Author: Haen the Heretic
About The System
The Witcher RPG is a roleplaying game with fast and brutal combat set in the world of the Witcher books and games. It is an easy-to-learn system that provides a wide range of options for building your character. Each profession (class equivalent) has a skill tree, and you can invest in features from all branches if you so desire.
All special abilities granted by your profession are skills that you can put points in, and usually require you to make a check. Contested checks are common, especially in combat.
Combat is fast-paced and brutal, with devastating critical wounds and monsters that can wipe you out in a single blow. You need to enter a fight prepared—sneaking up on the monster or exploiting its weaknesses will help you, as will aiming for three turns and ambushing your target with a bow shot at point-blank range for a grand total of +31 to hit. Martials have a valuable niche here, as they actually deal monstrous amounts of damage and an optimized man-at-arms is able to oneshot most things.
The verbal combat system is another brilliant aspect of the game, adding more depth to social scenarios than just “roll a die against a DC”.
Complexity: (★★★☆☆)
System Strengths
- Fast combat
- Simple to learn
- Die variance is less impactful than modifier making PC skill bonuses matter a lot
- Verbal combat and crafting system
- Wide range of choices for martials
System Flaws
- Suggested encounter difficulty is not particularly high
- Casters depend on DM fiat to learn new spells
Why is this one so short ? I really enjoyed the in-depth descriptions in this series.