Classes

Example classes

A class is a character-defining vocation, job, or role within a group. Different classes have different unique powers.

Here, we offer 6 examples of science-fantasy classes. Each includes 7 possible starting powers (generally 6 unique powers and 1 option from another list), of which you choose 4. Each also has a unique way of determining your starting GRT as well as 2 possible quickbuilds, or ready-to-go sets of scores, pool, and powers.

Designing classes

• Classes should be cool ideas that are specific enough to warrant a thematic grouping of powers.
• Classes tend to simultaneously be jobs in a diegetic world, party roles in a game, and archetypes drawn from some genre of fiction.
• In high-power games, give a class 4 powers at 1st level.
• In lower-power games, give a class 3 or even 2 powers at 1st level. (This also works for NPC design: they don’t need as many powers to keep track of.)
• If a class has access to many more options for powers (like the wytch), give them a reasonable drawback.
• When designing class powers, try to come up with 1 marquee power. This should be the most amazing, conceptually interesting, defining ability that the class can do.
• Then, design 1–2 other core class powers, unique to the class, that are eye-catching. These should shade it in conceptually.
• Then, design 1–2 additional utility powers.
• See the quickstarts for Stillfleet, Blister Critters, Danse Macabre: Medieval Horror Roleplaying, and The Sometimes Kingdom RPG for more ideas! While these games’ settings are wildly different, the powers are largely interchangeable.

Agent (operator)

You are a professional con artist, diplomat, rogue, “specialist,” spy, or some other variety of legally flexible problem solver.

Quickbuilds

Spy COM d6 | MOV d10 | REA d6 | WIL d8 | CHA d12 HEA 16 | GRT 14 Powers: con, flashback, quibble vanish

 

Thief COM d8 | MOV d12 | REA d6 | WIL d6 | CHA d10 HEA 20 | GRT 12 Powers: backstab, con, dive, vanish

Agent powers (choose 4)

1. Backstab (2-round)
   Burn 6 GRT before you attack, and then roll to attack with advantage. If you hit your opponent, you inflict double damage. If you are 5th level or higher, you can spend another 6 GRT on hitting to inflict triple damage instead. You can backstab with any weapon, within reason.
   
   
2. Con (standard)
   Burn 4 GRT and tell a lie: everyone believes it, no check required. This won’t work forever, if the lie is unreasonable or can be disproved, but it will allow you to fool anyone briefly.
   
   
3. Dive (standard)
   Burn 6 GRT and make a MOV check: if you succeed, you and some or all of your party leave the scene. You can bring 1 +your level human-sized beings along with you to safety. You can burn an additional 6 GRT to bring 1 additional being beyond your limit. Small beings (0.5-M tall/long) count for half a slot; large ones (3-M tall/long) count double; small pets are free. If you fail your MOV check, you alone get away, and you injure yourself, suffering 2d6 damage.
   
   
4. Flashback (free/once-per-session)
   Before an adventure, you complete useful preparatory work. Thus, each session, you start with 1 narrative hold. You can burn that hold at any time to narrate a short flashback scene about your prep work and add specific details to the current situation. You can even directly contradict the GM on one point. Mechanically, a hold can grant you advantage on 1 check or even let you reroll 1 failure. But the bigger opportunity, often, is to suddenly produce the tool you need, to already know in which cell the prisoner is being held, etc. Note, unlike find clue, flashback can’t give you new high-level information about the story. (I.e., if you didn’t already know your friend was in prison, you couldn’t use flashback to have scouted out the cell’s location.)
   
   
5. Kawaii (passive)
   You simply don’t appear to be a threat. An opponent cannot inflict damage against you unless you attack, steal from, or otherwise attempt to harm them first.
   
   
6. Quibble (free)
   At no cost, reroll a failed roll; this can be used only once per roll and must be used immediately after failure. Whether or not you succeed on this reroll, you must also reroll your next success (not this action, but the next time you have to roll).
   
   
7. Steal (standard)
   Name a stealable object—or overhearable or glance-at-able phrase or password, etc.—and burn d8 GRT. Roll a dMOV +your level check. If you succeed, you steal the thing without being caught. If you fail, the entity you’re stealing from makes a dWIL check: if they succeed, they catch you; if they fail, you still didn’t steal the thing, but at least you didn’t get caught.
   
   
8. Vanish (free)
   You can simply disappear. Burn 7 GRT: you vanish into the air, undetectable by anyone except through the use of Weird powers, no matter how implausible this seems. Simply describe what happens in detail. You remain hidden until you attack, speak, use any power with a visible effect, or otherwise give away your presence. You can only use this power once per round.

Killer (ex-soldier)

You are a professional living weapon. Perhaps you were trained by a state or other organization long ago, but you now advance your own banner.

