Symbaroum Primer for D&D Players

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In preparation for running a Symbaroum game, here is an overview of the system, particularly the player-facing side.

First, an oversimplified summary in D&D terms:

  • HP = strength score (sort of, with little to no improvement over time)
  • Attack rolls are dexterity checks
  • Ability checks are roll-under (1d20 <=)
  • There are no classes or levels
  • Archetypes (and associated occupations) provide recommended packages of starting abilities (which are sort of like feats)
  • Spend XP to learn or improve abilities
  • Using magic causes corruption (basically: spiritual damage with varying degrees of transience)
  • Another ability score determines how much corruption a character can absorb before bad things start to happen (basically: spiritual HP)

There you go, if you have familiarity with some version D&D you should now have a working grasp of Symbaroum basics. Read on for more detailed comparison.

The system is mostly what I have called “monological” in the past. For example, players roll to defend rather than opponents rolling to attack.

Symbaroum formal game terms below are in bold. Though I have a few planned house rules, to improve the general usefulness of this post, all of the following info applies to the official rules as written, to my knowledge. I make no claim to completeness—for example, I have ommitted mention of races—but these are the most central rules in my opinion.

Symbaroum Correspondences

  • Ability Scores (⇒ Attributes)
    • Accurate, Cunning, Discreet, Persuasive, Quick, Resolute, Strong, Vigilant
    • Generation: 2d6+3 per attribute, in order or arranged to taste (yields scores in the range [5-15])
    • Test: roll 1d20 <= score value (often adjusted by an opposed Attribute)
    • Test outcomes are generally binary (success or failure)
    • Adjustments are penalties or bonuses applied to the player character Attribute score rather than to the roll; for example, if a player character has a score of 12, a -3 penalty means that the player must roll less than or equal to 9 for success
      • Common oppositions:
        • Accurate versus Quick
        • Persuasive versus Resolute
        • Discreet versus Vigilant
        • Strong versus Strong
    • (The default attribute generation method is assigning values from a default set or point-buy, the numbers for which result in similar expected values)
      • Default set: [15, 13, 11, 10, 10, 9, 7, 5]
        • (M = 10, SD = 2.96)
  • AC/Armor Class (⇒ Defense)
    • Symbaroum uses Defense tests (performed by players) rather than opponent attack rolls
    • Defense test: 1d20 less than or equal to Quick
    • Modifiers: Armor (Impeding penalty), shield (+1 bonus)
  • Armor
    • Three levels of armor: light 1d4, medium 1d6, and heavy 1d8
    • Impeding penalty to Defense tests: light -2, medium -3, heavy -4
    • Roll the armor die to decrease incoming damage from physical attacks (opponent damage values are static, so rolling for armor replaces what in D&D would be the referee rolling monster damage)
  • Attack Roll
    • Attribute test: Accurate, adjusted by opponent’s Quick
    • Then you roll damage, based on weapon, just like D&D—see the weapons entry below—but for referee-controlled combatants armor is static damage reduction (no armor die)
    • Some Abilities allow the use of other stats in place of Accurate for attack rolls (this is one of the few bits of system mastery you probably need to maintain combat effectiveness, if you care)
  • Classes (as in Fighter, Cleric, Thief, etc.)
    • Rather than classes, Symbaroum provides a starting Archetype (representing the classic three of Mystic, Rogue, and Warrior), each of which is further specified by Occupations (such as Duelist, Theurg, Ranger, and so forth)
    • Initial Archetype & Occupation provide recommended packages of starting Abilities
    • Player characters start with one of the following two options:
      1. Two Abilities at Novice level and one Ability at Adept level
      2. Five Abilities at Novice level
  • Combat turn
    • On each turn, a player character may perform one of the following:
      • 1 Combat Action + 1 Movement Action
      • 2 Movement Actions
  • Dying (★ will be house ruled ★)
    • Zero Toughness → unconscious & dying
    • Each turn: Death Test, three failures → dead
    • Death Test: 1d20
      • 1 = recover with 1d4 Toughness
      • 2-10 = success (no change)
      • 11-19 = failure
      • 20 = immediate death
  • HP (⇒ Toughness)
    • Toughness = Max(10, Strong Attribute)
    • (So the HP equivalent is basically just the same as an ability score, but with a minimum of 10)
    • Toughness almost never increases—there are a handful of Abilities which will increase toughness slightly—so Symbaroum has a much flatter power curve in this regard compared to all versions of D&D
  • Initiative
    • Combatants act in order of Quick scores (highest first)
  • Levels & Advancement (★ will be house ruled ★)
    • There are no levels; player characters spend XP to learn or improve Abilities
    • Each ability has three tiers: Novice, Adept, and Master
    • Learning and improving Abilities:
      • Novice level (new Ability): cost = 10 XP
      • Novice → Adept: cost = 20 XP
      • Adept → Master: cost = 30 XP
    • (So the full cost of learning a new Ability and improving it all the way to Master is 60 XP.)
  • Magic Items (⇒ Artifacts, p. 186; ★ will be house ruled very slightly ★)
    • Using an Artifact first requires Bonding, which imposes permanent Corruption (generally one point)
    • Activating an Artifact’s power imposes some temporary Corruption (generally 1d4 points)
    • (See Corruption Threshold below)
  • Shields
    • +1 to Defense tests
  • Spells (⇒ Mystical Powers, p. 119, p. 176)
    • Mystical Powers work much like Abilities—with Novice, Adept, and Master levels—but learning a Mystical Power outside of a tradition (also handled at the rules level as an Ability) imposes one permanent point of Corruption
    • Casting a spell (using a Mystical Power) causes 1d4 temporary Corruption
    • Advancing in the ranks of a mystical tradition can mitigate this cost (Corruption is the mechanical system resource that replaces spell slots or magic points)
    • See Corruption Threshold below
  • Weapons
    • Weapon damage works similarly to D&D
    • Damage: Heavy 1d10, Long 1d8, Single-Handed 1d8, Short 1d6
    • Projectile: crossbow 1d10, bow 1d8, sling 1d6
    • Long weapons provide an initial free attack versus opponents armed with shorter weapons
    • (There are a few other properties of specific weapons which work relatively intuitively)
  • XP (★ will be house ruled ★)
    • The text about XP is more guidelines than rules, but the expectation seems to be that surviving a scene involving challenge is worth 1 XP for each player character

