Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of the PDF in order to make this review but I was in no way involved in the creation, and didn't fund the Kickstarter.
Background: Rebirth is set in a land where there was an oppressive theocracy where the High Prophet of Aluss would force the people to live in poverty. However, seven warlocks summoned a demon and utilized this power to bring the dead back to life. This gruesome act drove the gods from Kreyo. I do have one comment about this part: "there was seven who came together, their names lost to time" versus "each nation named for the necromancer who forged it from the ashes." If the necromancers' names were lost, how were the nations named after them?
The Nations:
Sar'gon: Lawful nation full of bureaucracy and controlled by enforcers
Nahrun: 'Haven for knowledge' found in the mountains
Narcon: Reminiscent of steampunk, focuses on science and technology
Reuce: This nation reminds me of
Re-Animator, and the RPG supplements,
The Chaos Gods Come to Meatlandia and
Necropunk. It seems to have a heavy focus on mutilating experimentation.
And remember, that was one of the lawful nations.
Kreuul: Gladiatorial meritocracy where you earn your status in the arena
Daerrus: Nation based heavily around slavery
Fae'ell: This is the most interesting of the nations to me. Fae'ell sacrificed a priest and serves as a god for his nation in a theocracy.
All in all, the nations are kind of a grab bag. Some of them are heavily thematic and I really enjoyed the description, like Reuce and Fae'ell, but others seem sort of like filler, like Sar'gon and Daerrus. You may feel differently though.
Rules: Rebirth uses a percentile based system, similar to Basic Roleplaying and its derivatives. It also incorporates critical success when a 01 is rolled, which is quite more rare when compared to natural 20s, and seems to be more powerful, and critical failures on a 100, which is the opposite. To determine initiative, you roll a d10 instead of a d100 and add your intuition attribute. It is interesting to me that they start talking about combat rules before introducing the attributes, and could be off putting. Action in combat is measured in events, which are similar to both a move and standard action in DnD 3.5e, but you get three of them. Using more of your moves affects your defense score, which does make sense. Base movement is 20 feet and fro some reason free strikes, which are similar to attacks of opportunity, are detailed in the movement section. There are three saves, that do differ from the norm: forceful, intuitive, and enduring. To determine a save and attacks, there are fairly long formulas. For example, here is the formula for an attack check: [50 + (2 • character level) + (misc. bonuses) + (attribute affiliated with weapon used for attack)] – (the defensive
score of the target). And remember, this is all before a lot of the core mechanics are explained, as in I hadn't read that this was a level based system. Besides it being fairly math heavy, combat seems fairly standard.
Attributes: The nine attributes are separated into three 'trees': body, mind, and spirit, something I play with doing in some of my games. The three Body attributes are: Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. The three Mind attributes are Will, Wit, and Wisdom. The three Spirit attributes are Charisma, Attunement, and Tenacity. The most interesting of these are the two nonstandard Spirit attributes, Charisma and Tenacity, as the Body attributes are the regular ol' physical attributes from D&D and Will, Wit, and Wisdom aren't very ingenuous either. In order to generate attributes, you select a primary, secondary, and tertiary tree. This determines how many d4s to roll to determine an attribute and what bonus you get on relevant skill checks.
Skills: Skills too are divided into Body, Mind, and Spirit. While each of the skills does have a little bit of nice fluff, there aren't really any truly unique skills to be found. To determine a skill check's goal, you do the following: [(total skill ranks) + (affiliated skill attribute) + (misc. modifier) + (character level)] – (any given negatives). Again, a tad math heavy, but
it
is just addition/subtraction this time. Again, the level system still hasn't been fully described, although it is stated that you can't have more ranks in a skill than 10+your level. It seems like this would make leveling a large power upgrade, as your level is involved twice in skill rolls.
Reborn: This is, IMO, the most interesting part of the book and where the flavor shines through. It contains interesting classes and finally details how you level up! There is a 20 level max. Every nation has two base classes that every character begins as. I do have one comment, and that is the distinction between base and advanced class is not as clear as I would like it to be, and you have to read the text to find out.
Sar'gon: Politician and Enforcer
Nahrun: Bard and Archivist
Narcon: Botanist and Tinkerer (Note that it calls the Tinkerer the Tinker once)
Reuce: Medic and Abomination (This section is definitely amazing! I love the Abomination class in particular)
Fae'ell: Fanatic and Paladin (The chaotic nations are in a different order than the introductions for them...)
Kre'ull: Gladiator and Scavenger
Daerrus: Merchant and Slaver
General Gifts: These are abilities that can be chosen regardless of your class, quite similar to feats from Pathfinder/3.5e. None of them seem really unique though, which is quite a loss in my opinion, due to the quite flavorful setting.
Weapons/Armor: There isn't a massive table of different weapons, but there are tables of weapons based on if they are piercing, slashing, or blunt and what size they are. With the armor, they also just have large tables of what the different statistics are based on what they are made of and their size. Although this isn't as bad as some games, I do find that it is a tad excessive.
Legendary Artifacts: Here's another section where the flavorful setting really signs through, like the sword of Gaustul, where a priest of Fae'ell believes himself to be capable of challenging his god and the sword channels that priest's soul.
Items: This item goes over all sorts of equipment that you might have in this setting, from smithing tools to grenades. Nothing really shines through here.
Divine Creatures: This section shows the spirits who are remnants from before the necromancers drove the gods away. Every one is unique and has a great description. This section ends the book on a decent note as well.
TL;DR: I would have to rate this a 3.5 stars out of 5 unfortunately. Although the setting is
amazing, the system itself reads to me like an unholy combination of the d20 system and Basic Roleplaying. However, I would love to rip out my favorite parts of the setting, especially the nations and divine creatures, into a more rules light system, like Savage Worlds. So, if you want a great setting, this is amazing, but I think the creators should have gone with using a system under the OGL, like Fate.
Here's the Twitter and Facebook accounts for the game:
https://twitter.com/RoleplayRebirth
https://www.facebook.com/RPGRebirth