Quickbuilds

Tactician COM d12 | MOV d8 | REA d6 | WIL d10 | CHA d6 HEA 20 | GRT 16 Powers: counterattack, daze, double strike, reposition

 

Thousand-yarder COM d12 | MOV d10 | REA d8 | WIL d8 | CHA d4 HEA 22 | GRT 16 Powers: counterattack, double strike, fight, slay

Killer powers (choose 4)

1. Counterattack (passive)
   When an opponent within close range attacks you and rolls a 1, you automatically strike them with a close-range weapon. If you don’t have a close-range weapon, you hit them with your fists (e.g) for dCOM damage. You don’t have to make an attack check.
   
   
2. Daze (standard)
   You attack as usual, but if you hit, you stun your target for 1 round instead of inflicting damage. In addition, your target now suffers −2 to all rolls for the duration of this combat. This power can be used cumulatively.
   
   
3. Double strike (standard)
   You are a trained soldier: instead of a normal attack, you may burn 4 GRT and attack twice on the same initiative. You cannot take 2 non-attack standard actions, only attack.
   
   
4. Fight (passive)
   Your unarmed combat damage is dCOM instead of d2. You can use dCOM for the damage of any melee weapon, including an unarmed attack.
   
   
5. Reposition (free)
   You expertly case the chaos around you. Burn 6 GRT: you gain an extra d12 to use on any roll, going forward. This can be a dodge check, an attack, a damage roll— anything. You can use this d12 once, and it will go away; or you can instead use a d6 and, later, another d6; or a d4 and a d8; or three d4s, etc. The bonus rolls are entirely up to you. You can reposition, use the extra die, and immediately reposition again (paying another 6 GRT), even in the same round. But you can never hold more than one d12-worth of bonus dice at once.
   
   
6. Slay (free)
   When you successfully hit a target, you can burn 5 GRT and roll dCOM again: if you get a 6 or higher, you can choose to kill the target outright. If you slay more than 1 opponent per day, make a dWIL check: if you fail to get a 6 or higher, you lose 20 −dWIL GRT and are visibly shaken.
   
   
7. Track (10-minute)
   You work to either follow the trail of a single entity, or locate any single entity of interest, sans clues. An entity can be a specific person or a non-specific location. Burn 3 GRT for an easy target (clues exist, and the thing you are trying to track is not hiding from you), 5 for a difficult target (clues don’t exist, or the target is hiding from you), and 7 for a near-impossible one (clues don’t exist, and the target is hiding from you). Roll a REA check; if you succeed, you succeed. If not, you find something else interesting instead. You can burn more GRT and try tracking your target again tomorrow.
   
   
8. Weapon (item)
   Choose any 1 standard weapon: you start the game with this, free of cost, and it inflicts an additional die of damage (regardless of what its damage die is).

Mourner (tech-priest)

You are an ecclesiarch of the Very Old Ways—the Ways of Wire, the Mysteries of Glass That Speaks, and so forth. You even know how to repair those Mysteries (well, in theory)…

Quickbuilds

Healer with an iron palm COM d4 | MOV d8 | REA d12 | WIL d10 | CHA d8 HEA 12 | GRT 22 Powers: ‘avvenge, find clue, hack, heal

 

Inquisitor with a glowing eye COM d8 | MOV d8 | REA d12 | WIL d10 | CHA d4 HEA 16 | GRT 22 Powers: hack, lose the scanners, reliquary cyber-part, sense deep wires

Mourner powers (choose 4)

1. ‘Avvenge (hour)
   Burn 3X GRT, consult your notes, and search for X hours: you discover a useful archae-object of complexity level X. The GM determines the complexity. A given object’s complexity ranges from 1 to 6:
   
   1. Simple (door)
   2. Standard (tool with a few parts)
   3. Complex (gun)
   4. Corporate/ecclesiastical (electronics)
   5. Military/royal (self-aware)
   6. Godlike/alien (physics-defying)
   
   This can be exactly the item the group needed. You can also reduce the time required by spending more GRT; each additional point shaves off 15 minutes from the search.
   
   
2. Find clue (standard/once-per-session)
   You find something genuinely useful, plot-wise. You can find a clue toward whichever plot you want, but you should make your choice clear to the GM. This clue is specific: you don’t necessarily understand the bigger picture, but you know what you need to do next.
   
   
3. Hack (standard)
   You can burn d10 GRT to tap into any technological system. Using this power to simply look around requires no roll. Making changes to the system, however, requires a REA/use tech check, set by the GM: 6+ for a minor change, 9+ for a major one, or 12+ for a complete takeover (e.g.).
   
   
4. Heal (standard)
   You practice trauma medicine, using your training and a small kit of advanced medi-gewgaws. Burn X GRT and treat a person, you or someone else: that person regains X +your level HEA. Healing also cures bleed, burn, stun, and other non-Weird conditions. Heal can be used on someone with 0 HEA: in this case, the person receiving healing wakes up, groggy and weak, and can act. In any given 24-hour period, heal can only be used on the same person twice (whether by you or another healer).
   
