which fall approximately in line with "fighter" and "rogue" archetypes.
Martial Talents
1. Titanic Grip: You can hold items and armaments normally requiring two hands in one hand.
2. Inspiring Presence: You can gain advantage on morale checks and reaction rolls when dealing with the military, hirelings, and other law-abiding or honor-bound citizenry and monsters.
3. Adrenaline Rush: Any time you roll a natural 6 for your damage or defense die, you can perform a stunt for free as part of your combat action.
4. Human Shield: Once per round, you can take the damage inflicted against any nearby ally by an enemy or effect in their place. Make a successful body save for half-damage.
5. Meat Cleaver: When you kill an enemy with your weapon, you can make another attack against another nearby enemy. This can occur as many times per round equal to your level, and applies to both ranged and melee weapons.
6. Berserker Frenzy: Once per round, you can inflict two damage to yourself, then add +2 to your damage die result.
Hearkening back to my Wrath of the Lich King-era WoW, days, Titan's Grip was the coolest ability ever, allowing Warriors to dual-wield two-handed weapons. It was bonkers, and I loved it. I wanted to replciate that with Titanic Grip, allowing players to do the same thing in the RPG realm, assuming the damage and defense tables of two two-handed weapons at once. This leads to larger damage outputs, but lower defense thresholds. Consider how you defend if you're holding two giant swords. Yeah. But I also want this to extend to two-handed items in general, not only weapons. You now have the uncanny ability to coordinate and lift beer barrels, statuary, and hobgoblins in each hand. You're welcome.
Totally within the realm of physical possibility.
Inspiring Presence is very straight-forward. You're a veteran. Others who respect such a post respect you, specifically. Wield your martial influence handily and without recourse. Morale and reaction rolls are the bread and butter of good sandbox play. Win friends and influence people. With swords.
Stunts, per Knave's original definition, allow for shoving, bashing, tripping, and other immediate situational non-damage effects in combat. Adrenaline Rush allows for a max-result damage or defense roll to prompt a free stunt. Hold up your shield and/or mace, block that damage, and bash the fool attacking you upside the head. Feelsgoodman.
Human Shield is at once a defensive bonus for your team, supposing you have some bulk to spare, and a generous riff off of the most-maligned 5e fighting style, protection. In an OSR context, blocking a single hit is a big deal, especially if you can make a save for half-damage. In 5e, well, you're a flippin' superhero so who cares?
In trying to emulate the style of big, bad melee attacking, I took a page from the typical barbarian playbook and opted to add Meat Cleaver for simple, reliable multi-attack pain against hordes, as well as leveraging my ideas for damage tables per weapon by way of Berserker Frenzy. The former allows for consistent cleave effects against multiple enemies who are weaker than the attacking PC, and the latter allows for a bit of self-harm in order to maximize damage results according to the model laid out in my last post. As I continue to formulate possible rider effects for 5- or 6-result dice on the damage tables, the frenzy effect gets even better.
Specialist Talents
1. Escape Artist: Once per day, you can automatically wriggle free from a restraint which allows some plausible escape, such as a chokehold, pinned limb, or noose.
2. Schrödinger's Dagger: You always have at least two daggers on your person. You don't reveal to anyone as to how they got there. You're not sure, yourself. They do not occupy inventory space.
3. Field Medic: Out of combat, you can restore HP equal to double your level if you are properly equipped with bandages, salves, or similar expendable materials.
4. Bits & Bobs: You always manage to have an interesting trinket on your person which piques the interest of anyone who sees it, providing a distraction or converation starter. Describe it and own it. Whatever it is, it does not occupy any inventory space.
5. Slink Expert: You gain advantage when prompted to make a check or save while in moving in shadows, balancing on precarious surfaces, or attempting sleight of hand.
6. Uncanny Knack: Once per day, you can gain advantage on a single saving throw and ability check each, regardless of context.
Ah, the rogue. Always my favorite fantasy archetype. That is, not the one-dimensional dibs-on-free-damage rogues of modern RPGs, but the true adepts at problem solving, able to squirm away from threats and pull any number of critical resources out of their belt pouches like they knew what was coming all along. I see Escape Artist being readily handy as a get-out-of-jail-free narrative pass once daily. As for the curious rogue always having means at hand, Schrödinger's Dagger ensures that somehow, somewhere, you can retrive a pair of daggers. You planned for this, right?
Field Medic offloads traditional healing duties from clerical archetypes to the specialist. The rogue is the sort of person with gauze, bandages, and salves at the ready amidst the rest of their multi-faceted arsenal of tricks, so it's only natural that the such a PC is also the quick sawbones of the group. Bits & Bobs follows a similar pattern, ensuring that the PC has a curio on hand at all times, ready to force the situation to their advantage, however implausible it seems.
More along the lines of the thief or infiltrator paradigm, Slink Expert supposes that while an ordinary bloke might get hung up in attempts to sneak or exploit precarious terrain, the specialist thrives in the same scenarios. A shadow, a tightrope, or other questionable contexts allows such an expert to pass without relative trace. In general terms, Uncanny Knack allows for the ultimate "I win this time" ability, allowing the specialist to nope their way right out of expecially bad situations as a reaction and proaction, once daily apiece.
Come on,you know this is what you're picturing.
As you might gather, inventory space is important in this general RPG conception, and I'll detail it more at a later date. In the short-term, multiple specialist talents allow for a bit of wiggle room when it comes to stowing important items on your person. We'll see similar perks when viewing both survivalist and arcane talents in just a bit.
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