How To Play Gates Of Krystalia - Firebreathing Kittens | Lyssna här

How To Play Gates of Krystalia

Hi everyone, this is a special how to play episode of Firebreathing Kittens podcast. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for a tabletop roleplaying game called Gates of Krystalia. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play your own Gates of Krystalia game at home. My only level of expertise here is that I read the rule book, so, I possibly could and probably have gotten some of the following things wrong. But that’s okay, let’s begin.

I’ll organize this how to play guide into sections.

Game category
Generic test
Four hero abilities
Competency tests
ASMD instead of PEMDAS
Combat encounters
Fleeing
Passing your turn
Healing
Dying
Conditions
Weapons
Trauma and madness
Corruption
Coins
Objects
Carrying capacity
Potions and gadgets
Building a character

Game category. Gates of Krystalia is a table top role playing game that is themed around the isekai anime genre. Isekai stories involve a person from our world being suddenly transported, transmigrated, dying and reincarnating, being summoned, or otherwise ending up in a magical world. Some of the most famous examples are So I’m A Spider So What?, Re: Zero Starting Life In Another World, and My Next Life As A Villainess All Routes Lead To Doom. There are also not yet animated manga, manwha, webtoons etc, such as The Greatest Estate Developer and Concubine Walkthough. You might notice some references to the isekai genre in these character abilities. Mechanically, Gates of Krystalia is a playing card based game, which is a bit different than twenty sided dice based games such as Dungeons and Dragons, and ten sided dice based games such as Call of Cthulhu. For combat and non-combat tests in Gates of Krystalia, players draw a card and add bonuses from their character sheets to that card’s number. They can also match the suit of the card to their ability to deal even more damage.

Generic Test. Any time you want your character to do something, you will perform a test. The Game Master, call the D-E-U-X with a katakana phonetic guide of Dough, so, the Deux, will say a Difficulty Value, DV, for the action you’re trying to do. The Deux may add a bonus or subtract a penalty for your action. Players will have a deck of cards, which is called the Vital Energy, VE, deck. It’s a standard 52 card spades clubs hearts diamonds deck of cards, minus Jokers. Two through ten counts as their numeric value. Jacks are eleven, Queens are twelve, Kings are thirteen, and an Ace is both fourteen and a special perfect bonus for not only the person who draws it but also the whole party of players. Flip and look at the first card. If the number on the card you flipped, plus the bonus or minus the penalty, exceeds the difficulty value decided by the Deux, then you succeed at what you’re trying to do. If the number on the card you flipped, plus the bonus or minus the penalty, meets or is below the difficulty value decided by the Deux, then you failed at what you were trying to do. A small note from me is that most games let you succeed when you meet the set difficulty number. In Gates of Krystalia, you must be higher than the number to succeed. The phrase “meet it to beat it” does not apply here. Place the card you flipped and looked at into a face down pile in a different physical location in front of yourself called the fatigue zone. A small note from me is that this is different than most games where the discard pile is face up so you don’t get confused with your draw pile. The fatigue zone is face down. Don’t get your face down fatigue zone cards confused with the face down vital energy deck you’re drawing from. I might slightly loosely pile fatigued cards instead of neatly stacking them in a deck so I don’t get them confused with my vital energy deck.

Heroes have four abilities: charisma represented by the heart card suit, agility represented by the diamond card suit, intelligence represented by spades, and toughness represented by clubs. Charisma, hearts, is for persuading non player characters and your artistic performances. Example social competency tests are convincing a merchant to lower their price, deceiving an enemy to get them to tell you crucial information, and charming your love interest. Agility, diamonds, is for avoiding traps, performing acrobatics, and sneaking stealthily. Example athletic competency tests are stealing an object without anyone noticing, disarming a mechanical trap, and moving silently through shadows. Intelligence, spades, is for solving puzzles, finding clues, and creating potions. Example intellectual competency tests are recognizing an ancient symbol and deciphering a text. Toughness, clubs, is for physical strength and enduring adverse environmental conditions. Example physical competency tests are climbing a mountain, not fainting after a marathon, and holding your breath underwater.