   
5. Lose the scanners (free)
   When pursued by machines of any type, burn 5 GRT and roll a REA check: if you get a 7 or higher, you lose your pursuers (for now) as you jump down a vent, hack the smartdoor to mislead the drones, rework the shiftsteel bulkhead to misdirect the fungibots, e.g. You don’t necessarily emerge somewhere convenient, but you remain alive…
   
   
6. Reliquary cyber-part (standard)
   You have a built-in ancient apothecarnal augmod (e.g.—what does it look like?): once per day, you can burn all of your remaining GRT to refill all of your HEA.
   
   
7. Sense deep wires (standard)
   You generally know where to go to find the things you want, especially technical things, underground, in silent ruins, etc. To find a given technological object or entity, burn 4 GRT, roll an REA check, and add your level. If the result is 10 or higher, you have a good sense of where it is.
   
   
8. Spew (standard)
   You spew up a plume of hot, acidic, nanite-laced blood, dissolving the flesh of nearby opponents. Burn 4X GRT and make a COM/attack check: if you get a 6+, spew inflicts Xd8 +your level damage on any number of targets within near range. Otherwise, spew inflicts X damage. Any ordinary person who sees you use this power runs away from you, traumatized.

Wytch (mentalist)

You are a mental radio operator: that is, you can tap into the Weird—whatever that hidden dimension of existence, resistant to our inquiries, truly is. This fact makes you appear strange to all non-wytches. Mechanically, it also means you have 2 special restrictions:

• You must choose the power control the Weird at 1st level.
• Due to contact with the Weird, some aspect of your body is withered or some faculty of your mind corrupt: 1 of your scores must be a d4.

Quickbuilds

Chaos-eyes COM d10 | MOV d8 | REA d8 | WIL d4 | CHA d12 HEA 18 | GRT 12 Powers: command, control the Weird, Escherfact, stand

 

Spiral-eyes COM d4 | MOV d8 | REA d8 | WIL d10 | CHA d12 HEA 12 | GRT 20 Powers: command, control the Weird, detect, memorize

Wytch powers (choose 4)

1. Command (standard)
   Burn 5 GRT and give a non-suicidal command to someone who understands you: that person must act as directed, at least for 1 round. You can burn 5 more GRT per additional target to enhance the reach of the command. If the command is clearly at odds with a target’s desires, then after 1 round they can roll WIL/resist other against your CHA/control to change their course of action.
   
   
2. Control the Weird (varies)
   You are a wytch: you can learn Weird powers. At 1st level, you gain 1 Weird power of your choice. When you gain a level, instead of choosing an additional class power, you can choose an additional Weird power instead. You yourself now count as “Weird” for the purposes of powers that affect Weird entities. Most people tend to be highly suspicious of those who can bend timespace simply by thinking.
   
   
3. Detect (standard)
   Burn 3 GRT and call bullshit on something someone said: the GM must tell you if that something is a lie. This can’t counteract mind control; it just represents thinking deeply and trusting a gut instinct.
   
   
4. Escherfact (item)
   You have a unique Escherfact—a small object (arcane symbol, antique doodad, dried organ, phylactery of a dataghost, yncaloid prism, etc.). As long as you don’t lose this small item, it grants you the use of 1 random power from another class of your choice, once per day. You choose the class; the GM rolls for which power you get. You can reset the class every day. Note, you stole your Escherfact from an elder ‘patadimensional being: it is hunting you…
   
   
5. Memorize (10-minute/free)
   In addition to weaving the Weird in real-time, you may prepare Weird powers in advance by “memorizing” them in order to unleash them later. To memorize a power, set aside the grit that it costs; this GRT is permanently unavailable to you until you use it, after which you may recover it normally. Memorizing a power takes 10 minutes; using a memorized power is always a free action, regardless of the listed time. This means that, at a high GRT cost, you can use more than 1 Weird power per round.
   
   
6. Rustle up (hour+)
   Burn 3X GRT and search for X hours: you make a deal to acquire an object with X specific properties. The exact details are always up to the GM. E.g., you can burn 6 GRT and find a musical instrument with strings or an armor-piercing sword. If you only burn 3 GRT to find a musical instrument or a sword, however, the GM can say you find a cool hollow stick (whack it against something: it makes a tone!) or an ordinary sword with no useful tags.
   
   
7. Smooth over (standard)
   You can calmly smooth over misunderstandings: burn 3 GRT for an easily remedied bad situation (difficulty 5 CHA check), 5 for a difficult one (difficulty 6), and 7 for a nearly impossible one (difficulty 7). Roll a CHA check. If you succeed, all works out (for now—you can always re-blunder). If you fail, roll another CHA check: success on this one means you haven’t made the situation worse; failure means your interlocutors attack immediately.
   
   
8. Stand (standard)
   You spend a round concentrating on your inner self—your stand. Your id takes charge; your desires are made vivid: burn X GRT and describe your stand. It is typically huge and vile. You are now your stand, doubled on top of your non-stand ego-self, for as long as you have GRT. Your stand has advantage on unarmed attacks and inflicts 2dCHA+X damage. Your stand suffers GRT damage instead of HEA damage, protecting you from harm. When you drop to 0 GRT, your stand dissipates, and you are you (and only you) again. Note: your stand hates your ego-self and will try to ruin your life.

