Table of Contents
The Skill System
Gaining Skills
REFUGE LARP is a fantasy game. There will always be limits to what you can do based on your physical capabilities, but REFUGE allows ways to mitigate some OOG barriers through our Skill system.
There are many abilities in the game that require you to acquire prerequisite Skills before using them. Think of this as learning to crawl before you can walk. As an example, you need to have the appropriate Weapon Skill to use that style of Weapon (Edged for Swords and Axes, Blunt Weapon for Hammers and Clubs). Additionally, some Skills might require specific Weapon types to use. These are listed in the charts below and within each Skill listed later in this chapter.
Similarly, some Skills grant a permanent bonus in damage with every swing of a Weapon. This represents a level of Skill for the character that a player might never obtain. We use it to artificially give a character an advantage over another character not as Skilled, regardless of the player’s Skill with the Weapon.
While OOG ability still comes into play, REFUGE allows numerous Skills to help players perform IG tasks to enhance their OOG abilities. For example, the Dodge Skill allows a character to avoid an incoming attack even if it landed correctly according to the rules.
Characters may purchase Skills by spending XP that they’ve earned, primarily by attending REFUGE games.
Skills might be used throughout the day or may add permanent abilities that can be used indefinitely (such as the One-Handed Edged ability allowing a character to permanently use One-Handed Edged Weapons in combat). If a Skill is expended when used, it will be marked as LP (noting that it will renew at the start of each Logistics Period).
Many Skills can’t be purchased until certain prerequisites are met. Sometimes these prerequisites are per purchase, while other prerequisites need only be met once. For example, you can purchase Critical Attack as often as you want once you have any Weapon Skill. Similarly, you can purchase High Magic for your Primary School as many times as you like once you’ve spent 75 XP in Scholar Skills. Other Skills, such as Dodge, are only purchasable once for every 30 XP you have purchased in Stealth Skills. Both types of prerequisites are outlined in the Skills chart, which lists all Skills along with their prerequisites and their XP cost for each class.
When players check in for an event, they will be given a printed sheet (called a “battle board”) that tracks expendable Skills per LP. It is your responsibility to update your board after using the Skill when you have some down time. Most Skills are expended during combat; once a combat is over, check off the Skills you have used. A Marshal may ask for your board at any time to see what Skills you have used and what you still have available.
On a full weekend event, the “day” runs 24 hours from when the game starts (approximately). Most events will have the LP reset roughly around 6 PM local time. Most Skills and Magic items have a per LP use on them. Your local chapter will dictate when your LPs run from, but there can only be one LP per 24 hours.
Game Abilities
As you read this book, you will see references to “Game Abilities.” This refers generally to the Skills you buy for your character with XP. If you’re playing a monster, any of their expendable abilities will similarly be considered Game Abilities.
Some effects can prevent you from using your Game Abilities. If you are under the effect of Enfeeble, for instance, you cannot cast any spells, fight, or throw any gas globes since all of these are Game Abilities. However, you can still talk, drink a potion, activate a Magic Item, or perform other actions that do not fall under the Game Abilities list.
Wear Extra Armor and Hardy are the two Skill exceptions to this. These Skills affect what a character is instead of what a character does. Similarly, three High Magic abilities will continue to function when you are unable to use Game Abilities: Celestial Armor, Earth’s Bounty, and Rebirth.
All other PC Skills count as Game Abilities. This means that while under a “no Game Abilities” effect, you can’t identify Production items, can’t use Focus Skills, will be unable to read Ritual Scrolls, cannot apply Alchemical coatings, cannot disarm traps, and cannot evaluate items using the Merchant Skill.
The mechanism of activating a Magic Item is exempted from negative effects which restrict Game Abilities. You must be able to at least move your mouth to vocalize (though the Spell and Arcane qualifiers may be used while under the effect of a Silence). For example, you could activate a Magic Item while under a Web effect, which holds you in place from the neck down, but not while under a Paralysis effect, which completely paralyzes you.
Experience Points
Your character will receive Experience Points (XP) at REFUGE LARP events which they can subsequently use to buy Skills. Each Skill you purchase costs a certain number of XP as per the Skill Charts below.
A Character’s level is strictly an OOG concept; a character doesn’t understand that they have a “level” IG, although the player knows this information. Staff members use levels to balance combat encounters and for calculating treasure for an event.
XP (XP) are cumulative and never “go away”. You can spend as many or as few as you wish at a time. Your character’s Body Points are calculated based on your total XP, whether spent or not, as is your Character Level.
A character will gain XP for every LP they attend. This chart will show you how many XP you will attain for each LP you attend. As your character attains higher levels, it takes longer to gain XP.
For Example: A new character has 25 XP and attends a 3-day Long Weekend game. After the event, the chapter staff applies 3 experience blankets to the character, one for each LP of the event.
