IRON FIST
A d20 3.5/Iron Kingdoms Game

Grit (Ex) (Adapted from Pathfinder)

     If Hercules had failed to complete the first of his Twelve Labors, would anyone remember his name, let alone his deeds? If Conan had fallen in his first battle, would anyone have bothered telling his tales? The answer in both cases is: probably not. Whether you consider it a character’s Destiny or Karma or the Hand of Fate, you are playing a character who not only survived adversity, but overcame tremendous odds to accomplish often spectacular heroic deeds where others failed.

     Some characters are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, and others have it thrust upon them! In all three instances, there are struggles where there are turning points that can influence the outcome. Does the brave warrior lay low the villain before he can finish casting a devastating spell? Does the sly Rogue avoid detection as she sneaks into the hill giant chieftain’s lair? Does the pious Cleric finish casting her healing spell before the rain of arrows ends the life of her companions? Just a few die rolls decide each of these critical moments, and while failure is always a possibility, true heroes find a way to succeed, despite the odds. Grit Points represent this potential for greatness. They give heroes the chance to succeed even when the dice turn against them.

     Heroic characters in the Iron Kingdoms make their mark upon the world with daring deeds. Some characters claim they belong to a mystical order, such as The Way of the Gun, but it’s more likely that the volatile nature of life in the Iron Kingdoms simply prunes the unlucky and careless from their ranks. Whatever the reason, all heroic characters have grit. In game terms, grit is a fluctuating measure of your ability to perform amazing actions in combat.

     Grit Points are only awarded to player characters. NPCs, animal companions, familiars, cohorts, and mounts do not receive Grit Points. Unlike other points in the game (such as hit points, bard music uses, rage uses, spell uses, etc.), Grit Points do not renew over time or with rest. Once spent, they are gone forever. However, additional Grit Points are gained each time a character gains a level or whenever a character accomplishes a truly heroic feat. The GM is the final arbiter on the award and use of Grit Points.

Gaining Grit Points
     You start at each level with a number of grit points equal to your level + your Wisdom modifier (+ 1 if you’re a Gun Mage). However, your grit can go up or down throughout the day/week/level as you spend them or perform certain deeds that gain you more Grit Points. Also, some feats and magic items may affect your Grit Points.
     Unspent Grit Points carry over from one level to the next, but only up to a maximum of 20. This limit is to encourage you to use them to accomplish those heroic deeds that will make you famous!
     You spend grit to accomplish deeds (see below), and gain additional Grit Points in the following ways.

     The following options are some of the ways that you might gain additional Grit Points, but, aside from these basic rules, the awarding of additional Grit Points is up to the GM.

• Character Story: You can gain a Grit Point for the completion of a written character back-story. This reward en-courages players to take an active role in the history of the game. In addition, the GM can use this back story to generate a pivotal moment for your character concerning his past. When this key event is resolved, the GM can re-ward another Grit Point.

• Critical Hit: Each time you confirm a critical hit while in the heat of combat, you regain 1 Grit Point. Confirming a critical hit on a helpless or unaware creature or on a creature that has fewer Hit Dice than half your character level does not restore grit. In other words, shooting fish in a barrel might be amusing, but it doesn’t give you grit back.

• Completing Plot Arcs: You can gain a Grit Point if you are involved in completing a major chapter or arc in the campaign story. These Grit Points are awarded at the conclusion of the arc if you were successful or advanced the story in a meaningful way.

• Daring Act: Each time you perform a daring act, you can regain grit. As a general guideline, a daring act should be risky and dramatic. It should take a good deal of guts, and its outcome should have a low probability of success. If it is successful, you regain 1 grit point. Before attempting a daring act, the player should ask the GM whether the act qualifies. The GM is the final arbiter of what’s considered a daring act, and can grant a regained grit point for a daring act even if the player does not ask beforehand whether the act qualifies. (This is an Optional Rule because it requires a measure of GM judgment.)

• Faith: Grit Points also represent the favor of a god. You might gain Grit Points whenever you uphold the tenets of your faith in a grand way, or whenever you take on one of the faith’s major enemies. Such Grit Points might be temporary, and if not spent on the task at hand, they fade away.

• Heroic Acts: Whenever you perform an exceptionally heroic act, you can be awarded a Grit Point. This might in-clude anything from slaying an evil dragon when the rest of the group has fled to rescuing townsfolk from a burn-ing building despite being terribly wounded. It does not have to be related to combat. Convincing the reticent king to send troops to help with a bandit problem or successfully jumping a wide chasm might earn you a Grit Point, depending on the circumstances. NOTE: a Grit Point should only be awarded if the PC involved did not spend a Grit Point to accomplish the task.