Rules Without Direct D&D Analogues

Symbaroum also has a handful of rules which lack direct analogues in D&D:

  • Pain Threshold
    • Derived stat: Strong / 2, round up
    • Combatants that suffer damage equal to or greater than Pain Threshold in a single hit experience some additional deleterious effects
  • Corruption Threshold
    • Derived stat: Resolute / 2, round up
    • Capacity to tolerate Corruption is the primary player character resource that constrains use of magic
    • When total Corruption—permanent + temporary—equals or exceeds the Resolute score, the character turns into an abomination (worse than character death, because this essentially creates a new hostile monster)
    • Temporary Corruption dissipates at the end of each scene
      • (★ may be house ruled ★)
    • Tolerating Corruption also constrains the use of Artifacts as doing so requires Bonding with the Artifact, which imposes some permanent Corruption (generally one point)

There is also a free quick-start rules document. Post images are from the official site.

3 thoughts on “Symbaroum Primer for D&D Players”

  1. Paul T

    A good overview!

    Interesting. I like the “monological” presentation; that’s something I’m fond of as a GM, and it can in some cases speed up play, as well.

    I have a few questions:

    First, in a system where your ability scores matter so much, why do you see random character generation as desirable? Is it just familiar, or is having starting characters differ signficantly in power level a feature for you?

    Second, is there any uncertainty involved in using magic and Corruption? From what you’ve written up here, it sounds like most magic-using characters will simply choose to stop using magic when in range of their “threshold”, since another spell will result in the character turning into a monster (an outcome which is almost always undesirable). Or is there some random or unpredictable element which turns this into a bit of a gambling game? What is the dynamic here, in play?

    Third, if Abilities have three ranks with a relatively flat progression, does that mean that characters “max out” their Abilities relatively early on in play, and thereafter grow in breadth rather than depth? Or is there another subsystem which deals with this?

    Finally, you’ve described the nuts and bolts of the game, but I’d like to hear what excites about this game and its design. What do you see as unusual features or selling points, sufficient to make you want to run the game instead of all the other alternatives out there?

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    1. Necropraxis Post author

      First: Efficiency. Quick character creation and improved handling at the table. Shuffling the default array values would have the same benefit, and would avoid potential power differentials, but also avoid outlier characters, which can make for memorable characters. This is a tangential benefit though.

      I think the numerical differences will make less of a practical difference in terms of character power than you might think. Also, my sense is that while there are potentially a lot of tactical moving parts, the system is designed to be relatively combat decisive, in comparison to grinding combats with heaps of HP. So more combat as war than combat as sport.

      (It is easy enough to choose one or two character elements, or swap stats around, if a player wants to push for a particular concept early on.)

      Second: monsters, situational effects, and so forth, can also cause corruption. Also, perhaps a character is willing to risk it.

      Third: I have yet to see the system running directly at all, much less with characters that have accumulated many abilities. I suspect that it would require a lot of real-world play time before it started to feel like a character was becoming overly broad mechanically. Like years of real world campaign play.

      Finally: a big part of it is the take on the setting that I see in my head. I could just use some other rules system to run the setting—I did that once before, actually—but I also want to 1) constrain my tendency to tinker slightly and 2) there are enough clever system flourishes that I am curious to see how it holds together. Mostly as a vehicle for a certain kind of frontier play (HBO’s Deadwood is a touchstone here, though obviously through a fantasy lens). I will likely dial up the antler-encrusted devil-trap esoteria and dial down the (already rather subdued) Tolkien influences. More on this in a future post.

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