Since the character is 2nd level, the first blanket gains them 6 XP putting them at 31 total. Now that they are at 3rd level (over 30 XP), they gain 5 for the second blanket, and another 5 for the third blanket, leaving them with 41 XP total – 4th level.
These experience point additions are always applied one by one no matter how many are gained at an event, with subsequent additions adjusting the Experience Point rate if the previous one puts the character into a new level range. Note that a character may have fractional XP at certain points in their career depending on their level; only whole XP may be spent on Skills. The fractional XP simply track how far your character has to the next Experience Point.
All classes start off at 25 XP with 10 Body Points. Your total XP determines your Body Points at a ratio based on your class; see the Classes section for details.
| Level | XP Per Blanket | Level | XP Per Blanket |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-2 | 6 | 21-25 | 0.8 |
| 3-4 | 5 | 26-30 | 0.7 |
| 5-6 | 4 | 31-35 | 0.6 |
| 7-8 | 3 | 36-40 | 0.5 |
| 9-10 | 2 | 41-45 | 0.4 |
| 11-15 | 5 | 46-50 | 0.3 |
| 16-20 | 4 | 51+ | 0.2 |
Learning and Unlearning Skills
As you gain XP (XP) and you purchase Skills, new Skills may become available to you. You will purchase them through our online REFUGE Player Database (RPDb). From time to time, you may decide that you want to remove Skills. You can do so by spending Chapter Points (explained later in this document) and then removing a single Skill per month.
You cannot remove Skills that are prerequisites to other Skills, or things that would make your character “illegal” from a rules standpoint (spell slots, for example, have specific ways in which they can be added and thus removed).
The only limit to which Skills you may learn is how much free XP you have and whether you meet prerequisites for certain Skill purchases.
Skills are purchased between games. You may not gain Skills in the middle of an event (barring Plot reasons, or specific Rituals that are cast IG).
Spellcasting
Spellcasters in REFUGE purchase “spell slots” in which they memorize specific spells each LP. Each spell slot can hold up to a certain level of spell; a caster can memorize lower level spells into a higher-level slot if they choose to do so. Higher level spells are generally more powerful and more difficult to learn than lower level spells.
Higher level spell slots must be built upon knowledge of lower level spell slots. To represent this, spell slots must be purchased in a pyramid shape, where there must always be more slots on a lower level before you can purchase a higher-level slot. Once you have reached at least four slots in a specific level, you can purchase an equal number of the next higher-level slots. In addition, a spell slot pyramid may never be too “empty” of higher-level spells. Similarly, you can’t have more than one “gap” of two spells between two levels—for example, you couldn’t have four 1st level spells, two 2nd level spells, and zero 3rd level spells.
When a character chooses which spells to put in which slots at the start of an LP, they may only use spells for which they have a spell book. Within this book are recorded the specific spells you can memorize. Multiple people can memorize from the same spell book, but there are specific abilities and rituals for which you may always want your own spell book available.
Slots are purchased as if you were building a Pyramid. The lower level spells build the base for higher learning. As an example, let’s start with a newly built Celestial Scholar
Step 1:
- Educated 3XP (prerequisite)
- Read Magic 4XP (prerequisite)
- Staff 4XP (always handy to block incoming attacks!)
- Spell Level 1 (4 slots) 4XP
- Spell Level 2 (3 slots) 3XP
- Spell Level 3 (2 Slots) 4XP
- Spell Level 4 (1 slot) 2XP
As you can see, this build uses a Pyramid shape.
Now that the Pyramid is being built it must follow a certain pattern. You always require more slots on a lower level before you can purchase additional slots on the next higher level. We will continue to build the Pyramid (assuming the player is going to continue to build with a goal of reaching 9th level slots as quickly as possible).
Step 2: As you progress, your next purchase would be a 2nd level slot, then a 3rd, then a 4th. Things to remember: When you get to a 4th slot purchased on a specific level, you no longer need *more* slots on a lower level, but only an *equal number*. If you do wish to purchase a 5th slot of 1st level, you can always do so (which would allow you to purchase a 5th second level spell slot and so forth).
Step 3: Now we can add a 5th Level Slot. To purchase a 6th level slot, you need to purchase a 3rd, 4th, and 5th level slot first.
Note that the pattern is very set as to which Spell Slots must be purchased unless you wish to buy more than four Spell Slots of any one level. There is potentially no limit as to the number of Spell Slots per level that can be purchased if this pattern is maintained.
You can have a pyramid with nine 1st level Spell Slots, eight 2nd level Spell Slots, seven 3rd level Spell Slots, and so on up to one 9th level Spell Slot.
To the right is what your final Pyramid might look like. Once you have completed that, you can finish building your column of 4-9th level spells.
