Ite's FF7 D&D Variant

[Ite]

As a parting gift for this crazy year, I have the latest update for the Book of Materia. This one is a doozy. Introducing:

WEAPONS, ARMOR, & MATERIA SLOTS

After lots of playtesting and listening to your feedback, I've created a weapon and armor system to complement the materia for 5e. Not only is this more in line with FF7's mechanics/aesthetics, it also really easily allows for you to introduce materia into a pre-existing D&D setting without upending the whole world. It's what I've done for my D&D setting, and now my players regularly play with materia in my home game.

What has changed? The base rules have been changed in the following way:
- You no longer attune to materia directly. Instead, you attune to materia slots - items which take up normal attunement slots - furthermore, they are attuned to over a short rest as normal, rather than one minute.
- The mage-at-arms subclass is now obsolete, and is cut
- Materia no longer impact your Max HP or MP, it was a lot of fuss for no tangible impact
- The XP that materia gains is now called AP, there is now optional variants for folks who want to milestone level or skip materia growth altogether.

Wait, so I can only attune to 3 materia now? Well, not quite. You can expand the number of materia you can attune to by using the weapon and armor system. In fact, using this system, you can potentially attune to 17 materia - that's one more than in the original FF7! (Imagine if you could use one extra materia instead of an Accessory, and you get the idea). Perfect for the erudite slum dweller who wants to put a 'useless' materia in her hairtie.

What comes next? I'm going to start another round of playtests in 2023, and I hope to get feedback about this system from y'all as well! Then my plan is to redo the full book with the updated rules and a more setting-neutral approach, cutting modular armor and making the book only about materia. I have no plans to continue the bestiary any time soon, because all that's left are basically end-game enemies and my time is better spent on other parts of the project, like properly addressing the recharge times of blue and red materia.

Happy 2023!

 

[tamsynnimogen]

thanks for the update im not 100% sure if i understand the milestone optional rule

does it mean that the dm just informs the player when their materia levels up or is it that when players level up then materia gain that amount of ap and level up accordingly or something else?

 

[Ite]

Basically the DM would inform the players if a materia levels up, similar to regular milestone levelling or Matt Mercer’s “awakened” items. DMs decide when each materia has earned the right to get to the next star rating.

So, if a fire materia is used a bunch of times in a campaign — or if it’s just been equipped for a while (DM choice) a DM will say “Hey that fire materia levels up.”

Since I don’t use milestone myself, I don’t imagine that this option is going to be elegant or fun. It puts a lot of extra work on the DM — more work than regular milestone levelling, and more opportunities to fuck up. It will cause problems. This system simply wasn’t designed to have its corners cut in the same way as the 5e character progression system. It comes from my 2e tradition and FF7, which are inherently more complex and number-heavy. I’ll try and make the round hole a bit more square with some guidance:

Star-ratings aren’t uniform, for example: a two-star charm materia requires 300 AP and a two-star comet materia requires 225,000 AP. The guidance I can provide doesn’t come from personal playtesting, just conjecture.

Most if not all AP requirements for materia are equal to XP requirements for character levels. Looking at the charm materia, its 300 AP req is the same as the 300 XP that it takes for a Lv 1 character to reach Lv 2 (the level that a sorcerer might choose to learn the spell charm person). Similarly, the 225,000 AP to learn cometa reflects character level 17, which is when a wizard is able to learn the D&D equivalent spell meteor swarm.

So, when a DM is about to award a milestone level to the party, they will look at the materia in play, compare the AP requirements to whatever level they are awarding, and level up those materia. So if a character has been toting around a comet materia since level 1, it can be expected to gain its second star when that character reaches level 17.

The tricky part is when players buy, find, or ‘give birth to’ new materia during a campaign. If players are level 13 and they get new charm and comet materia, the DM is likely to level the charm up two sessions in a row, while perhaps never levelling up the comet for the whole campaign.

That mental math falls on the DM. Best of luck!

