Knave 2 Retrospective and Review
The physical copies of the Knave 2e Kickstarter are shipped or on their way. That seems like a good time to share my experiences with the system.
I've used the system for a year starting in June 2023 with the first draft available through Kickstarter. I run two separate campaigns at the same time:
- a sandbox campaign for 5th and 6th graders new to the hobby (24 sessions so far) and
- an open table Megadungeon campaign online (30 sessions so far).
The game is not to be confused with full ecosystems like Shadowdark RPG or Dungeon Crawl Classics. It's compatible with old school adventures but there aren't a many written expressly for use with Knave 2e and you'll have to do some conversion work on the fly. It's a game for the GM who's also a tinkerer and game designer, with OSR modules and bestiaries at hand.
I like Knave 2. I'll focus on the problems I had with it but it's still a game I would recommend over most OSR hacks and heartbreakers. Especially for groups with an experienced OSR referee who runs for players new to the genre.
This review is mostly aimed at other GMs who plan to use the system for a longer campaign. I'll focus on problems I ran into so you can make an informed decision whether the system is four you and nip issues in the bud in your own game. There's a checklist at the end of the post that summarizes my personal pain points in the form of solution-oriented questions.
Character Creation
Player characters have the classic six attributes but they are on a scale of 1-10 and they double as a bonus to d20 rolls. The system grants 3 points at every level, including level 1. Every stat has an extra use. They double as saving throws. What attributes are used for are mixed up compared to retroclones in an attempt to avoid dump stats.
This system has some upsides:
- The game is a lot faster to teach to newcomers with a short attention span like my 5th grade players and, frankly, anyone who isn't already comitted to the TTRPG hobby. No need to explain the nuances between ability scores and saving throws or how your actual modifiers of -3 to +3 are derived from a value between 3 and 18 with various tables. No need to spend half an hour going shopping to spend starter gold, just choose or roll 2 careers and get some items that facilitate creative problem-solving.
- Players can build their own multiclass or simply roll their 3 points randomly with 3d6 rolls (attributes are numbered 1-6, so a "2" would mean +1 DEX). This means you can have some of the "lonely fun" of building characters without being forced to. I'm impressed with this point buy system molded out of B/X that somehow manages to slot right into the OSR playstyle by streamlining common bonuses (to-hit, henchmen etc). It's harder than it looks: early D&D had very clearly better and worse stats.
There are also downsides:
- Some of the changes to how ability scores work are unintuitive even to fifth graders with no prior D&D experience. Why does wisdom make me a better archer? Why is lockpicking associated with Intelligence and not Dexterity? I've had to remind players about these two a lot.
- In my games, Dexterity has become the new dump stat. Dexterity is to my knowledge only used for some saving throws and for sneaking up on someone. Players in both of my campaigns never wanted to sneak up on someone, even though I made sure to mention the triple damage from sneak attacks. I asked my adult players about that and they mostly seemed to not want to take the risk associated with splitting the party in any way. I feel like the sneak attack is somehow less appealing when it's not a class feature.
- Charisma determines the amount of Companions (= henchmen that never roll morale but take a half share) as well as the amount of acivte blessings(= divine magic) as well as initiative and a re-roll for morale rolls of hirelings. I ruled the latter takes an action. Still: Henchmen and blessings seem both good enough for a whole stat by themselves.
I stuck with the attribute distribution for the online campaign but I changed it for the offline campaign with kids. I made Dexterity the stat for intiative, ranged attacks and lockpicking; and Wisdom the stat for active blessings. This more conventional distribution felt better in practice.
Death & Dying
Damage is dealt first to HP, then to inventory slots as wounds. Players have 10+CON inventory slots.
In the online game it's somewhat annyoing to deal with shifting inventories over text. In the offline game there was a lot of erasing and rewriting. In a future offline game, I'd definitely use a physical inventory system such as Mausritter item cards or business cards in a plastic holder or Post-It notes.
Wounds that replace items is something I liked more in theory than in practice, where it's often a lot of inventory management. I would be willing to give it another try with a physical card inventory from the start, though.
