Master and Servant

MASTER AND SERVANT

Take 5e, apply the tropes of Pokemon and Fate Grand Order, and you get Master and Servant.  All rights reserved.

MASTERING THE WORLD

Masters travel the world having merry adventures.  They duel other Masters, subdue feral monsters, fend off villainous plots, and solve strange mysteries of the ancients.

A Servant is a monster who has been bound to a Major Arcana, a magical playing card.  Whoever holds the card controls the Servant.  Those who do this professionally are the Masters.

Neither Servants nor Masters are inherently good or evil.  The Servant does the Master's bidding - that's the end of it.  There are honorable protective Masters and sleazy profiteering Masters.  Making things more complicated, there are many common Servant-holders out there who don't do it professionally, and they're also referred to as Masters; someone didn't think things through.

Servants grow in power by fusing them with other Servants, a process which destroys one Major Arcana and raises the strength of the other.  With sufficient sacrifices a Major Arcana can reach its peak potential and ascend, becoming an entirely new Servant.

Major Arcana can also be made more powerful by stacking them with Minor Arcana.  Minor Arcana are lesser magical playing cards depicting artifacts and rituals.  Some Minor Arcana are consumed on being played, such as the potion of healing or a spell scroll; others persist, such as the bag of holding or the driftglobe.  Those that persist can freely be removed and added to other Servants.

MASTER CREATION

A Master is a human with straight 10 stats, 8 HP, and a +2 proficiency bonus.

You have five feats for customization.  You can opt to exchange feats for 2 ability points each.  Try to avoid pure combat feats - the whole point is the Servants do the heavy lifting!

Masters start with one 3\* Servant, a CR 1/4 medium beast.  Choose one of: Boar, Giant Badger, Giant Frog, Giant Poisonous Snake, Giant Wolf Spider, Panther, and Wolf.  This is a Servant gifted to you by whoever set you on the path to becoming a full-time wandering Master.

There are no mechanics for Master control of a Servant.  The Servant obeys to the best of its ability and is under complete control, just as if it was the Master's player character.

WORLD ECONOMY

This isn't about gold.  Nobody starves in this world and everyone has all the mundane stuff they want.  If you want a broke character, say they're broke and offer a job opportunity that solves the condition.  If you want a rich character, say they're rich and have them show up with solid gold shoes.  The Arcana are the real currency of the setting.

Formal duels are either one-on-one or two-on-two with no substitutions allowed.  The tradition is to offer the winner a blind draw from the loser's deck of Arcana, one card for one-on-one or two cards for two-on-two.  Friendly duels with no wager are possible (as are wagering other goods and services).

A feral monster may be captured in a blank Arcana; any Master planning an excursion will have several blanks on hand.  The monster must either willingly surrender or be knocked unconscious.  Capturing a monster is then a full-round action.  Once captured, the monster has become a Servant, and may either be fused or fielded without further trouble.  Naturally feral monsters have no problem with ambushes or attacking in larger numbers!

Magic items may also be captured in blank Arcana to create Minor Arcana, but finding one in the wild is quite rare.  These are the work of the ancients.  They are either hidden in treasure hoards or kept secured by factions to preserve their purchasing power.

TIERS AND RATINGS

A "tier" is a gameplay concept with no in-world comparison.  It's all about the power levels.

* Tier 1: CR 0-1, common magic items, rural villages, orcs and goblins
* Tier 2: CR 2-6, uncommon magic items, frontier towns, ogres and trolls
* Tier 3: CR 7-11, rare magic items, bustling boroughs, giants and hydras
* Tier 4: CR 12-16, very rare magic items, major metropolis, dragons and beholders
* Tier 5: CR 17+, legendary magic items, seats of empires, liches and demons

A "rating" is another gameplay concept.  It ranks from one star to five stars, from most common to most rare, and serves to subdivide each tier as individual levels.  For instance Tier 1 covers CR 0, CR 1/8, CR 1/4, CR 1/2, and CR 1; a Giant Lizard is a CR 1/4 creature, and is therefore a 3\* creature in tier 1.

This serves partly to reinforce gacha talk and partly to help structure rewards.

WINNING ARCANA

A duel yields one deck pull per servant defeated.  A hoard (treasure chest, raided tomb, etc.) yields 3d6 deck pulls and 1d6 hoard pulls.

DECK PULL

01-34: 1\* magic item

35-57: 1\* servant

58-75: 2\* magic item

77-89: 2\* servant

90-95: 3\* magic item

96-00: 3\* servant

HOARD PULL

01-40: 3\* magic item

41-80: 3\* servant

81-92: 4\* magic item

93-95: 4\* servant

96-99: 5\* magic item

00-00: 5\* servant

SERVANTS

Tier 1: CR 0-1

1\* CR 0 (100 xp) (10 xp)

2\* CR 1/8 (300 xp) (25 xp)

3\* CR 1/4 (900 xp) (50 xp)

4\* CR 1/2 (2700 xp) (100 xp)

5\* CR 1 (6500 xp) (200 xp)

Tier 2: CR 2-6

1\* CR 2 (14k xp) (450 xp)

2\* CR 3 (23k xp) (700 xp)

3\* CR 4 (34k xp) (1100 xp)

4\* CR 5 (48k xp) (1800 xp)

5\* CR 6 (64k xp) (2300 xp)

Tier 3: CR 7-11

1\* CR 7 (85k xp) (2900 xp)

2\* CR 8 (100k xp) (3900 xp)

3\* CR 9 (120k xp) (5000 xp)

4\* CR 10 (140k xp) (5900 xp)

5\* CR 11 (165k xp) (7200 xp)

Tier 4: CR 12-16

1\* CR 12 (195k xp) (8400 xp)

2\* CR 13 (225k xp) (10000 xp)

3\* CR 14 (265k xp) (11500 xp)

4\* CR 15 (305k xp) (13000 xp)

5\* CR 16 (355k xp) (15000 xp)

Tier 5: CR 17+

1\* CR 17 (400k xp) (18000 xp)

2\* CR 18 (460k xp) (20000 xp)

3\* CR 19 (520k xp) (22000 xp)

4\* CR 20 (590k xp) (25000 xp)

5\* CR 21 (660k xp) (33000 xp)

A Servant is levelled by fusing it with other Servants, contributing their XP reward value to the whole.  If you fuse two identical Servants the result immediately rises to the next level.  Fusing one Giant Lizard (CR 1/4) into another Giant Lizard (CR 1/4) results in a CR 1/2 Giant Lizard with 2700 xp, while fusing a Giant Lizard into a Giant Centipede adds only 50 xp to the current total.  Fusing a CR 1/4 Giant Lizard into a CR 1/2 Giant Lizard would also only add 50 xp - the level must be identical!

Each level confers another HD worth of HP, and may improve their proficiency bonus as usual; consult the DMG monster stats table.

Every time a Servant levels up once outside of its tier, it has an opportunity to ascend, transforming into a completely new Servant of the same type (beast to beast, fiend to fiend, etc.) at the appropriate CR.  If nothing is available in that type the GM may allow a new type to be picked.  The Servant is now considered within its tier and may not ascend again until levelling into the next.

MAGIC ITEMS

Tier 1: tables A, B, C, D, E (1\*, 2\*, 3\*, 4\*, 5\*)

Tier 2: tables B, C, D, E, F

Tier 3: tables C, D, E, F, G

Tier 4: tables D, E, F, G, H

Tier 5: tables E, F, G, H, I

Three magic items from the same table can be fused to choose one from said table, or roll one item on the next table up.