Competency tests are similar to generic tests, except you add your ability bonus to the test. Here are the steps to performing a competency test. First, you the player say what you’re trying to do. Charm the dragon, sneak past the dragon, outsmart the dragon, stay standing after being tail slapped by the dragon, et cetera. The Deux declares the difficulty value, DV, of what you’re trying to do. A difficulty value of 5 is simple, 7 is medium, 10 is complicated, 13 is difficult, 15 is extreme, and 20 is impossible. Next, flip a card from your vital energy, VE, deck. Add the ability bonus from your character sheet that applies to the type of competency test you’re doing, charisma, agility, intelligence, or toughness. There might be situational bonuses to add or penalties to subtract, too. This card value plus any bonuses and minus any penalties is called the base result. Next, check to see if you have what’s called a blessing. A blessing happens when the suit of the flipped card is the same as the suit of the competence test, and you double the base result, the card plus the bonus. If this total value exceeds, not meets, exceeds, the difficulty value set by the Deux, the test is successful and you accomplish what you were trying to do. If the total value is the same or lower as the difficulty value set by the Deux, the test fails and you don’t accomplish what you were trying to do. Either way, the card that was revealed moves to the face down fatigue zone.

Here is an example competency test. The Deux tells the players they have a tomato. Lia wants to crush the tomato. The Deux says this is a simple difficulty value, 5. Lia flips a card from her vital energy deck and adds her toughness ability. It’s a 3, plus her toughness of 2, equals 5 overall. The flipped card is a diamond, not the same suit as toughness clubs, so there is no blessing. In Gates of Krystalia you need to get higher than the difficulty value to succeed, so she fails at what she attempted. Lia roleplays that when she squeezes the tomato to crush it, it’s slippery and pops right out of her fist unharmed. Barnabas wants to catch the tomato before it splats on the ground. The Deux says this is a medium difficulty value, 7. Barnabas flips a card from his vital energy deck and adds his dexterity. It’s an 8 of diamonds, plus his agility of 2, equals 10 overall. The flipped card is a diamond, the agility suit, so it adds a blessing. Double that ten to a twenty. Barnabas succeeds, and roleplays catching the tomato with flair and grace. Markely wants to identify the tomato. The Deux say that this is an extreme difficulty value, 15. All the players gasp, surprised. What is this tomato? With a 6 of hearts from the vital energy deck and a 3 intelligence for 9 overall, the party still doesn’t know. Belle says well if we can’t figure out what it is maybe we can ask. She takes the tomato to a grocery vendor and tries to charm them into telling, offering three seeds from the tomato if they’ll identify it for her. The Deux says this is a complicated difficulty value, 10. Belle flips a card from her vital energy deck, 10, and adds her 1 charisma to it for an 11 overall, a success. The card was a spades, so it doesn’t add a blessing on this charisma check. The grocery vendor is willing to tell her about the secrets of the tomato in exchange for three of its seeds.

Math in Gates of Krystalia follows a special order instead of the PEMDAS order that math in our world follows. Instead of Parentheses first, then exponents, then multiply and divide, then add and subtract, Gates of Krystalia has a different order. First add, then subtract, then multiply, then divide. Always round down unless the specific rule says to round up. Effects, Conditions, and Properties don’t stack. Once they’re active, they can’t be activated again to add a stronger effect number or replaced by the same effect to restart its duration.

Combat encounters. Initiative, your turn order in combat, is determined by flipping the top card from your vital energy deck and adding your agility. You might have an innate ability or an object that affects initiative. If so, add that now. The person with the highest total number goes first. Player characters go before enemies who have the same number as them. Higher agility characters go first when there’s a tie between players. Slide the initiative card into the bottom of your vital energy deck instead of placing it in your fatigue zone.

After you’ve drawn for initiative, draw five cards for your hand for this round. Special enemies will also draw five cards from their deck. Standard enemies don’t draw until they go to use a combat technique CT, or defend. These five cards are called your strategy cards, and you’ll look at them. They’re what in poker would be called your hand. You aren’t allowed to tell or show or otherwise communicate the cards in your hand, your strategy cards, to your fellow players.

What types of actions consume your turn in combat? Talking to each other? Drawing your sword? Drinking a potion? Trying to flee? Competency checks (agility, charisma, toughness, intelligence)? Only three things use up your action in combat in Gates of Krystalia. 1. Combat techniques. 2. Consumable objects. 3. Fleeing (or trying to). Everything else, including competency tests like trying to deceive or persuade the enemy, don't consume your action. Open and close doors, don and doff armor, move around as much as you want. It does not consume your turn in combat.