Resolution System
Knave 2 manages to resolve all ability checks and saving throws with a single roll, even opposed checks. These rolls can also be reversed. That's a very clever innovation carried over from Knave's first edition. I'm a fan. You simply roll against 11 + the enemy's stat. Monster stats are equal to their HD, or half of their HD if the stat seems like their weakness (a Zombie may not be dexterous, an Ogre may not be wise). Any situational advantage grants a +5, or a -5 for disadvantages. Fitting careers grant a +5 outside of combat. There is no limit to stacking these advantages and no automatic failure and success for a natural 1 or 20. My students learned to use the advantages heavily after 5-10 sessions, looking to blind or trip high AC enemies. The online adults generally forgot about it, even though I tried to point out they have the option to stack advantages.
A minor downside to the mechanic is that you'll have to do some math on the fly. I'm not really a math guy and even after almost a year of running the system once to twice a week I get confused about who rolls against whose derived value from what. Then again, I tend to switch around whether the GM or the players roll based on what seems quickest, which may be the real problem - I spend time thinking about what resolution is the quickest before resolving an action which can mean I accidentally try to simulate both of them simultaneously in my head.
A major downside that's not adressed in the book is how the system falters when enemies have 10+ HD and kind of breaks down for 20+ HD monsters. 10+ HD monsters require at least one point in the corresponding stat or advantage to even have a chance and 20+ require players to stack up advantages even with a +10 bonuses AND even if they are "weak" at something, they'll still produce a target number of 21+. Also, high HD enemies auto-hit unless they are plastered with disadvantages. You'll easily get into a situation where a player rolls the best value they possibly could have rolled and it's still a failure, or an enemy rolls a 1 and still hits. That seems off to me. It might be a conscious design decision to promote stacking advantages. It's not adressed in the book. It's definitely a pain point for me because enemies encountered in my campaigns went up to 16 HD in both campaigns and are likely to go higher in one of them. Obviously: "Rulings, not rules" applies. Still, high-level monster stats aren't the kind of thing I feel comfortable in just winging.
Attack rolls of 21+ grant a free combat maneuver, not unlike to how Mighty Deeds work in DCC. I really like this prompt for creativity and it's quite elegant. Players will have to invest in the attack attributes STR or WIS to get this result but there is no need for something like a deed die mechanic. It's not always easy to come up with something interesting, so I stole a rule from Mythic Bastionland and gave players a choice between the free combat maneuver or a +1 to damage.
Players can break a weapon to deal double damage. This option was rarely used, players forgot or didn't want to bother with buying new weapons all the time. As soon as they get magic weapons, they'll use those. I think this rule has potential for more rules-savvy players since you have a reason to use mundane weapons even after piling up magic weapons. However, as I said, both of my groups basically ignored this rule with rare exceptions. I like this rule in theory but it didn't do much in practice.
On a natural 1 attack roll, the weapon breaks. This led to some mild giggling and fun interpretations when playing against Goblins who clearly aren't able to construct their weapons properly or when coming up with how a Giant Hawk's "weapon" may break (broken beak, bent claw). Both groups were adamantly against applying this rule to hard-won magic items and I wasn't going to be mean about it. This means the rule overall favored the players. It's one of the better fumble rules out there in my opinion.
Procedures
Encounter Distance, Surprise, Initiative
Knave 2 includes rules for encounter distance and surprise that fit into the d20 rolls. Wisdom vs. Dexterity to determine surprise, for example. Party leaders compare their Charisma to determine which side goes first.
The mechanics replace the traditional d6 rolls from B/X D&D but work essentially the same except for initative which is a single roll. No individual initative, no rerolling initative every round.
Leader initiative continues to cause some friction in my games. "Who is the leader?" I ask my players. "Whoever has the most Charisma!". And so the players begin staring at each others character sheets or counting out how much Charisma they have for an awkward moment. Whenever I have the presence of mind, I replace leader initiative with a CHA roll of the character closest to the enemy. That's how surprise works, too (except with a WIS roll).
Reaction
Knave 2 uses the traditional 2d6 reaction roll but includes specific reactions for every result. I like the table a lot (e.g. 6: avoid the PCs, 8: follow or observe). Except for the most common result on a 7: "Ignore the PCs". It's just too boring a result that happens too often. And players very rarely do something other than ignore them back.
The Hazard Die
The Hazard Die has been around for a while and replaces turn-tracking with the random encounter roll. In Knave 2, each round the GM rolls a d6:
- 1 Encounter
- 2 Fatigue: Rest or take 1 damage.
- 3 Burn: Torches burn out.
- 4 Delve Shift: The dungeon environment changes.
- 5 Sign: An encounter is rolled and hinted at that will come across the players next time a 1 is rolled.