Meditate
Players can regain certain expended Skills and spells by Meditating them back. This includes any spell that missed or failed due to an incorrect incantation, as well as any Meditatable Martial or Stealth Skill that misses. To do so, the player must spend 10 uninterrupted minutes of appropriate Focus. If Meditate is being used to replace expended spells, the character must role-play studying from a spell book which contains the spell to be rememorized. If Meditate is being used to replace expended Weapon Skills, the character must hold, wield, or otherwise focus on a Weapon they are proficient with. During this time, no game Skills may be used other than Educated. The player should feel free to role-play discussion, usage of appropriate subjects (magic or physical combat) with other players during this period of Focus. Once the meditation period has passed, the player may write the spell or Skill back in on their Battle Board with an “M” instead of a circle, to denote that it was Meditated back into memory. After this point they may utilize the Skill or spell normally as though it had not been expended in the first place.
Each use of Meditate will return a single expended and missed spell or attack. Multiple Meditated Skills or spells may be returned over time with multiple uses of Meditate.
For spells, a player may only regain the use of a memorized spell that did not resolve in any way - that is, it completely missed all targets or the incantation failed. This ability does not work on spells that resolved in any way, including a call of “No Effect” or “Altered” or being expended on any other Smart or Dumb defense. This ability may not be used to regain charges of spent Magic Items, potions, or scrolls. Any augmentations gained via High Magic are lost when the spell is Meditated. Note that Signature Spells have special Meditation rules; see the Magic section for more details.
For Weapon Skills, a player may only regain the use of a Meditatable per-day Weapon attack that did not resolve in any way. This includes blockable attacks (for example, not using the Strike keyword) that were blocked by another player’s Weapon or Shield and did not trigger any defenses. It also includes Weapon swings that completely missed, and Weapon swings required to be From Behind which did not hit a target From Behind. If an attack struck an opponent and was taken or resulted in a defense being called or expended, it may not be Meditated.
Characters may purchase the Enhanced Meditate Skill to reduce the necessary Focus time.
Successful Resurrection (or Ritual-based alternatives such as Regeneration) automatically Meditates any applicable abilities for a character.
Focus
Some abilities require Focusing for a specified amount of time. You must role-play appropriately for the ability; for example, refitting another player’s armor might involve inspecting the armor and role-playing adjusting its fit, while role-playing Meditation might involve studying a spell book and conversing with other players about the mechanics of certain magics. During this time, you may move as is reasonable for the role-play, but no further. This means that while Ritual Casting you should stay within the Circle of Power you’re casting in; similarly, while performing First Aid, you can walk around the body of your target but may not leave it. A character may not move faster than a walk during their Focus period. Please keep good sportsmanship in mind while selecting how to role-play Focusing.
There are several ways that a character’s Focus may be interrupted. These include:
- The character uses a Skill or Game Ability (other than Educated) which is not required for the ability they’re Focusing on.
- The character loses the ability to use Game Abilities (for example, they are hit by a Drain spell).
Note that individual abilities may have additional requirements, while some may have exemptions to the above conditions (for example you can self-cast while under a Sanctuary).
| Focus Examples | ||
|---|---|---|
| Skills/Abilities | Concentration Spells | Monster Abilities |
| Blacksmith (Refitting) | Desecrate | Engulf |
| Break Command | Fortress | Escape Binding |
| Arming/Disarming a | Repel | Gaseous Form |
| First Aid | Sanctuary | Refitting Natural Armor |
| Identifying Production | Storm Spells | Regeneration |
| Killing Blow | Renew Skills | |
| Meditate | Rift | |
| Mental Abilities | ||
| Refitting Arcane Armor | ||
Skill Costs
The core of a REFUGE character is the Skills which they possess. These Skills are purchased by spending XP that the character has earned over time. Each Skill has a specific XP cost based on the character’s class, outlined in the charts below. Note that any class may purchase any Skill, however, the cost is entirely dependent on that class’ specialties.
Some Skills have prerequisites listed. There are two types of prerequisites: Skill prerequisites, and Skill category XP minimums. For example, to purchase Alchemy you must first be Educated and must know Herbal Lore. If you want to purchase High Magic, you must have already spent 75 XP in your primary spell school and have at least one first level Spell Slot in that school.
Weapon Proficiency and Backstab have a special type of prerequisite. When purchasing these Skills, you must trade in a certain number of either Critical Attacks or Back Attacks, respectively. Your first Weapon Proficiency or Backstab requires two prerequisite Skills, your third requires three, and so forth.
It can be helpful to think about what Skills best fit your character long-term and build towards those Skills. This might be based on your species and personality or your character goals. If you are choosing many different types of Skills, you may end up with not much difference between the classes. For instance, if you are making a character that is a good fighter, can throw spells, is good at Backstabs, and can throw Alchemy, you may not be able to tell which class is best for you until you decide how you will eventually start specializing in one of these things. Keep in mind that you can change your character’s class over time if something else turns out to be a better fit based on how they grow within the game - you’re not locked forever into what you first choose.