Species

Example species

A character’s species is an intelligent biomechanical heritage that affects the game narratively and mechanically. Some games only offer humans as playable species. That’s fine! In classic fantasy and sci-fi games, however, you can play as elves or aliens (e.g.). Different species have different unique powers, some of which are highly thematic and even drawbacks, from a mechanical point of view.

Here, we offer 4 examples of intelligent species in a science-fantasy setting.

Grass elf (sun-eater)

Most of the tall, lithe, tusked photobionts called grass elves or rye elves are bound by a strict code of personal honor. They kill for sport and to adjudicate disputes among the members of their nomadic courts, called “Sword Theaters.”

Living at the edges of urban society, always on the move, the grass elves fought many battles against the other sapients long ago and now pride themselves on their species’ self-reliance. That said, those of a certain age (12 summers or so—full growth) must undertake a rite of sojourn lasting an unknown number of summers, until the mysterious Callers of the Blood dictate their journey is at its end.

Grass elf powers (gain all)

1. Parole Vert (permanent)
   Grass elves have their own language, called the Parole Vert. Among other grass elves and ancient machines, you needn’t use sounds or movements to communicate; your chromatophores flash information in the ultraviolet spectrum. This means you can speak with them in total privacy. Non-informatic sapients can’t even see that you’re “speaking.”
   
   
2. Photosynthetic (permanent)
   You are a greenskin. You don’t need to eat. (You still need water and rest.)

Grass elf powers (choose 2)

1. Channel rage (free)
   Once per level per day, you may burn 2 GRT: your COM rolls gain advantage for a number of rounds equal to your level; your MOV rolls gain disadvantage during this time.
   
   
2. Hatred of the burners and cutters (free)
   Burn 3 GRT; your next attack against an animal or automaton (non-plant, non-fungus) inflicts +3 +your level HEA damage. Alternatively, you can inflict this damage to GRT instead.
   
   
3. Killer instinct (passive)
   You gain a +2 bonus to (choose 1) COM/attack checks or rolls to determine damage.
   
   
4. Martial (permanent)
   You gain a permanent bonus of +1 COM.
   
   
5. Plant commander (standard)
   Burn d6 -dWIL GRT, minimum 1: you can speak to plants for a number of rounds equal to your level. Most plants have only the dimmest understanding of what the hell you’re on about, unless you’re on about is water or sunlight. You can command the plants to do whatever you like. Granted, most plants are very slow… They can, however, “watch out,” in their way, for specified entities/events in the area. Alternatively, they can produce food edible by locals, or grow into a bridge. This depends partially on the type of plant, but mostly on your directions.
   
   
6. Shaman (permanent)
   You gain a permanent bonus of +1 WIL.

Human (political ape)

Fortunately or not, humans are everywhere. Is the current cohort of humans continuous with those who discovered the Ways of Wires, in the Times Before? Or were these humans’ now-forgotten ancestors printed deep underground by the Genespasm Autochronarch (that rascal!) to fulfill some nefarious planetary-scale purpose?

Human powers (choose 2)

1. Born to die (passive)
   Each time you lose 6 or more HEA, you gain 2 GRT. This power can increase your GRT beyond your normal maximum.
   
   
2. Free of fate (permanent)
   You gain a bonus of +1 to a score of your choice.
   
   
3. Political (passive)
   You gain 1 talent related to your social world, granting you advantage on a specific check. E.g., if your parents were mush-dairy farmers, perhaps you gain advantage on checks related to all-things-dairy (regardless of the scores involved) or on checks related to marketing, negotiating, and running a business (a useful subset of CHA/control checks). Be specific.
   
   
4. Protagonistic (permanent)
   You gain a permanent bonus of (choose 1) +6 maximum HEA or +4 maximum GRT.

Monkgrel (mutant shrew-bear)

The gigantic, vaguely mammalian, permanently depressed humanoids were created millions of years in the dying-earth future by the Yellow Monks. Any monkgrels around “today” are “inquisitors” who have been sent “back” to slay “dæmons”—aliens, robots, or other malefactors who are destined to harm humanity’s fragile future.

Of course, what counts as a dæmon is subject to the discretion of each individual inquisitor. And time travel, of course, has the nasty tendency to cause severe amnesia, meaning no monkgrel really remembers what it is they were sent “back” to do exactly…

Monkgrel powers (gain all)

1. Claws and bearhug (standard)
   Your unarmed attack inflicts dCOM +dCOM damage. When attacking with your meaty, clawed fists, you may either attack once or burn 3d6 GRT to attack 3 times. If you hit all 3 times, you bearhug and immobilize your opponent. If you dip below 0 GRT, the balance comes out of HEA, but after combat ends, you pass out and cannot be awakened for 20 −your level rounds.
   
   
2. Huge (permanent)
   You gain a permanent bonus of +8 HEA. You gain a +2 bonus  on all COM/grapple checks. You cannot fit into tight spaces and so forth.
   