- 6 Nothing
I quickly removed the fatigue result which never prompted an interesting decision or really anything but time wasted. Of course you're going to rest, unless you're escaping the dungeon in which case of course you're going to take the 1 damage. It just kept being a drag and required artificial explanations. "The sun burns so hot you have to rest or lose a hit point!", "You climb the stairs to exhaustion: rest or take damage!" - "... okay? (mildly irritated head scratching)".
I kept the Burn result but I ignored it when it came up twice in a row.
Ignoring results that don't make sense is what makes the hazard die work in general in my mind. Which I really don't like, I feel like I'm betraying my role as a neutral arbiter. Maybe it should be called the "Reminder Die"? I digress.
I kept the Sign result though I must admit at some point I forgot that you're supposed to actually remember and use the encounter the next time a 1 is rolled. I started to just roll randomly. Oops.
The Delve Shift result I removed last. I wanted it to work but couldn't come up with enough interesting changes in Castle Xyntillan, a haunted castle. This result kept catching me off guard and whatever I came up with was usually ignored, mistaken for an encounter or mistaken for a meaningful clue. Here's an Example Delve Shift using vermin: "A bunch of rats race past you!". Typical reactions: (1) "Oh no! How big are they? How many?" - "just regular rats, just 4" - "oh okay I guess, we move on"; (2) "WHY? OH NO RUN, HIDE" - "you run, you hide, nothing happens"; (3) "Oh yeah we rolled a 4, whatever." All of these reactions are simply less interesting to me than an actual encounter, encounter sign or continued delve would be. In fact, the most interesting Delve Shifts always ended up actually being a red herring to an encounter (e.g. apparitions or doors lock around you). I prefer those signs of a presence with the presence attached. Other examples for Delve Shifts would be falling debris or wind etc. - a lot of those assume a spatial awareness of the dungeon that just wasn't there when running a published megadungeon out of the book or a one page dungeon I put into my sandbox months ago. I also thought of using a gust of wind to blow out torches, for example. But again, this produces red herrings since there are regional effects that blow out torches and I feel antagonistic coming up with harmful effects willy-nilly while the game is already running. And preparing omens that might come up on a 4 feels like much work for little benefit. If I went through the bother to prepare descriptive clues in advance, I just tell those kinds of omens to players as they explore and don't wait for a 4 to be rolled. I love the idea of a changing environment as part of dungeons but coming up with them on the fly in an existing megadungeon didn't work for me. It overall produced less interesting experiences than just rolling an encounter or exploring the next room. I think the Delve Shift idea works better when attached to an adventure rather than to an always-on procedure.
I haven't used the hex crawling procedures beyond encounter rolls, so I won't comment on them.
Relic Magic & Patrons
Relic Magic is essentially the divine magic part of the game. Players can fulfill a mission from a deity, devil, nature spirit or other "Patron". If they succeed, they get a blessing attached to a relic in their inventory. Players can find relics (items) and shrines (locations) in the world. A player with an appropriate relic can get a mission from a Patron (= god, devil, nature spirit etc.) at their shrine. If they succeed, they get a blessing related to the Patron's domain of power attached to the relic. A blessing is a magic ability of some kind.
You have to complete the game yourself here - there are 100 spell books, but not a single blessing and barely any guidance. A blessing should be "small but useful, such as an aura or minor spell" and "designed in collaboration with the player".
The system produced a lot of pressure for me to develop any religious room and location in modules further. That may be on me to a large degree because I misunderstoot an important part. I only just now realized that communication with a patron should only be possible if the player already has a relic. I always let players communicate with patrons as soon as they found a shrine. Solution: Read carefully and treat relics as part of the walkie-talkies they are and not just as the counterpart to a spell book. Oops.
Coming up with a blessing is a challenge. I muddled through it but here are some suggestions:
- You can simply rip off class abilities from other systems. I read this idea somewhere online but I don't remember where. If that's your approach, it's probably a good idea to base deities around classes as well.
- The easy way out is to use divine spells from other systems. That would be my choice if I didn't use the built-in spells. If freeform relic magic isn't for you, the minimum effort option is to just have one lawful and chaotic deity and import cleric spells as-is.
- Try to avoid blessings the GM has to remember at all times. Make them an ability you have to use instead. One example of a bad blessing I handed out was: "Whenever you come across an already relaxed creature, get +1 on the reaction roll." It should have been one of the following: (1) "Twice per day, you can increase a rolled reaction by 1 if the creature is already relaxed." Or (2) "If you come upon a relaxed person and you send them a calming thought before a reaction is rolled, add +1 to the result".