Edit: I suppose the nice thing about milestone levelling is that there *aren’t* strict rules on numbers, so perhaps the solution wouldn’t be to try and emulate the XP/AP system using mental math, but rather approach it with a more blasé generosity! If a DM decides that the characters are ready to have access to firaga, then they will give that fire materia its third star. Is that more similar to how milestone DMs approach character growth? I don’t really know

 

[tamsynnimogen]

yh basically milestone leveling is a tool to allow the campaign to progress smoothly the dm can decide when to level the players so that the the story can progress without the dm having to worry if theyve levelled up too fast or too slow (also helps to prevent murder hobos just to get xp)
i gathered during milestone in the same way that characters do milestone wouldnt really help since you could swap out materias. in my games we tend to do a combo method of milestone for the players and a sortta ap for the materia were the players spend their magic dice (roll all the magic dice and x10 for total gained ap) on a long rest to gain ap for their materia equipped. its not perfect but at least in our games seems to work ok enough

 

[Ite]

yh basically milestone leveling is a tool to allow the campaign to progress smoothly the dm can decide when to level the players so that the the story can progress without the dm having to worry if theyve levelled up too fast or too slow (also helps to prevent murder hobos just to get xp)
i gathered during milestone in the same way that characters do milestone wouldnt really help since you could swap out materias. in my games we tend to do a combo method of milestone for the players and a sortta ap for the materia were the players spend their magic dice (roll all the magic dice and x10 for total gained ap) on a long rest to gain ap for their materia equipped. its not perfect but at least in our games seems to work ok enough

That’s an awesome solution! Would it be okay if I included that in the next update? I’ll credit you of course

 

[tamsynnimogen]

yh sure

 

[tamsynnimogen]

because we also use this with normal dnd races and classes we modified the everyone is magical section to be more inline with the spellcasting classes and made some in our opinion balancing changes

Everyone is Magical
In addition to normal class features, every PC now has magic
points (like hit points), a spell save DC, and a spell attack
modifier (non arcane classes spellcasting ability is Wisdom).
All PCs also have something called a magic bonus.
Spell Save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus +
your Ability Score modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus +
your Ability Score modifier



Magic Bonus
Materia effects combine the innate power of the crystal with
your own life force. Sometimes, determining the amount of
damage, healing, or the length of a spell's duration will
require you to add or multiply your magic bonus (MB). Each
PC has a unique magic bonus that is calculated thusly:
MB = your Ability Score modifier + your total level



Magic Points
Sometimes, using a spell's ability requires you to spend
magic points (MP). These are representative of your
character's magical stamina.
Each PC develops magic points (MP) as they level up. You
spend MP when you use certain spell effects (such as the fire
spell.) You regain MP as you would HP, expending magic dice
on a short rest and replenishing your magic dice on a long
rest.
Magic Dice: 1 per level
Magic Points at 1st Level: Max roll + your Ability Score
modifier
Magic Points at Higher Levels: Magic die + your Ability
Score modifier

Hit Dice	Magic Dice
d4	d20
d6	d12
d8	d10
d10	d8
d12	d6
d20	d4

 

[Ite]

because we also use this with normal dnd races and classes we modified the everyone is magical section to be more inline with the spellcasting classes and made some in our opinion balancing changes

That different-MP dice is indeed a great idea! And you've included d4 and d20 for monster stats too! I actually had something almost exactly like this chart in a previous iteration of the system, and I don't know why I removed it (Maybe because I didn't want to dishearted barbarian players? Barret in 7R is a barbarian who is imo the best caster in the game). I think it had to do with multiclassing and keeping track of different types of magic dice for resting purposes. d8 was simpler and kept multiple castings available to all players. I'm not sure I was wrong to yeet it, but let me know how it plays at higher levels

As for allowing materia-based stats to calculate using a magic users in-built casting ability, that is an awesome bit of design that curtails a percieved issue that I think a lot of players would have, which is that clerics and druids are more powerful with spells (on average - especially if there are minmaxers in the game) in a mixed game. I've seen it in my home game too, with non-Wisdom casters finding little use for green materia. I find this development an interesting departure from FF7's, where green was the most common, and now is one of the least seen. But I think your design may truly work better.

Thanks for your feedback as always! I'm so happy to hear about your games and what you're learning with the system. Will defo credit you for that variant. Question: what if a character multi-classes later, and gains spellcasting stats that are better than their Wisdom? Is it a "whichever is higher" type deal? I am also thinking of my players at home, who would dip into a spellcasting class just to boost their materia abilities (this makes things like spellcasting feats really attractive as well). What about racial spellcasting abilities? I would love to let my friend Ryan get his hands on this haha, he loves breaking game mechanics.

Speaking of statblock layouts (lol) if you wanna know where I place the materia-based statistics on a pre-existing monster:



You'll notice that this lil' kobold has absolute shit for magic stats (it's not an official 5e kobold, Hasbro, don't @ me) owing to its abysmal Wisdom score.