• Killing Blow: When you reduce a creature to 0 or fewer hit points while in the heat of combat, you regain 1 grit point. Destroying an unattended object, reducing a helpless or unaware creature to 0 or fewer hit points, or reducing a creature that has fewer Hit Dice than half your character level to 0 or fewer hit points does not restore any grit. Note that you cannot gain a Grit Point from a Killing Blow if you spent a Grit Point to deliver that blow.

• Return from the Dead: When you die, you do not lose any Grit Points you have accumulated. If you died with no Grit Points remaining, you gain 1 Grit Point when you are brought back from the dead through powerful magic, such as raise dead or resurrection.

Deeds (or what you can do with grit)
     Grit Points can be spent at any time and do not require an action to use (although the actions they modify consume part of your character’s turn as normal). You cannot spend more than 1 Grit Point during a single round, whether it is a round of combat or other action. Whenever a Grit Point is spent, it can use it to have any one of the following effects.

     You spend grit points to accomplish deeds. Most deeds grant you some momentary bonus or effect, but there are some that provide longer-lasting effects. Some deeds stay in effect as long as you have at least 1 grit point. The following is the list of base deeds. You can only perform deeds of your level or lower. Unless otherwise noted, a deed can be performed multiple successive times, as long as the appropriate amount of grit is spent to perform the deed.

Act Out of Turn: You can spend a Grit Point to take your turn immediately. Treat this as a readied action, moving your initiative to just before the currently acting creature, but you may only take a move or a standard action on this turn, not both.

Activate Class Ability: You can spend a Grit Point to gain another use of a class ability that has a limited number of uses per day. For example, a Monk might spend a Grit Point to gain another use of her stunning fist ability, or a paladin might spend a Grit Point to make an additional smite attack.

Add to a Roll: You can spend a Grit Point to improve a d20 roll. You add +10 to your d20 roll (including attack rolls, saves, checks, or any other roll of a d20) to help you meet or exceed the target number. This is considered a Grit bonus. You can declare the use of a Grit Point to alter a d20 roll after the roll is made, but only before the GM reveals the result of that roll. You can’t use a Grit point to alter the result of a d20 roll when you are taking 10 or taking 20. You can use a Grit Point to grant this bonus to another character, as long as you are in the same location and your character can reasonably affect the outcome of the roll (such as distracting a monster, shouting words of encouragement, or otherwise aiding another with the check).

Artful Dodging: you gain an uncanny knack for getting out of the way of ranged attacks. When a ranged attack is made against you, you can spend a Grit Point to move 5 feet as an immediate action; doing so grants you a +2 bonus to AC against the triggering attack. This movement is not a 5-foot step, and provokes attacks of opportunity. Alternatively, you can drop prone to gain a +4 bonus to AC against the triggering attack. You can only perform this deed while wearing medium or light armor, and while carrying no more than a light load.

Blast Lock: You can spend a Grit Point to make an attack roll against a lock within the first range increment of your fire-arm. A Diminutive lock usually has AC 13, and larger locks have a lower AC. The lock gains a bonus to its AC against this attack based on its quality. A simple lock has no bonus to AC, an average lock has a +5 bonus to AC, a good lock has a +10 bonus to AC, and a superior lock has a +15 bonus to AC. Arcane lock grants a +10 bonus to the AC of a lock against this attack. On a hit, the lock is destroyed, and the object can be opened as if it were unlocked. On a miss, the lock is destroyed, but the object is jammed and still considered locked. It can still be unlocked by successfully performing this deed, by using the Disable Device skill, or with the break DC, though the DC for either break or Disable Device or the AC increases by 10. A key, combination, or similar mechanical method of unlocking the lock no longer works, though Knock can still be employed to bypass the lock, and the creator of an arcane lock can still bypass the wards of that spell.

Bleeding Wound: Whenever you hit a living creature with an attack, you can spend a Grit Point to have that attack deal extra bleed damage. The amount of bleed damage is equal to your Dexterity modifier. Alternatively, you can spend 2 grit points to deal 1 point of Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution bleed damage (your choice) instead. Creatures that are immune to sneak attacks are also immune to these types of bleed damage.

Boost Defense: You can spend a Grit Point when fighting defensively. This gives you double the normal benefits for fighting defensively for the entire round (+4 dodge bonus to AC; +6 if you have 5 or more ranks in Tumble).

