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Nat19's Trial of Heroes Handbook (5th Edition)

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Nat19's Trial of Heroes Handbook (5th Edition)

From

Logan Laidlaw

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PDF

$29.99

An ancient ritual occurs, where seven magicians call upon the power of The Key of Truth, a magical artifact that can interfere with the weave and grant wishes to those who properly allow it to manifest in the world. In response to its summons, the Key of Truth sets out a trial for the invoking mages: each must summon forth a hero from the past, an Epic Phantom in the form of a Guardian, and do battle with one another over this sacred relic. The mage and Guardian who survives and comes out on top will be granted a powerful wish from the Key of Truth, unlike any sort of wish known before it. This guide helps a DM construct a Trial of Heroes within their setting, granting them the tools to understand the artifact and construct a possibly exhilarating storyline around the struggles of these magicians.

This content is meant for 7th-12th level play, but can be repurposed for other levels and adapted to different structures.

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Table of Contents

I. The Trial of Heroes
II. Considerations of the Trial
III. Keepers
IV. Dire Phantoms
V. Guardian Classes
- Knight Class: Bowman
- Knight Class: Spearman
- Knight Class: Blademan
- Cavalry Class: Slayer
- Cavalry Class: Fury
- Cavalry Class: Magician
- Cavalry Class: Horseman
- Extra Class: Twisted
- Extra Class: Bulwark
- Extra Class: Temptress
- Extra Class: Lawyer
VI. Guardian Skills
- Class Skills (14 Skills)
- Personal Skills (21 Skills)
VII. Factions and Concepts
- The Trial of Heroes
- Mechanics of the Key
- Thaumaturgy
- The Holy Order
- The Magician's Court
VIII. Setting Up your Trial of Heroes
IX. Extra Rules and Content

Apart from offering the tools to run a tournament-style battle between Guardians, this content is meant to aid in world-building, campaign planning, and character creation. It offers suggestions coming from a place of having run a decade of Trial of Heroes-style games and provides the mechanical tools to properly construct your own content. There’s no one certain way to make Guardians, but there are guiding principles that can make it a whole lot easier! Specific mechanics for handling summoning rituals, Rites of Compulsion, Guardian/Keeper contracts, how Guardians function normally with and without Keepers, family crests, and generating character ideas are provided. Tables for sparking ideas about conflicts, the methods of enemy Keepers, and motivations behind those who wish to achieve a wish on the Key of Truth help to seed ideas to get you started.

Future expansions are intended for this series, including expanded lists of skills, for example, Crystal Armaments, possible full Guardians builds that are both new and used in Nat19's streams, item and materials lists, other classes, parody classes like beach or space Guardians, etc.

These games are streamed on Twitch at 1 PM PST every Saturday on the Nat19Official channel. We run various games, but if you’d like to come to see the team behind this content in action then please come join us!

Trial of Heroes [BUNDLE]

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Reviews (6)

Discussions (18)

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KIERAN R January 22, 2024 6:50 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Extremely excited to make use of this, though I’m a little unsure about a certain aspect of encounter building, that being accounting for Servants when it comes to the XP difficulty thresholds of the party. Should I generally count the servants as a few levels higher, or are there other methods someone might recommend to account for them when building random encounters that don’t involve enemy masters/keepers or servants/guardians?

Dante B March 08, 2023 7:20 pm UTC

PURCHASER

I've loved the systems in place for creating guardians, though i've run into an unusual complication.

Are there any bonuses Guardians gain to their armor class aside from their dexterity and class bonus?

Using an example i've run into - a guardian with A ranked dexterity and a C ranked dagger, summoned at lv 15 after summoning bonuses. Their bonus to attack is 7+6+5 = +18. Compare this to the AC of most guardians i've created so far, which seems to hover right around 23, it would mean that any roll of 6 or higher would hit. Even if the guardian can be considered somewhat higher-end given an A ranked stat, this still means that almost 3/4 of all of their attacks will hit the average guardian.

Should guardians only really be able to miss their attack on lower-end rolls against other guardians, or should AC be a more common issue and i've simply misunderstood some part of AC calculation? Both options seem reasonable. given the portrayal of guardian combat in the series, so i'd...See more

James L August 15, 2022 7:35 am UTC

PURCHASER

Minor Question, how would you handle reality marbles for the guardian classes? (Mainly out of curiosity as you've already covered mystic eyes as a guardian ability, and I'm mostly curious on handling a guardian class based off the concept... in particular a certain bowman or horseman who possess this ability?)

Logan L January 06, 2023 6:30 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Reality Marbles aren't always as dramatic as we often see in relevant media, so my answer would be, unfortunately, a tad less than exciting. That said, I plan to include a section on RM's when I eventually release a sequel, so to avoid contradicting myself in the future, I'm going to refrain from answering until then.

James L January 07, 2023 9:43 am UTC

PURCHASER

No worries, thank you for the reply though :)

Ian T July 07, 2022 12:57 am UTC

PURCHASER

enjoying this thoroughly, I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out whether or not the masters and servants are the same level or if the servant should start out ahead by a bit. it says that they should lvl up corresponding to the master but it also shows skills for the servant that go beyond lvl 20, is there like a rule of thumb to use for how far ahead a servant should be from there master?