The program I use for my DM notes is called Obsidian Notes. The best place to scratch these stats into your Monster Manual (pencil doesn't smudge) is here:

 

[tamsynnimogen]

with the multiclassing when it comes to dice then it works like how multiclassing hit dice work in regards to stats then id prob say which ever is highest of the spellcasting stats or wisdom (we dont have any mixed spellcasters in our group so hasnt came up)

 

[tamsynnimogen]

im not going to be able provide much more feedback as my group is moving away from 5e were either going to be using pathfinder 2e or en publishing level up a5e. im also making my own ttrpg (mainly for fun)

 

[Epsilonis]

Hi!, I've been using this supplement for a bit in my homebrew world. A question on some of the attack materia and others, a lot of it specifies "a target you can see" then says "the creature takes x damage" or in the case of Fire it's "target in range" then "ranged spell attack at target". Are these meant to target only creatures like a lot PHB spells, such as Frostbite and Chromatic Orb, or is it meant to allow them to target objects as well, such as Firebolt where it specifies as such? Thanks for making this Supplement btw!

 

[Ite]

Hi!, I've been using this supplement for a bit in my homebrew world. A question on some of the attack materia and others, a lot of it specifies "a target you can see" then says "the creature takes x damage" or in the case of Fire it's "target in range" then "ranged spell attack at target". Are these meant to target only creatures like a lot PHB spells, such as Frostbite and Chromatic Orb, or is it meant to allow them to target objects as well, such as Firebolt where it specifies as such? Thanks for making this Supplement btw!

Hmmm! Thank you for this feedback! Glad you’re enjoying the supplement! In my home game they are able to use it on objects, and they do to great effect! (One has a lightning materia that they use exclusively to intimidate people lol)

I’ll clean up the language to be more like firebolt, thanks so much!

Edit: here’s the draft language on acid which is probably the more complicated of the lot cause it does residual damage:



Hilariously, this language reminds me of 2e D&D more than 5e.

 

[JeffAndNikki]

Been a while since I was last here. Glad I checked out the update, and saw tamsynnimogen's comment about the everyone is magical change. Pretty sure that's how it used to be, minus the d4 and d20 bit, as well as how to handle the AP situation. I do like what's all there currently!

 

[tamsynnimogen]

are there any updates to this?

 

[Ite]

Materia continues to trickle into my home game. As a quest reward, a silver dragon offered my PCs one materia each. This was a level 14 party but the materia were brand new - the results were quite epic even with one-star materia, the players loved it.

The paladin chose Jump and used it to leap onto an airship during a climactic combat. Since that session I have made small modifications to Jump

Spoiler: New Jump Rules

Jump​

common command materia

As a bonus action, you can use this special Jump ability: you jump 10 feet or you extend a jump by 10 feet. Jump forces you to use the full movement rate of the ability (you cannot only jump 5 feet, for instance) and so you require either the length or the height to allow for the movement. Jump uses your movement speed as normal, possibly ending your turn mid-air. You are immune to falling damage during your Jump movement.

If you make a melee weapon attack immediately at the end of Jump (through your action or by use of the Added Strike materia) you deal an extra 1d6 damage if your first attack hits.

Added Strike is the only support materia that links with Jump.

★★ (2,700 AP) The length of Jump is increased to 20 feet, and the extra damage dealt by the melee attack is increased to 2d6.

★★★ (34,000 AP) Jump 30 feet, extra damage 3d6.

★★★★ (100,000 AP) Jump 40 feet, extra damage 4d6.

★★★★★ (225,000 AP) MASTER, Jump 50 feet, extra damage 5d6.

The other materia chosen were Speak, Copy, Restore, and Cone (which was given to the PC with Restore for a group heal option). All are working as intended.

In another campaign I am running (Level 5 PCs) they faced off against a boss who was using the Speed Plus materia - his defeat put the materia into their hands. Updates as they come

So that's all the updates I have for you. Running the game has definitely taken priority over tinkering with this system, although I am slowly compiling ver. 2.0 Here's a sneak peak as to the basic rule changes (linked slots? carbon bangles? what is this, FF7?)