Cheat Death: You can spend a Grit Point to cheat death. How this plays out is up to the GM, but generally you are left alive, with negative hit points but stable. For example, you are about to be slain by a critical hit from an arrow. If you spend a Grit Point, the GM decides that the arrow pierced your holy symbol, reducing the damage enough to prevent you from being killed, and that you made your stabilization roll at the end of your turn. You can spend a Grit Point in this way to prevent the death of a familiar, animal companion, eidolon, or special mount, but not another character!

Dead Shot: You can spend a Grit Point as a full-round action to take careful aim and pool all of your attack potential into a single, deadly shot. You can only do this with a ranged weapon, but when you do, you shoot your weapon at a single target, but make as many attack rolls as you can, based on your base attack bonus. You make the attack rolls in order from highest bonus to lowest, as if you were making a full attack. If any of the attack rolls hit the target, your single attack is considered to have hit. For each additional successful attack roll beyond the first, you increase the damage of the shot by the base damage dice of the weapon. For instance, if a 7th-level gunslinger firing a musket hits with both attacks, she does 2d12 points of damage with the shot, instead of 1d12 points of damage, before adding any damage modifiers. Precision damage and extra damage from weapon special abilities (such as flaming) are added with damage modifiers and are not increased by this deed. If one or more rolls are critical threats, you confirm the critical once using your highest base attack bonus –5. For each critical threat beyond the first, you reduce this penalty by 1 (to a maximum of 0). You only misfire on a dead shot if all the attack rolls are misfires. You cannot perform this deed with a blunderbuss or other scatter weapon when attacking creatures in a cone.

Deadeye: you can resolve an attack against touch AC instead of normal AC when attacking with a ranged weapon be-yond your weapon’s first range increment. Performing this deed costs 1 grit point per range increment beyond the first. You still take the –2 penalty on attack rolls for each range increment beyond the first when you perform this deed.

Emulate Feat: At the beginning of your turn, you may spend a Grit Point to gain the benefit of a feat that you don’t actually have. You must meet the prerequisites of the feat. You gain the benefit until the beginning of your next turn.

Expert Loading: Whenever you roll a misfire with a gun that has the broken condition, you can spend a Grit Point to keep the gun from exploding, though it retains the broken condition.

Extra Action: You can spend a Grit Point on your turn to gain an additional standard or move action this turn. This in-cludes an extra attack. You do not need to take a full attack action to gain this extra attack; you make this attack at your highest attack bonus. It applies to both melee and range attacks, and your extra attack does not have to be the same type as your normal attack.

Fast Gun: You can spend a Grit Point to gain a +2 bonus on your Initiative check. Furthermore, if you have the Quick Draw feat, your hands are free and unrestrained, and the firearm is not hidden, you can draw a single firearm as part of the initiative check.

Inspiration: If you feel stuck at one point in the adventure, you can spend a Grit Point and petition the GM for a hint about what to do next. If the GM feels that there is no information to be gained, the Grit Point is not spent.

Last Gasp: When you take damage that would render you unconscious or even dead, you can spend a Grit Point to take one final last gasp action. While this would normally be some sort of healing action, it can also be a vengeful strike against the opponent that took you down, casting one last spell to aid an ally, etc. This is the one exception to using only 1 Grit Point per round—if you used a Grit Point earlier in the round and still fell victim to an opponent, you can spend one additional Grit Point for your last gasp.

Lightning Reload: You can spend a Grit Point to reload a single barrel of a one-handed or two-handed firearm as a swift action once per round. If you have the Rapid Reload feat or are using an alchemical cartridge (or both), you can re-load a single barrel of the weapon as a free action each round instead. Furthermore, performing this action does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Max Attack: You can spend a Grit Point to deal maximum normal damage from an attack.

Menacing Shot: You can spend a Grit Point to shoot a firearm into the air and affect all living creatures within a 30-foot-radius burst as if they were subject to the fear spell. The DC of this effect is equal to 10 + 1/2 your level + your Wis-dom modifier.

Pistol-Whip: You can spend a Grit Point to make a surprise melee attack with the butt or handle of your firearm as a standard action. When you do, you are considered to be proficient with the firearm as a melee weapon and gain a bonus on the attack and damage rolls equal to the enhancement bonus of the firearm. The damage dealt by the pistol-whip is of the bludgeoning type, and is determined by the size of the firearm. One-handed firearms deal 1d6 points of damage (1d4 if wielded by Small creatures) and two-handed firearms deal 1d10 points of damage (1d8 if wielded by Small creatures). Regardless of the your size, the critical multiplier of this attack is 20/×2. If the attack hits, you can make a combat maneuver check to knock the target prone as a free action.