Logan L July 27, 2022 6:31 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

The summoning system indicates how many HD they should have in relation to their master. Levels go up to 30 because many tables have epic level rules, ours included, and I wanted to accommodate those. The most common of these is that classes only go up to level 20, but multiclassing can take you to 30.

Jade C May 13, 2022 12:11 am UTC

PURCHASER

Heya! Any further updates on the 2nd handbook?

Micah M April 22, 2022 12:35 am UTC

PURCHASER

I absolutely love the book and have started working on a campaign. I did notice however that the Fury references the Mad Enhancement skill adding a possible bonus to their Frightful Presence feature, but Mad Enhancement doesn't have any such bonus. In lieu of an actual bonus I've been adding the skill rank modifier as the bonus which works but it would have been nice to see some other bonuses included in the Mad Enhancement skill, both an actual number to use or other buffs.

Logan L June 21, 2022 3:34 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Heyo! Sorry I didn't see this earlier. The bonus being reference is based on the graded rank (pg32, Building a Skill) which you can apply if you wish to by referencing the rank of Madness Enhancement. I don't bake that into it however because it can lead to the DC being unreasonably high, so it's on the designer to decide if that's a nessesary element to add. If the servant's madness doesn't lend itself to any context that would cause crippling fear, I wouldn't add it.

Noah M March 14, 2022 10:53 pm UTC

PURCHASER

When making the Guardians with skills like Mad Enhancement or Divinity, should we calculate that into the base stats or add it afterwards (I assume it maxes out at A-Rank since EX is reserved for special circumstances)?

Example: A Fury that I wanted to have B-STR and B-CON, and a Mad Enhancement of B-Rank, would I pump him up to A's or set the base stats at C-Rank and then they become B's after the skill is applied?

Logan L June 21, 2022 3:39 am UTC

PUBLISHER

It's all somewhat retroactive since the building process requires a lot of artistic and creative decisions. Generally, they should be factored into the concept of the result: a demigod known for their overwhelming strength would likely have an A rank in Strength, but you would rationalize that as something they probably need their Divinity for (supposing they have an A rank). Ergo, you would imagine that without it (or if confronted with something that ignores it) they would effectively be two ranks lower. It's sometimes difficult to think of Divinity as outside the creature's core specs because it's an inherent part of them. Remember that skills are there to explain and rationalize the state of the hero during their lifetime, they *aren't* power-ups granted when they're summoned.

Madness Enhancement is a bit more straightforward. You need to figure out what their base stats would normally be, then adjust them based on their MA rank. MA is one of the few cases where it modifies them since it imposes...See more

Matthew E September 19, 2021 10:38 pm UTC

PURCHASER

why is the slayers sneak attack worse than the normal version of sneak attack?

Noah M March 14, 2022 10:49 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Probably due to the increased crit range and the additional three damage dice added.

Logan L June 21, 2022 3:42 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Because they roll 3 extra damage die, their critical hit range is much larger and due to how damage from guardians works in regards to fate damage, a regular rogue's attacks would do half damage to a guardian whereas this sneak attack would do full damage. Creatures that are resistant to all non-fate damage and also deal fate damage effectively deal twice as much damage when combating guardians, which is their core purpose.

Jade C July 20, 2021 10:38 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Is there any update one when the next handbook for this is going to come out?

Logan L September 04, 2021 9:33 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Tentatively sometime in 2022, after our next campaign is well underway. Production on it has increased massively in scale since last year. It's going to be many times larger than the first book.

Christian B January 16, 2021 3:48 am UTC

PURCHASER

Working on running my first and I'm a little confused on how guardian AC bonus's act, do I just add it to pre-existing AC or is it some form of unarmored AC formula I'm accidentally ignoring and skipping over?

Logan L February 04, 2021 7:38 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

They receive it as a bonus to AC. It's relatively straight-forward.

Niall C October 25, 2020 2:00 pm UTC

PURCHASER

This book is incredibly well-written and thought out. Absolute kudos to yourself for writing it! Cannot wait to find a group to be able to play this with :D

ethan S August 18, 2020 9:37 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Love the book been waiting a long time for this but it seems like the temptress class skill is missing from the class skill list.

Logan L August 31, 2020 3:47 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Please reference the version available through the PDFs download link.

Matthew P August 10, 2020 5:00 am UTC

PURCHASER

Not gonna lie, this has been a much awaited thing for me. Been a fan of the streams ever since I first started watching the Typemoon campaign a while back, and I was always pretty curious about the inner workings of the homebrew you used for it especially when Servants really started coming into the picture. Getting the chance to finally read through this got my DM brain excited to try out my own holy grail war.

Hat's off to you, my dude.

Robert S July 26, 2020 11:31 pm UTC

$30 for a 55 page PDF seems outrageously expensive. Most titles charging that are around 300 pages, at a minimum 175 - 200.

Logan L July 27, 2020 6:48 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

Apologies if that seems overly expensive. The price represents the time and resources moved from our regular work to make it, including artwork included inside the book and time taken away from other avenues of work to make it. The price may go down in the future but currently we feel it's appropriate.