Spoiler: Updated Materia Slot Rules

Those are the examples given in the Book of Materia - I'm going to leave other items to the imagination of DMs, although the huge list of weapons and armor at the top of this page should provide DMs with more inspiration. I take thorough notes with Obsidian in my home game, here are two of the items worn by PCs:

Worldbuilding-wise, FF7 has a problem. (well, many problems, but this in particular). Mechanically, this materia slot system works better with both 5e and FF7's materia system -- however, the plot of FF7 doesn't always require materia to be slotted in order to use it. I would normally lay the blame on Advent Children, but this also goes back to the Black and White materia in the original FF7. A case could be made for who exactly uses those materia, where they use them, etc. but the fact of the matter is that the game's seemingly hard magic system has a few inconsistencies. This is why the alpha test of The Book of Materia did not require materia slots. Ultimately, however, the slot system feels better and helps streamline the system and integrate it with what's already established in 5e.

No progress has been made on the bestiary or DM's Guide sections - the former hasn't needed me to prioritize it, and the latter is waiting on more feedback from folks like you! As a parting gift, I'll just leave this epic screenshot from Ever Crisis of a katana with three materia slots. I'm definitely going to use this as a placeholder image in ver. 2 (intended to be replaced by original art). On the page that features this art is a handy chart to help players reference their Magic Bonus. Enjoy!

 

[tamsynnimogen]

looking good. just a quick one. if an item requires attunement but also has materia slots is it 1 attunement for the item and 1 for each slot or do you get access to the slots once attuned to the item?

 

[Ite]

looking good. just a quick one. if an item requires attunement but also has materia slots is it 1 attunement for the item and 1 for each slot or do you get access to the slots once attuned to the item?

Great question! Only the 1 attunement is needed (attunement to the item) and then voila! You benefit from any “slots” that are considered part of that item, allowing you to toss in a materia as an action and start using away!

Naturally, this works best with an item that already requires attunement such as a Holy Avenger or a Helm of Brilliance. An item that doesn’t usually require attunement, such as a +1 sword, requires attunement to benefit from its materia slots.

 

[Ite]

Here's a stat block for you

I unleashed this guy just this evening as the boss of a Level 6 adventure in my regular D&D world. Materia is slowly bleeding into my regular setting, and by defeating this guy the party got his materia as the loot - who know what they'll do with it now.

Anyway, this was a thrilling fight. He had some mooks and the PCs had some allies. Normal Level 6 stuff. Before they could get close to our man, he was using Blast-Sphere on the battlefield dealing 13-22 damage to every creature in the AoE. He had 3 charges of Sphere and had enough MP for 15 Blasts, but he only fired two off before the party focused fire on him and he perished. RIP.

Here's the statblock for you to use in your game. You'll have to reference the materia rules, just as you'll have to reference the spell descriptions under his normal spells.

As a side note, (ns) means "No Subclass" - I generally build my bosses using PC rules but I usually skip the subclasses so that I can make them higher level (and higher HP) without overburdening them with abilities or powerful magic. I also have special rules for elves (innate spellcasting is different from vanilla 5e)

 

[Ite]

Two more pics, this time showing you how I go about actually using materia at the table. Whenever I bring one in, I make little cards for the slots and the materia — the materia has abridged explanations on the back (you’d still need the full rules to understand how it works). My players also have card pages (I do this for all magic items) so when they get it I simply hand them the card. They can track AP and star level and everything on these little cards

Spoiler: full images

 

[tamsynnimogen]

been a while since last read the materia rules but looks good

 

[tamsynnimogen]

hows things going with this project?

 

[Ite]

hows things going with this project?

Things are going great. I’ve been playing with materia in my home games using the weapon/armor slot rules and it’s been awesome. Haven’t needed to tweak anything, but I have had to throw more monsters at them haha. The materia is about as powerful as in FF7 (as in, spells will one-hit a basic monster). Keeping track of MP has been touch and go - I’ve been considering dividing all the numbers by 4 and changing the magic die to a d4 instead of a d8, but it’s not a priority.

In terms of publishing updates here, the D&D 2024 rules update has certainly caused a stir! I’ve been looking at Pathfinder, Shadowdark, Tales of the Valiant, LUA5e, and other games to see if there’s anything I want to steal from them. Basically, though, this system is compatible with all of them, or really any system that has the six ability scores, modifiers, and a levelling system.

To that end, I’ve also been thinking about publishing a standalone version using the 5.1 SRD. Obviously copyright concerns aren’t an issue, because I’m more afraid of Square Enix since it’s their IP. But having the game be standalone and not requiring giving any money to WotC would be ideal haha.

Tl;dr - no real updates. Some thoughts on how to improve in the future, but I’m happy w how it plays.

 

[tamsynnimogen]

i use lua5e and its pretty good. suppose if you wanted to publish then rename and change images would be needed or contact squaresoft 1st