Another issue cropped up because my Patron missions usually required the whole party to do something in order for one person to get rewarded. In the campaign with kids this lead to jealousy about who gets a relic. The players who didn't get the reward from a mission felt short-changed because they had to do the mission as well but didn't get the power. I thought about giving every player a relic and blessing for every mission but it seemed like the players would end up with a lot of the same abilties and quickly become very same-y. I talked to them about that and gave them a choice, in the end they agreed (or at least didn't have the guts to disagree when asked for their opinion haha). Still, the whole "quest-for-it" reward system introduces an envy and jealousy problem. Adults were timid to pursue their missions because they wanted to avoid being the one person that gets credit for a group effort. Players were concerned they'd step on each other's toes and tried to avoid the exact issue I ran into with less mature players. One potential solution for Knave 2 games might be to steer these missions in a direction where the person who has the most to gain also takes a higher risk ("defeat the dragon from within its belly" instead of "defeat the dragon"). I haven't really figured out a satisfying solution for me. Maybe it's just one of these times where you have to take the good with the bad, similar to xp-for-gold which increases player autonomy but sometimes incentivizes psychopathic behavior. That's not exclusive to Knave 2, of course: I've played in both the Reavers and Arden Vulgaris campaigns before, both of which use different systems with similar "quest-for-it" mechanics that reward single players (Wolves Upon the Coast has "Boasts" to the party and Arden Vulgaris has houseruled "Oaths" to the gods into Shadowdark). The issue cropped up in both campaigns as well, although responsible adults generally have it under control. Just be aware of the issue, it's not always obvious from the GM side.
Alchemy
Alchemy is another freeform magic type system. Instead of a list of fixed recipes, players themselves can pitch a potion effect if they have monster parts and can make an argument for a loose association (example: a dragon's lung to breathe fire or for fire resistance). They have to roll a 16+ on an INT check or the potion fails. If you succeed by 10+. a recipe is discovered and no further rolls are needed for the exact same potion. I like the system and I'll likely keep some version of it around in a future campaign. It's probably my favorite freeform magic type mechanic together with Whitehack miracles. There are some things you may want to keep in mind.
Taking your time to brew a potion grants +5 to the roll. What both groups very quickly figured out is that a player with the alchemist career gets another +5. This means that a player who chooses to invest 3 INT in their character at level one will be guaranteed to succeed a brewing attempt by level 3. This meant the alchemist career was in very high demand for a second character in both games. I'm not sure I like that. It's one instance that makes me think a 1 should automatically be a failure, regardless of bonuses; or maybe the alchemist career shouldn't exist.
The system is designed in such a way that the players are supposed to make a pitch and an argument for a potion effect, then the referee decides if it makes sense or what would be fair instead. Even after 20+ sessions and heavy use of the system, players in both of my games would still end up slaying a monster, then ask me: "What can I do with the ectoplasm/skeleton bone/panther legs?". There seems to be some sort of player instinct or mental block to unlearn the habit of asking a GM what an item does exactly. I usually have an idea but I usually also have to actively remind myself to say "it's up to you pitch me something that makes sense". And players usually come up with something themselves! I'd advise you to suppress your own ideas here for a moment until they had a moment to get creative themselves.
One player asked if they could combine potion effects that are already brewed. I agreed but under the following conditions:
- A new INT roll is required or both potions are ruined. This is the tradeoff for using less inventory space.
- You can't increase an effect's quality, only pile up different effects into one slot. This prevents ungodly good potions from 1-HD-enemies at higher levels (rat swarms, goblin warbands, skeleton armies).
Here are some potion ideas directly from player brains:
- Goblin brain > Poison of stupidity (-3 INT, -3 WIS); later combined with antimagic water to brew an anti-wizard poison (-3 INT, -3 WIS, -50% effectivenes of spells).
- Cockatrice > Potion of Stone-to-Flesh. Mildly interesting: Both groups in different campaigns came up with this potion after their first encounter with a cockatrice. Only one of them used the potion on an actual stone wall to horrifying results.
- Panther legs > Potion of Speed
- Skeleton bones > Potion of Plant Growth. Minecraft has you craft bonemeal as fertilizer from undead skeletons, and my younger players know this game like I knew my Legos. In fact, it took me a few sessions to realize that some of the most unprompted and unexpected decisions the students made was based on the fact that their only reference for a sandbox game was Minecraft. "I look for copper!", "I mine for iron!", "I chop wood!", "I build a bed from my chopped wood!", "I plant wheat!", "How many berries are on the bush we planted one hour ago?".