Quick Clear: You can spend a Grit Point to perform quick clear as a move-equivalent action instead of a standard action. Alternatively, you can spend a Grit Point to remove the broken condition from a single firearm you are currently wield-ing, as long as that condition was gained by a firearm misfire. This, however, is a standard action.

Reroll: You may spend a Grit Point to reroll any one d20 roll you just made. You must take the results of the second roll, even if it is worse.

Shoot Unattended Object: You can spend a Grit Point to attack a Tiny or smaller unattended object within the first range increment of your firearm. A Tiny unattended object has an AC of 12, a Diminutive unattended object has an AC of 14, and a Fine unattended object has an AC of 18. On a hit, you do not damage the object with the shot, but can move it up to 15 feet farther away from the shot’s origin. On a miss, you damage the object normally.

Slinger’s Luck: You can spend a Grit Point to reroll a saving throw or a skill check. It costs 1 grit point to reroll a saving throw, and 1 grit point to reroll a skill check. You must take the result of the second roll, even if it is lower. The deed’s cost cannot be reduced by the true grit class ability, the Signature Deed feat, or any other effect that reduces the amount of grit a deed costs.

Special: You can petition the GM to allow a Grit Point to be used to attempt nearly anything that would normally be almost impossible. Such uses are not guaranteed and should be considered carefully by the GM. Possibilities include casting a single spell that is one level higher than you could normally cast (or a 1st-level spell if you are not a spellcaster), making an attack that blinds a foe or bypasses its damage reduction entirely, or attempting to use Diplomacy to convince a raging dragon to give up its attack. Regardless of the desired action, the attempt should be accompanied by a difficult check or penalty on the attack roll. No additional Grit Points may be spent on such an attempt, either by the character or her allies.

Spell Boost: You can spend a Grit Point to increase the effective caster level of one of your spells by 2. You must de-cide whether or not to spend a Grit Point in this manner before casting the spell.

Spell Recall: You can spend a Grit Point to recall a spell you have already cast. The spell can be cast again later with no effect on other prepared spells. Spontaneous spell-casters such as sorcerers and bards can spend 1 Grit Point to cast a spell without using one of their daily spell slots. This use of a Grit Point can only be done as the spell is being cast.

Stabilize: Any time you are dying, you can spend a Grit Point to become stable at your current hit point total.
Startling Shot: You can spend a Grit Point as a standard action to purposely miss a creature that you could normally hit with a firearm attack. When you do, that creature becomes flat-footed until the start of its next turn.

Stop Bleeding: You can use a Grit Point to make a firearm attack and then press the hot barrel against yourself or an adjacent creature to staunch a bleeding wound. Instead of dealing damage, the shot ends a single bleed condition affecting the creature. You do not have to make an attack roll when performing the deed in this way; you can instead shoot the firearm into the air, but that shot still uses up ammunition normally.

Stunning Shot: When you hit a creature, you can spend a Grit Point to stun the creature for 1 round. The creature must make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your level + your Wisdom modifier). If the creature fails, it is stunned for 1 round. Creatures that are immune to critical hits are also immune to this effect.

True Grit: Once per level, you can spend a Grit Point to 'take 20' on an attack roll, treating it as if you had rolled a natural 20. This is considered a Critical Potential, and you can roll to confirm a Critical Hit.


Additional Grit Point Rules
The following Feats enhance your Grit Points.

Blood of Heroes [General]
PREREQUISITES: HERO’S FORTUNE
You have a sense of destiny about you and always seem to succeed, even when the odds are against you.
Benefit: Whenever you gain a level, you gain Grit Points equal to your level + Wisdom modifier + 3.
Normal: Whenever you gain a level, you gain Grit Points equal to your level + your Wisdom modifier.

Hero’s Fortune [General]
Even at the start of your career, it was clear that you had a chance at greatness, and your legend continues to grow with every adventure.
Benefit: You gain 5 Grit Points.

Grit Chameleon [General]
PREREQUISITES: HERO’S FORTUNE
To others, it seems that you always have a bit of luck around you.
Benefit: Whenever you spend a Grit Point to reroll a die roll or to grant yourself a bonus before a die roll is made, there is a chance that the Grit Point is not spent. Whenever you spend a Grit Point, roll a d20. If the result is greater than 15, the Grit Point is not spent. You cannot use this Feat when you use the cheat death Grit Point option.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:20, Sun 31 Aug 2014.