   
3. Neurosis (passive)
   Whenever you fail a check for any reason, you feel bad about yourself and lose 1 GRT.
   
   

4. Poison resistance (passive)
   You have three very large livers. You gain a +3 bonus on checks related to poison or environmental toxins, blood, drinking, etc. (i.e., WIL/resist world checks).

Monkgrel powers (choose 2)

1. Knock knock (passive)
   You are unafraid of ancient, terrifying places. You gain a +1 bonus on WIL/perceive, WIL/resist other, and WIL/resist world checks when investigating ruins.
   
   
2. Pasthaunted (passive)
   You gain a +3 bonus on WIL/resist other checks, because you will not go back to that dark time of the ancestors. You suffer a −3 penalty, however, on CHA/intimidate checks.
   
   
3. Skinshift (standard)
   You molt your skin and alter your appearance. Once per day, for 3 GRT, you may switch your dCHA and dWIL scores, including bonuses. This shift is permanent until you shift them back.
   
   
4. Sorrowcobbler (standard)
   Burn d4 GRT and touch someone else: you may convert X of your GRT into X GRT for them. This removes the GRT from you. It also hurts like hell.
   
   
5. Wytchsight (standard)
   Whenever you suspect the Weird at work, you may burn 1 GRT and make a WIL/perceive check. If successful, the GM must reveal what Weirdness is going on, even if it is otherwise cloaked. This is not a passive power: you must call out your suspicions of Weirdplay.

Salt elf (crystal person)

The tiny, translucent “aliens” called salt elves were perhaps once humans or the informatic creations of humans. They no longer recall how or why they machined their crystalline bodies to resemble human dolls, childlike in size. They teach that, among the most distant stars, their (unmachined) people still watch them, waiting for them to return.

Salt elf powers (gain all)

1. Crystallorganic (permanent)
   You are informatic, not biological. You don’t have to breathe air, eat, or drink. You can briefly withstand the wild temperature and pressure swings of the vacuum of space (for a number of rounds equal to your max WIL). You also do not require visible light in order to see. You run on solar power, however, and must meditate (power down) for 3 hours out of 24.
   
   
2. Hyperrational (passive)
   You are overly direct and cannot lie effectively. (This does not impede your ability to empathize.) You make all CHA/control checks involving deception with disadvantage. Lying by omission doesn’t count!
   
   
3. Uncanny valley (special)
   To non-salt elves, you are creepy (being a living doll-child-machine) and therefore suspicious. Anyone searching for a wrongdoer in your area automatically assumes you are involved.

Salt elf powers (choose 2)

1. Electromagnetic barrier (free)
   You can burn 2 GRT to generate an imperfect 1-millimeter-thick EM force field around your body. This gives you DR 3 against all non-Weird attacks. The EM barrier lasts dMOV (your MOV) rounds. Electronic devices on your person cease to function while the EM barrier is in effect; these are not permanently damaged, however.
   
   
2. Irrationally designed (permanent)
   You gain a permanent bonus of +1 WIL. You cannot choose both this power and rationally designed.
   
   
3. Rationally designed (permanent)
   You gain a permanent bonus of +1 REA. You cannot choose both this power and irrationally designed.
   
   
4. Technoprivileged (item) – Choose 1:
   - You begin play with a shitty scanner-rotor-thing. This allows you to open any door by making a 7+ REA/use tech check. You can only use your scanner-thing to open doors, nothing else.
   - You begin play with a shitty laser-wrench-thing. This allows you to fix any broken vehicle by making a 7+ REA/use tech check. You can only use your wrench-thing to fix vehicles, nothing else.
   
   
5. Triage subroutine (standard)
   You have ancient biomedical programming and a number of delicate servos that emerge from your forearms to aid you in an impromptu operating room: you can burn 1 GRT to heal a biological person dREA (your REA) HEA. This power does not work on fellow informatics, and you can only use this power once per day on a given patient.
   
   
6. X-ray vision (permanent)
   You can see through solid matter—up to 5 cm of metal or cerasteel, 30 cm of stone, and 1 M of wood or dirt. Thicker substances or thin layers of lead block your vision. X-ray vision has a maximum range of 10 M and allows you to see as if you were looking at something in normal light, even if there is no illumination. You lose 2 HEA permanently.

Designing species

• A given non-human species can have many wild powers related to its physical features.
• Be careful, however, when creating powers related to culture: you don’t want to err on the side of bioessentialism, meaning reducing the cultures of intelligent peoples to their physical features..
• You can generally set 1–2 useful powers and 0–1 drawbacks as given due to the species’ physical features. Informatic species, for example, generally gain environmental resistance and don’t need to eat. Their drawbacks (even if minor) balance out these “free” useful powers.
• Offer 2 more powers as options from a list of however many you like. These can include permanent bonuses to scores or pool as well as specific abilities.