- Rose bush with grasping human limbs growing out of it: Potion of Arming (+1 Arm)
Random Tables
Knave 2e comes with a lot of d100 tables with entries of just one or two words. Highlights are:
- The "Careers" table (p. 5) for character creation. 100 backgrounds with 3 starter items each, useful for any fantasy OSR game.
- The Dungeon creation tables (pp. 14-17), though I haven't used them yet. I've definitely struggled to find new types of rooms or room details or hazards etc. that are presented here in a wonderfully terse manner.
- Hireling "Archetypes" (p. 53): Two-word descriptions that I can tell players as-is and immediately know how to roleplay. "Blunt farmer", "hippy herbalist", "worn-out boxer". No assembly required. Outstanding!
I like random tables, though I feel like Ben Milton couldn't out-compete his previous game Maze Rats. I found myself using my Maze Rats copy over Knave 2 both at the table and during prep. Knave 2 just made it harder for me to find what I was looking for for multple reasons:
- Maze Rats has maybe 6 page spreads of tables, while Knave 2 tables are spread over the whole 80 page book.
- The Knave 2 table of contents does not list the tables as such, they are included where they made sense to the author. It's not always obvious where that is: Do you look for "Mutations" after the section about "Delving" (p. 13), "Hazards" (p. 21), "Spells" (p. 22)", Alchemy" (p. 35), "Monsters" (p. 61) or "Bestiary" (p. 62)? And once you flipped to the corresponding page, you'll still have to flip through the following pages to find the table you look for among other related d100 tables.
- Let's say I'm just looking for inspiration, not specifically for a mutation table but asking myself: "What kind of things could I add?". Maze Rats has up to 12 tables per page spread. Knave 2 has up to 4 tables per page spread and those are spread out in between game rules. Yes, Knave 2 tables have a 100 entries while Maze Rats tables have 36, but as it turns out I don't need more than 36.
Not to mention that Maze Rats was translated in various languages by third parties, including my native tongue. I doubt that Knave 2 will see the same treatment since it's longer and not licensed under CC-BY 4.0, meaning people can't translate and sell it for their own profit as easily.
Adventuring Gear
Knave 2 doesn't list individual prices for low-cost adventuring gear. Items are common, uncommon or rare which cost 5, 20 and 100+ coins respectively. Common items are found even in villages, uncommon ones only in towns and rare ones only in cities.
The blanket pricing saves a lot of time of looking up prices which are made-up and ahistorical in the first place. I'm a fan.
I could do without the distinction between a 5 and 20 coin tier. Over the course of play I ruled the same items sometimes as common, sometimes as uncommon. I've had to make too many arbitrary gut decisions about whether something is available in a village vs. a town and therefore worth 5 or 20 coins. I wish there was a list of adventuring gear with the suggested rarity. I could hand that to players so they didn't feel obligated to ask me for the price of a rope, pickaxe or 10' foot pole. In a new campaign I'd either make a list of adventuring gear tailored to the setting or be lazy and give up the distinction and price them all at 10c.
Miscellaneous
- The book has maybe 80 pages, which is just thin enough to make a Zine out of it (print as brochure, fold it in the middle, then staple or sew it).
- The endpapers are used to summarize the rules you are likely to look up during the game. I like that because I used this summary basically every session since it was added to the Drafts, it's like a built-in referee screen. Very useful. Every system should have a summary either in the book or as a PDF to print out.
- The book has a list of "Game Master Duties" and "Player Duties" at the beginning, similar to Cairn and PbtA games that explain the mindset and behavior that is expected. They're excellent summaries of common OSR wisdom. They're useful reminders and Session 0 checklists for everyone who is not exclusively running OSR games.
- The book has a "Designer's Commentary" at the end that clears up intents and inspirations, the "spirit of the law" so to speak. The section also reveals the sources for various ideas which makes it easier to trace the ideas, similarly to footnotes in scientific works. Every rule book should have a section like this. It's useful and fun to read.
- The book includes some useful rules for common damage like that from fire and burning, drowning, lightning, and the effect of darkness (-10 to all rolls requiring sight). That's a big plus. All of these rules have become relevant and are caused me some some trouble in other games where they were missing.