Each person’s turn in combat goes like this. First, name your combat technique, CT, and your target. You are called the attacker, and they are called the defender. If the defender is a standard enemy, they’ll draw a card to use and name which combat technique, CT, they’re using. If they’re a special enemy they’ll have a five card hand of strategy cards already. They’ll declare what combat technique they’re using to defend. Next, both the attacker and defender will place a card from their strategy card hand in front of themselves. This is the primary card. The primary card is the card whose suit gets compared to the combat technique to see if there’s a blessing damage bonus. If the primary card’s suit matches the blessing suit for the combat technique CT, then base damage is multiplied by two. For example if the combat technique has a spade on it, and you played a four of spades, you’re blessed and get to multiply your damage by two. The primary card is not how much damage you do. The amount of damage you do is listed on the combat technique, the part with four different numbers for the four different hero ranks. If the primary card is a face card, Jack, Queen, King, or Ace then the effect of the combat technique happens. For example, some combat techniques burn their targets. Burning is the effect. Aces are better than the other face cards because they also get a critical hit, the base damage is multiplied by two. An ace of the same suit would multiply your base damage by four and apply the combat technique’s effect.

After the attacker and defender have both played a primary card, you’re welcome to play supporting cards. These are additional cards from your hand that might be the same number or suit as the primary card. The combos are as follows. Two cards that are the same number add one extra damage. Three cards that are the same number add two bonus damage. Three cards of the same number and two cards of another number, a full house, add three bonus damage. A straight, five cards in a row like two three four five six, that aren’t all the same suit, add four extra damage. A flush, five cards of the same suit that aren’t in a row, like three, five, six, eight, ten of clubs, add five extra damage. Four of a kind, four cards that have the same number, add five extra damage. Five cards in a row of the same suit add six extra damage. Calculate all that and compare the damage being dealt by the attacker and the defender. If the attacker’s damage is higher than the defender, they make the defender discard that many cards from their vital energy deck into their fatigue zone. If the defender’s damage is higher, they inflict their damage and effects on the attacker. The attacker will discard cards from their vital energy deck into their fatigue zone. If the attacker and defender have the same total damage, then neither person moves any cards from their vital energy deck to their fatigue zone, and no effects happen either. Combat techniques, CTs, that target yourself work a little differently. If the range of action is listed as yourself, then you can only use that combat technique if the suit of your combat technique matches one of the blessed suits you picked during character creation. If the primary card of a self targeting combat technique is a face card, it activates its effect regardless of if your total is higher than the opponent’s total. Anyway, after you compare your totals and move cards from your vital energy deck to your fatigue zone, that ends the attacker’s turn. Put all the cards you played into your fatigue zone, and someone else will start their turn.

After everyone has taken a turn, the scene is over. Before the new scene or round begins, a few things happen. If you don’t have any cards left in your strategy card hand, you draw two from your vital energy deck. Simple enough. If you do have cards in your strategy card hand, then you have two options. You can choose to draw one card from your vital energy deck, if you want to, and if you have fewer than seven in your strategy card hand. Or if you don’t draw, then you can choose to put two strategy cards from your hand on the bottom of your vital energy deck and draw two new cards. Standard enemies don’t draw between scenes. Special enemies get the same choices that players have, except every time a hero would draw one card, special enemies draw one card for every two heroes. The new scene starts with the person with the highest initiative again, and the scenes keep going until one side is unconscious or has surrendered or fled. When combat ends, all your conditions end, and you shuffle all the strategy cards still in your hand back into your vital energy deck.

Here’s an example turn in combat. Let's say an enemy had 10 defense against your friend just a moment ago. You declare that you’re using the combat technique Paralyzing Thorn, which has hearts as its blessed suit. At the four hero levels, Paralyzing Thorn deals either 3, 4, 5, or 6 damage. You’re a rank two hero, so your Paralyzing Thorn deals 4 damage. You play a 5 of hearts as your primary card. Then you play the five of clubs and the five of spades as your support cards. Having three cards with the same number, five, will get you a plus two damage bonus. So your base damage is four from Paralyzing Thorn, plus 2 from the combo, for 6 base damage. The suit of your primary card was a heart, the blessed suit of Paralyzing Thorn, so your base damage gets multiplied by two. Six times two is twelve damage. Your primary card wasn’t a face card, so you don’t get to do Paralyzing Thorn’s effect of stunning the target for two scenes, but with twelve damage you feel prepared for what the defender is about to dish back out at you. When you see the defender only had five this time, you cheer huzzah and the defender moves twelve minus five is eight cards from their vital energy deck to their fatigue zone.