Species design in Stillfleet In Stillfleet, you can play as various biological sapients such as humans and wetans (giant spiky cricket-like insectoids), as well as various informatic sapients such as pepper elves (smoky quartz automata) and aux (powerful hard drives with little or no mobility of their own). You can also play as extremely strange aliens such as the hrijn (beings who see themselves as massless mathematical abstractions but appear to the other characters as bodiless elephantine legs) or even exiled void elves (miniature, extremely advanced posthumans)…

Advancement

Gaining levels

In the Grit System, character advancement is tied to the narrative. Whenever you complete an adventure and return home, you gain 1 level. This may take several sessions, and “an adventure” may actually consist of 2–4 discrete sections. A good rule of thumb is that characters should level up every 4 sessions or so.

For a faster campaign, however, your group can decide that PCs gain 1 level after every 1 IRL game session, regardless of what’s going on in the plot.

When you gain a level, you gain 2 major benefits:

1. You gain 6 pool to distribute as you like between HEA and GRT.
2. You gain 1 power. This can be a class power you didn’t already choose or an advanced power (see below).

Instead of gaining a new class power or an advanced power, if your group allows it, you may multiclass and choose 1 power from another class. If you do this, however, you must give up 1 of your existing powers. (At least for now—you could choose it again next level.) This represents the cognitive burden of “switchtasking,” or changing careers in the middle of your epic science-fantasy adventures.

Finally, if your character advances to level 10 or greater—even if they are not a wytch—you may choose 1 Weird power (see below) instead of a new class power or an advanced power. But remember: tapping into the Weird comes with drawbacks.

Advanced powers

Advanced powers are broadly useful abilities that aren’t tied to specific classes. They may be grouped thematically into different lists (combat-oriented powers, social powers, survival powers, etc.), or not.

Example advanced powers (d12)

1. Become ronin (passive)
   When doing any dirty work for anybody (that is, adventuring), you get paid 200% without having to make a CHA check to haggle. You are a trusted expert… and a bête noire. Your own bosses are frightened of you.
   
   
2. Chain attack (free)
   If you take down a target—that is, kill, reduce to 0 HEA, incapacitate—you can immediately burn 2 GRT to make another attack on that same turn against a new foe in close range.
   
   
3. Disarm (standard)
   Burn 5 GRT: you disarm 1 target in close range. They cannot resist except by using Weird powers.
   
   
4. Explode (free)
   When you roll the maximum value on a damage die, you can burn 1 GRT to roll again, adding the new result to the total damage. This can go on as long as you continue to burn 1 GRT per roll and get the maximum value on the given die.
   
   
5. Enshroud (passive)
   Burn 1 GRT: nanites exude from your skin, interacting with light in strange ways: you gain +3 to a MOV/sneak check. This power may be taken multiple times. Note, this is a passive power: you cannot turn it off; it happens whenever you roll to sneak.
   
   
6. Fence (free)
   You can hide and move around any small object (up to 5 Kg) without detection, save by Weird means. No snooping can discover what you’ve hidden. You can keep these items on you or nearby, or you can tell the GM where you’ve hidden them. If you leave without retrieving them, they don’t teleport to you.
   
   
7. Lighten the mood (passive)
   You gain +dCHA GRT every time you tell a joke, in-character, that makes another player, IRL, laugh. You must remember to call out this power immediately in order to receive the GRT; the other players have final discretion as to what counts as a “laugh” but should judge liberally. GRT gained in this way can exceed your typical maximum.
   
   
8. Make whole (free)
   Burn 3 GRT: you gain 1 HEA.
   
   
9. Maximize (free)
   Burn 2 GRT before you attack: if you hit, you inflict maximum damage.
   
   
10. Parasitize (standard)
    Touch a sapient entity: they lose GRT equal to your level. You gain this GRT. No check is required, but the entity can resist, in which case you must successfully roll to attack (unarmed). In this case, the entity feels pain when you touch them. If the entity is instead willing (perhaps a friend), they feel no pain.
    
    
11. Scratch (free)
    Burn Xd3 GRT: for the next X rounds, your nails extend into cerasteel-hard red claws that inflict d6+X damage and ignore DR X. The bones in your hands throb with a dull ache.
    
    
12. Wild boost (free)
    When you aren’t sure if you will succeed at an important check, you may call for a wild boost. Roll normally. If the result is a 1, you fail. Any other result is a success, but you automatically burn GRT equal to the difference between the difficulty of the check and your result. So if the difficulty was 6 and you wild-boosted and rolled a 4, then you burn 2 GRT. If the difficulty was 15, for a monumental task, and you rolled a 2, then you burn 13 GRT. If you don’t have sufficient GRT, you burn HEA at a ratio of 3 HEA per 1 GRT. If you run out of both HEA and GRT, you succeed at this single check and then have an aneurysm (or vegetal or informatic equivalent) and die.

Designing advanced powers

• Advanced powers can be thought of in terms of game function, which can be more cross-cutting than a professional skill set (that is, a group of powers defining a class).
• Functions can include, for example: using items, navigating cyber- and physical spaces, socializing, meta-gaming, and fighting.
• You can also dream up advanced powers by focusing on game mechanics you’re interested in.
• Mechanics can include, for example: rolling dice, drawing cards (or even playing a hand of poker), arranging dominoes, voting on narrative outcomes, initiating mini-games, singing, painting, or writing haiku with refrigerator magnets.