- Ben Milton manages to explain some core concepts of OSR play in less than a quarter page (p. 7 on "Checks"). He covers social checks (usually not necessary), lore checks (not necessary), and search checks (describe obvious features, reveal details when questioned; also a terse reiteration of the famous Landmark, Hidden, Secret blog post as a procedure). It's easy to glance over these passages if you're in the know already but it's really a standout way of communicating what you're actually supposed to do (aka a procedure).
- There's no public community around the game as afar as I know. You have to pay for the author's Patreon Discord. I don't know of any other OSR game where the community around it is hidden behind a paywall.
- Knave 2 comes with 100 level-less spells. They scale with INT but could easily be used in other systems by replacing "INT" with "level". They're good problem-solver spells. I tried to make Castle Xyntillan fit the Knave 2 spells but in hindsight that wasn't the way to go. I should have used the Swords & Wizardry spells the module assumes. It's much easier to referee without making and referencing a special table where I listed Knave 2 counterparts to all S&W spells used in the module and created new spells for those that wouldn't fit.
- I've read reviews and comments from people who read the rules and figured that players would hire a lot of hirelings to carry a lot of weapons for power attacks and torches and bypass the inventory as a restriction mechanic. I never ran into that problem. Even if players used this strategy, Hirelings have a low morale score and may run away with all the stuff they carry. If they carry 10 swords, that's 500 coins running away. If they carry all your light sources, you're out of light sources. Companions don't roll for morale but they take a half share and cannot be replaced until a player levels up and increases their Charisma. It's a non-issue in my book, I only mention it because I've seen it brought up multiple times online.
A Checklist for Knave 2 Campaigns
The following list of problems are almost guaranteed to come up in a longer campaign. Some of them only if you use published adventures which I'll assume you do. If you plan to run Knave 2 for any extended amount of time, you probably want to think about them.
- How does fleeing work? There's no rule for that. In theatre of the mind I like to roll a Dexterity check or stay in range until after the enemy has had their turn (based on Into the Odd). On a battlemap I never really found a satisfying rule and honestly kind of winged it with a chase sequence that usually ended with players dropping marbles, reaching their boat under arrow fire or barring a door behind them.
- How will you interpret complete armor sets? Knave 2 thinks in armor pieces but modules will think in complete armor sets. You may want to reinterpret armor sets like a "leather armor +1" to a "leather helmet +1", for example. That's how I did it. Or you could have it be a full set (6 pieces, 7 with a shield) and a +1 set bonus. Keep in mind that armor pieces are expensive (100-500 coins alias gp) but the author's intention is that the resale value of armor is "very small, since armor has to be precisely tailored to a PC". That's easy to miss in the designer's commentary on p. 72. New weapons cost 50c per slot, so they shouldn't cause much of an issue. If players keep looting them as treasure in a "too slow, too boring" kind of way you may want to start to think about the condition in which mundane weapons are when looted from ancient skeletons and careless goblins.
- How do you deal with high HD enemies? High HD enemies start to auto-hit and auto-succeed in the rules as written. Suggestions: Auto-fail/-succeed with a natural 1 or 20. And/or cap the bonus from HD at +10 (= target number 21+). And/or actively encourage players to make use of advantage and disadvantage.
- How will you rule attribute damage? The traditional rule expected by modules is death at 0 STR/CON/etc., but PCs in Knave 2 start at 0. Examples: The Geas spell reduces STR until an action is taken, a Ghost in a module I used recently reduces CON permanently. Will this kill a PC? If so, at what point? Will you allow negative modifiers? One alternative is to simply replace attribute damage with a wound placed in the inventory, perhaps as a condition like in Mausritter (takes up one slot, -1 to STR until healed). Permanent damage to STR etc. could usually be reframed as CON damage where death at -10 CON follows naturally from having 0 inventory slots aka flesh points.
- Are you comfortable with the Relics & Patrons system? Do you maybe need a starter list of Patrons and/or blessings and/or missions? You could use class abilities or divine spells from other games as a starting point.
- Each follower can reroll Morale once per combat if their leader passes a CHA roll. Who is the leader - their employer or the party member with the highest CHA? Does the CHA roll require an action?
Resources
- My Google Sheets Character Generator for Knave 2e
- Perchance Knave 2e Character Generator by u/Olorin_Ever-Young
- Unofficial Character Sheet by Lazarus. Helpful if you want to houserule how attributes work, since those rules are written on the official character sheet.