Fleeing. If everybody agrees that the party is fleeing, then you can collectively make an escape test. First, pick one person to be the escape leader. Their agility gets added. Everyone flips a card from their vital energy deck. The escape leader’s card value gets counted. For everyone else, if their card is higher than seven, then it adds one to the total. If their flipped card is seven or below, it doesn’t contribute anything to the fleeing total. The difficulty value DV is 10 for a favorable situation, 15 for a difficult situation, and 20 for an impossible situation. If you fail to flee, the enemies can act two times on their turn. When I was reading that, I noted that a party of two people and a party of six people would have very different odds of reaching those unchanging difficulty goals, but yeah, it doesn’t change based on how many people are in the party. A smaller party can just keep on trying though, assuming that the enemy acting twice on their turn didn’t kill the whole party. The escape count gets added to each turn you try to escape. You can repeat the escape attempt a few times if you need to. Once the escape value exceeds the difficulty value, the entire group can flee. Discard the flipped cards into your fatigue zones.

Passing your turn is an option during combat. This might come up if you’re low on vital energy and you don’t want to spend cards because you’d then have to draw more cards, and might be running low. To pass your turn, simply say you do, and don’t perform any actions. If you have fewer than five strategy cards in your hand, draw one. Then it’s the next lower initiative number person’s turn.

Healing. If you have a combat technique CT or a consumable object that says heal and then a number, shuffle that many cards from your fatigue zone back into your vital energy deck. If there aren’t enough cards in your fatigue zone, then you don’t heal. You’re already at maximum health. You can’t get above 52 cards in your vital energy deck. If there is a half an hour of down time in game, you can as a party do something called catching your breath. Shuffle ten cards from your fatigue zone back into your vital energy deck, and roleplay how you’re tending your wounds. When your character gets eight hours of quality sleep, shuffle the entire fatigue zone back into the vital energy deck.

Dying. Running out of cards in your vital energy deck is like running out of hit points, so that's why the flee mechanic is pretty important. Attacking a target that deals much more damage than yourself can result in you discarding a lot of cards from your vital energy deck. You can get hurt from attacking in Gates of Krystalia. Any time you are supposed to draw or discard cards from your vital energy deck but there aren’t any cards left, your character collapses to the ground unconscious. When you’re out of cards, you can’t take any actions or move, and you’re dying. If you get healed by a friend within three scenes, you recover. If you don’t get healed within three scenes, your character dies permanently and you have to create a new hero. If you’re ever supposed to draw or discard five or more cards beyond the end of your deck, your character dies instantly with no opportunity to get healed within three scenes. Hopefully, your Deux has a non player character you can continue as for the rest of the session, and then you can create a new character before the next game session.

Conditions. The effects from combat techniques, or the use of a consumable item, etc, can cause conditions. I’ll list them all here. Absorption reduces base damage by a number before any multipliers happen to it. For example if you’ve got a critical hit and are multiplying your base damage by two, but absorption has reduced your base damage to zero, two times zero is still zero. Resistance reduces total damage after multipliers down to a minimum of at least one. For example if an attack of three is targeting a defender with resistance three, the attack deals just one damage. Weakness means the total damage gets increased, and it’s applied at the very end after all other damage calculation. For example if you have a critical and a weakness of one, you apply the critical and multiply damage by two first, then subtract off the one weakness. Asleep means a person can’t act. They reshuffle all their strategy cards into their vital energy deck. Bleeding means at the end of the turn, a person discards two vital energy cards. Blinded means when you go to use a combat technique, you get a negative five penalty. Burned and Poisoned both mean that at the start of your turn, you discard a vital energy card into your fatigue zone. Charmed means you can’t take actions against the person who charmed you. No combat techniques, using a consumable object, or fleeing. Charmed ends immediately if you get injured. Concealed means you cannot be targeted by combat techniques. Concealed ends immediately if you attack. Confused means your primary card gets played from your strategy hand randomly. Frightened means you can only act during your turn, and only after passing a generic test with difficulty seven. Immobilized means you can only act during your turn, and only if you pass a physical or athletic competence test with a difficulty value of thirteen. Stunned means that at the start of your turn, you reshuffle one random card from your strategy card hand into your vital energy deck. Weakened means the total damage you go to inflict is divided by two. If you’re already suffering from a condition, you can’t suffer from it again. Conditions don’t stack.