The Weird

Ways to interpret Weirdness

The worlds of games have their rules regarding physics. The Weird in the Grit System signals a set of side rules that are optional (because perhaps no one is playing a “caster,” and no plot-relevant NPCs use magic), powerful (because otherwise they might as well be ordinary powers), and game-logic-defying (because they are, well—weird, as in unexpected, strange, mysterious to the people who live in the world of the game).

However it functions in your game, the Weird brings with it a Weird drawback of some kind: social stigma, physical corruption, or a slow descent into madness… In game terms, a Weird drawback is an ongoing negative power that gets slightly worse every time the character uses the Weird.

Weird powers

Weird powers are strange, potent, and game-logic-defying abilities that only a small subset of characters have access to.

Example Weird powers (d20)

1. Ætherspeak (standard)
   Burn X GRT, minimum 2: you connect X minds together telepathically for your level +X minutes. These minds can communicate regardless of language. They needn’t be intelligent, but they must have a brain. (I.e., while you can get a sense of what a beast is thinking—and the conversation will feel extremely chaotic—you can’t talk to a lump of metal.)
   
   
2. Alluring (standard/ongoing)
   When you flirt or tease, others cannot act without passing a WIL/resist other check whose difficulty equals 5 +your level. You cannot take other actions while capturing attention, but this makes a great distraction and costs no GRT.
   
   
3. Arcanofusil (standard)
   Burn 2 GRT: you shoot an intense hail of tiny needles at a target. You gain +2 to hit on the attack check, and the resulting damage is d6 HEA. If you successfully hit your target, you can spend an additional 4 GRT afterward to inflict an additional d6 HEA. Using this power makes your skin itch intensely or blood fly from your nose (e.g.—it’s not discreet).
   
   
4. Augur (10-minute)
   Burn 10 −dREA GRT, minimum 2, and 2 HEA: ask any answerable (short) question. At the end of the round, after everyone else in initiative has acted, the nameless things whom you contacted reply with the answer. This answer may be vague, depending on the question, but will not be malicious, a lie, or incomplete.
   
   
5. Body of wind (free)
   Burn 4 GRT: for the next number of rounds equal to your level, you cannot be harmed by physical attacks unless an attacker makes an attack check of 9+.
   
   
6. Cloak (standard)
   Burn 5 GRT: you become invisible to non-Weird detection for a number of minutes equal to 5 +your level. As long as you are reasonably quiet, you are able to sneak around undetected. As soon as you attack or otherwise reveal your location, the cloaking is no longer as effective, but continues to give you a +3 bonus to  MOV/sneak checks and +1 to MOV/dodge checks. You cannot use other Weird powers while cloaked.
   
   
7. Curse (standard)
   Burn 8 GRT, name 1 target, and choose a type of curse, either withering or draining: whenever the target rolls a 1, they either lose 8 HEA (withering) or lose 6 GRT, 3 of which flows back to you (draining). This happens a number of times equal to dWIL (your WIL). If the target suspects they have been cursed, they can make a 9+ WIL/resist other check to find a loophole and end it.
   
   
8. Dance (standard)
   You create an eldritch link with a weapon. Burn 6 GRT: you send it out to fight on its own, floating, needing no further guidance from you. You can cancel the dancing at any time; otherwise, it lasts until combat ends. The weapon can be targeted and destroyed but is difficult to hit: its MOV die is a d20; it has HEA equal to your level +2. It attacks using your COM.
   
   
9. Defy death (passive)
   10 minutes after you are killed you come back to life with dWIL HEA. Each time this power activates, choose: either your MOV or WIL permanently lowers by 1 die type. If both your MOV and WIL are d4s when you die, defy death stops working, and you don’t come back.
   
   
10. Glisten (standard)
    Burn 10 GRT and roll COM to grab an opponent within close range: you overcharge the natural field of electromagnetic energy around your body and then direct it to flow onto this opponent, inflicting 6d6 HEA in a single successful touch attack. If you miss your attack roll, you and your target both suffer 3d6 HEA instead.
    
    
11. Puppet (standard)
    Burn 2d8 GRT: you completely control 1 target for a number of hours equal to your level. You must concentrate on puppeting your target once you begin, meaning you can’t attack or use other Weird powers while doing so. If you try to have the target harm themself, they roll WIL against your CHA to resist.
    
    
12. Reanimate (standard)
    Burn 12X GRT: you bring back 1 person from the dead for X hours. The target feels melancholic and fuzzy but otherwise like they did in life. They do, however, reek no matter how or how often they cleanse their body. And they do not want to be alive this way. They can remember only bits and pieces of their former life, and each memory hurts like a thousand burning daggers.
    
    
13. Slip (standard)
    Burn 3, 6, or 9 GRT: without moving, you travel a short distance—up to near, far, or beyond range, depending on how much GRT you burn. You must be able to see the arrival point each time you slip.
    
    
14. Skinwalk (2-round)
    Choose 1 beast-form. Burn 2d6 GRT to transform into this beast, if you are presently in human form, or back into a human guise, if a beast. While a beast, you cannot speak or use the Weird. You remain a beast as long as you like. As a beast, you can either fly, breathe water, become very small and fast (increasing your MOV die by 2 types), or become fearsome and huge (increasing your COM by 1 die type and granting DR 2).
    
    
15. Spawn hedgeward (standard)
    Burn 3, 6, or 9 GRT: you cause large, thorny plants to spring to life in a cylindrical wall all around you. As long as you don’t move away from them, the plants function as sharp armor, granting you damage reduction (DR) 1, 2, or 3. In addition, the round they appear, they inflict d4, d6, or d8 damage on all hostile beings within close, near, or far range of you (you can specify allies to be left alone). The plants are real and permanent. They are also edible, if bitter.
    
    
16. Summon the horde (standard)
    Burn 5 GRT: you summon a swarm of rats, giant beetles, or other locally appropriate vermin. The swarm protects you for a number of rounds equal to dCHA (your CHA) +your level, absorbing 3 HEA of damage that would otherwise hurt you each round. In addition, anyone attacking you at close range suffers innumerable bites and scratches, e.g.; they lose a number of HEA equal to your level each time they attack you as long as the horde remains.
    
    
17. Terrify (standard)
    Burn 8 GRT: you seriously scare 1 person for a number of hours equal to your level. Terrified beings are reduced to basic survival instincts. If a terrified being attempts to do anything except flee, they suffer disadvantage on every roll. Moreover, they actively run away from you. To affect multiple targets, burn 6 +X GRT: you terrify X people for a number of rounds (not hours) equal to your level +X.
    
    
18. Touch dream (standard)
    Burn 2 GRT and roll REA: if you succeed, you pull any object that can fit in your hand out of thin air. It cannot be worth more in the local currency than your level times 10, but it can appear to be worth twice that. If you fail, you accidentally pull something bad into the world… Choose whether this immediately harms you for 2d8 HEA or is a narrative problem (potentially more harmful but not immediately, physically so).
    
    
19. Trade eyes (standard)
    Burn d20 GRT: you swap your entire mind with someone else’s for a number of days equal to or less than your level. You can make the swap permanent by killing the swappee within this time. The target can resist (WIL vs. CHA) unless you are directly touching them. Note, your scores and GRT follow you (they are in your mind, at least to some high degree), but you inherit the temporary and maximum HEA of the target’s body. You can end this power early, but doing so costs you d12 GRT. Each time you trade eyes, you must pass a WIL check or else lose d10 HEA from exhaustion (physical, mental, philosophical).
    
    
20. Weirdlock (passive)
    Once per session, when you roll a natural 1 on any die, for any reason, you shoot somebody. Even if you don’t have a gun on you—you find a damn gun and shoot, no roll to hit needed. If you don’t have a gun on you, you inflict 2d6 HEA. Note, if there is no one around you want to shoot, you must shoot either an ally or a valuable object. If you’re alone in the woods, e.g., you shoot a tree. After this happens once in a session, it doesn’t happen again (GM’s discretion).

Example Weird drawbacks (d12)

1. Bright blue mucous constantly drips from a facial orifice of your choice.
2. Every syllable you utter is backed by an obnoxious tritone sound.
3. A region of your skin glows a dull orange whenever you’re aroused.
4. A rich merchant-laird wants you to work for her, against your own paymasters and the interests of your party…
5. A rival wytch—more advanced in the Weird arts than you—wants you dead.
6. Whenever you laugh, swarms of tiny black sugar ants spawn on whatever surface you’re touching with your (d3): buttocks, feet, hands.
7. You sweat petrol.
8. Your eyes glow red.
9. Your farts smell increasingly sharply of (d4): lemon oil, cinnamon, black pepper, rancid fish.
10. Your own family despises you.
11. Your skin yellows and becomes glossy or waxy.
12. Your teeth blacken; if you don’t have teeth, some other body part inverts in color.

Designing Weird powers

• Weird powers defy the physical logic of a game. In many games, the Weird corresponds to “spells” or “psionics”—both of which provide plenty of fodder for conversion into narrative-focused powers.
• In many games, it makes sense to group Weird powers thematically into lists by function (illusion vs. telepathy) or provenance (“dreamfound” vs. “booklearned”).
• Weird powers can be one-off point effects (major changes that happen once) or ongoing effects.
• In general, Weird things should be related mechanically to the mental scores (REA, WIL, and CHA), not the physical ones.
• For some groups, mind control powers, or powers that take away player agency, aren’t fun. Make sure your group is aligned on boundaries when it comes to the Weird.
• Time travel can be a fun narrative function to explore via the Weird… but it can also seriously throw off the arc of a given plot. GMs, allow time travel (ditto, resurrection) at your own risk.

Weirdness in The Sometimes Kingdom The high-fantasy magic system of The Sometimes Kingdom RPG doesn’t use discrete Weird powers: instead, players get spell words that can be combined to forge unique spells. The more GRT used in casting a given spell, the stronger its effect!

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