Weapons. There are seven types of weapons. Cutting weapons like swords, sabers, and katanas. Blunt weapons like maces, staves, and hammers. Ranged weapons like slings, bows, and crossbows. Thrust weapons like rapiers, lancers, and tridents. Defensive weapons like shields and bucklers. Flexible weapons like whips and chains. Firearms like pistols and rifles. They range in price for a basic weapon from 90 to 120 Copper coins, abbreviated Cc. You can also improvise a weapon, but it will break at the end of the scene it was used in. All of these seven weapons types and improvised weapons deal the same amount of base damage. They only vary in their purchase price and the resources used to build them, with one caveat that defensive weapons are special because they get plus one to combat techniques when parrying.

Trauma and Madness. Each character starts with a Madness Level, ML, of zero. If your character experiences something traumatic, the Deux may ask for a madness test. This is a generic test with a difficulty value ranging from 5 to 10, the Deux will let you know the number. Draw a card from your vital energy deck, add any bonuses the Deux gives you, and subtract any penalties the Deux calls for. If your total exceeds the difficulty value, you succeed, and nothing happens. Record what type of trauma you succeeded against because if you face the same type of trauma again, passing that generic test twice in a row makes your character immune to that type of trauma. If your total is the same number as the difficulty value or less, you fail. Add one point to your madness level and name the trauma. Example trauma names include trauma from killing someone, trauma from losing an ally, trauma from being stolen from, etc. If your character’s madness level is one, there’s no effect. At a madness level of two or three, your character gets a negative two on all their social competencies and tests. At a madness level of four and five, your character also gets a negative two on all their intelligence tests. The rule book doesn’t say if you also get the effect of the lower level, or if that ends, so I’m going to assume they continue. At a madness level of seven, eight, or nine, your character will experience hallucinations, making them constantly confused. The confused condition means that you choose the primary card randomly. The primary card is the first card you play during combat, and is the card whose suit matters for matching with the combat technique’s suit for getting blessed damage, two times damage as a reward for matching suits. If your madness level reaches ten, the hero goes insane and no longer follows the player’s commands, and cannot act in the game. You can try to reduce your madness level by taking a period of prolonged rest like a week off in game time, and then performing a generic test with difficulty of seven. Your Deux may also prompt you at their discretion to roll that generic test with difficulty of seven to reduce your character’s madness level if you accomplish a personal quest related to the event that traumatized your character. Going to a spa and going fishing also mechanically help with madness. After an hour of relaxation, make a difficulty value 5 generic test. If you pass, you can decrease your madness level by one.

Corruption. Each character starts with a Corruption Level, CL, of zero. If your character makes an evil choice, the Deux may ask you if you want to resist corruption, or if you are voluntarily choosing evil. If you voluntarily become corrupted, you immediately increase your corruption level by one and enter the corrupted state. If you want to resist corruption, you make a generic test by drawing a card from your vital energy deck. The difficulty value to resist corruption is ten, which is high. If you don’t draw a Jack eleven, Queen twelve, King thirteen, or Ace fourteen, then you fail your corruption test and enter the corrupted state. The corrupted state means that at the beginning of every turn, you will roll to try to control your corruption. If you succeed on a generic test of difficulty value seven, then your corruption level does not increase for the scene. Completely stopping the corruption needs a difficulty value of ten. Every scene that your character remains in the corrupted state increases their corruption level by one. When your corruption level is one or two, you get the positive effect of plus two to combat technique CT, damage, and the penalty of negative one to social competencies and tests. When your corruption level is three or four, you get the positive effect of plus two to combat technique CT damage, and the penalty of the poisoned condition. Poisoned means that at the start of your turn, you discard a vital energy card into your fatigue zone. The rule book doesn’t say if you also get the effects of the lower level, or if those end, so I’m going to assume they continue. When your corruption level is five or six, you get the positive effect of a resistance of three, and the penalty of the confused condition. Resistance reduces total damage after multipliers down to a minimum of at least one. For example if an attack of three is targeting a defender with resistance three, the attack deals just one damage. The confused condition means that you choose the primary card randomly. The primary card is the first card you play during combat, and is the card whose suit matters for matching with the combat technique’s suit for getting blessed damage, two times damage as a reward for matching suits. When your corruption level is seven or eight, you get the positive effect of metamorphosis, which means you physically transform to take on the characteristics and ability bonuses of the corruptive creature, and the penalty of the stunned condition. Stunned means that at the start of your turn, you reshuffle one random card from your strategy card hand into your vital energy deck. An example corruptive creature is Malgor, lord of shadows. Malgor is a demon. When Malgor dies, their soul transfers to the person who dealt the killing blow. There’s a card with crafting resources on it and stats and whatnot. When your corruption level is nine or ten you get the positive effect of dark ascension, which means you gain the combat techniques and innate ability of the creature that corrupted you, and the penalty of reduced control, which means that the Deux can take control of your character and make them act against their will. When your corrupted state ends, you discard as many cards from your vital energy deck as your corruption level, lose all bonuses and penalties from being corrupted. Leave your corruption level wherever it was, to start at next time.

Coins. There are four types of coins used for money in Gates of Krystalia’s setting: copper coins abbreviated Cc, silver coins abbreviated Sc, gold coins abbreviated Gc, and mithral coins abbreviated Mc. Ten copper coins are worth one silver coin. Ten silver coins are worth one gold coin. Ten gold coins are worth one mithral coin. You can carry 200 coins of any type. Coins don’t count towards your carrying capacity.

Objects. In Gates of Krystalia you can possess objects that have stats, and might even use resources to craft equipment of your own. Objects from the rule book will have a picture, a purchase price, a description, properties, a type, and will list the resources needed for its creation. Here is an example object, a padded vest. It costs 100 copper coins, abbreviated Cc. It’s got three of one resource icon and one of another as the resources required to craft it. It grants its wearer resistance 1 damage from normal – melee CTs. It also grants +2 bonus on tests to withstand cold environments. Because the resources used to craft this padded vest don’t include copper, silver, gold, or mithral, you can purchase it in stores. But some objects will have a hyphen instead of a purchase price. Those items aren’t sold in stores, and have to be found in a dungeon, received as a gift, or forged by yourself.

Carrying capacity. Heroes can carry up to ten objects. For example if you have a smoke potion, a healing potion, and a calming potion, you have seven more open inventory spots. Putting items into containers doesn’t mean you don’t have to count them individually. The rule book uses the example of a chest of ten potions occupying eleven spots because one spot for the chest and ten for the ten potions inside it.

Potions and gadgets. There are ten potions on pages 82 and 83. You can consume a potion to use it during combat. There’s coolant, a potion that cures burns. Antidote, which cures the poisoned condition. Dissolution elixir, which cures the immobilized condition. Calming potion, which cures the frightened condition. Healing potion, which heals five fatigue. Hero’s elixir, which draws two cards from your vital energy deck if you have less than five in your hand. Love elixir, which increases social competency tests by two for the next hour. Smoke potions make the creatures attacking you blind. Vision of the occult potions let you target concealed enemies for three scenes. The last potion listed is called poison, which poisons the target for three scenes. Like these ten potions, there are also ten gadgets you can create in a workshop. Shurikans, traps, kunals, et cetera gadgets to deal damage, immobilize burn poison or blind enemies. You can use these gadgets during an encounter, too.

Each of these ten potions and ten gadgets has resource icons shown for how you craft it. The resources are listed with pictures and prices, and sometimes also have their own properties. For example apples aren’t only a 2 copper coin resource used to craft other things, they can also be consumed to heal one fatigue. Rope, leather, grain, fabric, oil, et cetera, the icons are used, not words, to match to the resources used to build items. Without words there’s no way to make a glossary to look up resources, so you’ll be icon matching. Thankfully, Gates of Krystalia resources have different background colors depending on what type of resource it is. Trade resources, materials you mainly purchase, have a red background. Plants and mushrooms, you can gather from the environment using an intellectual competence test. The difficulty value is 7 for common natural ingredients and 20 for rare ingredients. Plant and mushroom resources have purple backgrounds. Animal parts and ores have a brown background, and include things like a bone, a feather, a scale, some fur, and iron, copper, silver, gold, mythral, wood, and stone. Elemental crystals have a dark teal background, and include the air crystal, fire crystal, tide crystal, electric crystal, ice crystal, earth crystal, light crystal, dark crystal, toxic crystal, and vital crystal. Crafting weapons and armor with these crystals gives the weapon critical damage meaning the base damage is multiplied by four if your primary card PC is a King K for that type of combat technique CT, and gives armor the ability to absorb one of that type of combat technique CT. That’s a bit of acronym soup when you’re reading the rule book. Critical damage is a four times multiplier of base damage, PC is primary card, K is King, CT is combat technique.

To brew a potion, your character first needs to possess the resources listed for that potion. Next, be at an alchemical laboratory. Once a day, heroes can make a number of potions depending on the alchemical structure’s productive capacity. Then perform an intellectual competence test for all the objects of the same type that you want to create. If you got a 0 to 7, you made a poor quality item worth half the regular price. If you got an 8 to 14, you made normal quality item that can be sold for the price listed. If you got a 15 to 21, your potion is good, and can sell for one and a half times the price listed. If you got a 22 and above, your item is super quality, and will sell for twice as much as the listed price. Making gadgets is similar. Once a day you’ll have the materials, be at a technological workshop, say you’re making a number of items at or below the workshop’s individual production capacity, and then you’ll make one intellectual competence test for all the objects of the same type that you want to make. And again sale price depends on your intellectual competence test. Zero to 7 is poor quality, 8 to 14 is normal quality, 15 to 21 is good quality, and 22 and beyond are super quality that sell for twice the listed price.

So we’ve talked about how to make a potion or gadget, you simply need to be at the crafting station, have the materials, and make an intelligence competency check. The result determines the item you crafted's sale price (half, normal, 1.5, 2x the listed price). Here is an example of making a potion. You're at the alchemy bench. You have two rubicantias and a moonflower. You make an intelligence competency check. You draw a 7 of clubs plus your intelligence of 1 is 8. The suit of the 7 is a club, toughness so, no blessing and the number stays at 8. That's a normal quality love elixir that sells for its listed value of 75 copper coins. If you drink it, you'll gain plus two social competency for two scenes or one hour. Here is an example of making a gadget. You're at the tech workbench. You have three lumosporias and an explosive powder. You make an intelligence competency check. You draw a 2, oof, plus your intelligence of 3 is 5. A matching suit intelligence blessing doubles the 5 to 10, so that poor quality sporebomb that would have sold for half its listed value of 80 copper coins, so, 40 copper coins, instead sells for normal price. Regardless of sale price, if you use it, up to two creatures for two scenes will each lose 1 vital energy and you'll recover 2 vital energy.

The rule book does have additional pages on other mechanics, so I’ll list those. Joining a guild, managing allies, building a kingdom, kingdom mishaps, your new dwelling, field cultivation, beast raising, fishing, metal forging, alchemy creations, technological workshop, refuges and refreshment, magic academy, trade and negotiation, relaxation structures, romantic relationships, having a harem, and a jealousy system. This how to play guide is long enough, so to summarize, basically each of those are a different type of competency test and a table showing you what you get based on how high your number was. Your fields grow better plants if you have an eighteen than an eight, you can raise more magical beasts with a sixteen than a six, you catch better fish with a fifteen than you do with a five, you forge higher quality armor with a twelve than you do with a two. The art in this rule book is really pretty, so, get it and look at all these tables and ways you can use these mechanics to explore the world.

Building a character. All characters start with normal clothes and 50 copper coins to purchase weapons, armor, and equipment. On the character sheet, fill in your character’s name, race, the intelligence charisma toughness and agility numbers provided by the race, and one of the two race innate abilities. Your character will also have a job class, so fill out your class specialization. Also fill in your hero’s rank, which ranges from rank one heroic up to rank four legendary, and the enhancements from your rank. And then pick out the number of combat techniques your rank says you get. Pick two of the four suits to be your favorite, hearts diamonds spades clubs, and voila, you have a character.

The example character is an elf mage named Arak with the elf innate ability of natural magic. As an elf they have plus three intelligence, zero charisma, negative one toughness, and plus one agility. Arak is wearing normal clothes and has a sword that deals cutting type damage. They’re heroic rank, so they have the combat techniques of basic attack, beyond the limit, lightning analysis, wrath of the fire dragon, oracle’s vision, and ancient tree strike. They’ve picked spades and hearts as their favored suits. Voila, a complete character. The character sheet mostly looks like the text for those abilities, what suits they align with, and what effects and damage they can deal.

Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand how to play. For everyone listening, if you’d like to hear an example adventure, the episode of Firebreathing Kittens podcast right after this is a demonstration of us playing Gates of Krystalia in a oneshot game session. We invite you to listen to it to hear an example of Gates of Krystalia in action. We encourage you to find the tabletop roleplaying game Gates of Krystalia’s rule book yourself, and play a game with friends.

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