Hey Veeky Forums, need some help. I'm looking for a system...

fantasycraft is perfect for what you want

5e is actually really rough to run a low magic game in. Mostly since you're restricted to very few classes (most have some magic in this edition).

Nigga, you want Fantasy Craft. It has lots of options to build a fun martial character concepts. You can even go a full soldier party composition and everybody can bring something different to the party. Go play that shit.

But on the other hand, most of the D&D heartbreakers are skewed toward PCs who are decked out in a veritable christmas tree of magic item. That's not really an issue with 5e's "+3 by level 20, max 3 attunements" approach.

If you just ran nonmagical fighters and rogues and such, you can do some seriously cool shit if the GM is alright with letting you come up with special attacks and maneuvers on the fly (PHB "Improvising an Action" and "Contests in Combat").

Plus there's the Action Options from the DMG, that significantly expand the baseline arsenal for what martials can do and deal with. Especially the cleave variant is incredible for this, because it gives Martials access to much needed AoE in a campaign without casters.

There are even fairly simple and useful rules for "Shadow of the colossus" style shit in there.

You can make the attempt. But I've already put sweat and blood and tears into 5E trying to make it low-magic, and come up empty or worse.

Turn away. This path is one to madness only.

Thanks for all the replies anons, I ran them by the DM, it's in his hands now.
Also, I should probably note that while it's a low-magic campaign, their will be fantasy races like Elves and Goblins featured, though I'm guessing those are pretty easy to fit into most of these systems if necessary.
Now I just need to hear the word from the DM so I can choose between playing PTSD Ranger guy or Dick A. Ssthief.
Have The Night of 1000 Bo Dukes as thanks.

Nope, GURPS is pretty perfect for it. Though I honestly admit I don't know what kind of rules for boat vs. boat fighting, though could just use the Mass Combat rules.

My to cents
Burning Wheel
or
Blades of the Iron King

GURPS is cool and can also work but it is slow unless the GM is very use to it.

GURPS (maybe even GURPS Vikings), BRPG/Runequest, 7th Sea (go figure), or Savage World, maybe FATE.

>A D20 system would be good, since that's the type we're most familiar with.
an hero

>a focus on martial combat and roleplaying
Pretty vague. Also two entirely different directions.

>Viking Campaign
Conflicting personal motivations and beliefs in a system where a climactic tink can decide as much or more than a full fledged battle?
Torchbearer

There is an entire fucking game made for the exact fucking thing you want to do

It's called fucking Yggdrasill.

>tink
I can't spell
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(assembly)

For GURPS you can get by with the Lite rules, tactical combat, mixed armor, and low-tech weapons.

Isn't that a *World game? Doesn't seem like what OP's looking for.

About Gurps...

It will resolve combat in excruciating detail, bogging everything down with management of the most irrelevant tidbits. Meanwhile it will completely ignore any meaning or symbolism to a story, it will throw out random tension and leave it unresolved, and it will give the players the impression that they have to learn all the rules and then lawyer their little asses off.

In short it will do anything that DnD already does, only with more needless complexity.

Anything that makes a story, a game, or a social evening is still totally up to the GM, and the mechanics really leave them hanging. Gurps induces autism in the worst way and to turn it into a game that works you basically have to already have the game and just use Gurps for resolving details and probabilities. But then why use it at all?

The splats are nice and well worth looking at for inspiration as they explore genres pretty comprehensively. But the mechanics are fucked, made by people who never got what gaming can be about but went ahead and designed their own anyway. It is self serving and doesn't connect to anything. Steer clear!

>It will resolve combat in excruciating detail, bogging everything down with management of the most irrelevant tidbits.

Yes, because GURPS only has one combat system. There are no simple or cinematic variants.

> will give the players the impression that they have to learn all the rules and then lawyer their little asses off.

Yes, because the GM can't just say "no" to absurd stupidity.

I really do think that 90% of the anti-GURPS posters on Veeky Forums are either memeing or have some actual for of mental retardation.

>The typical entrenched Gurps position
Yeah, don't play with people like this poster. They don't get games and want to max out their sheet for combat instead. Best leave them at their gurps table where they can wank each other off over how brilliant they are for having discovered The Gurps and not bother the roleplayers.

But I don't even play GURPS.
This the typical anti-GURPSer position: "it sux cuz I say so" ; "you just say that cuz you're a SJGdrone"

I'm I lying? Are there not several modular combat systems in the core book/basic set, ranging from light to cinematic to wargame? Are there not at least two different armor systems, one simple and D&D-esque and complicated and allowing mixed armor?

The fact that you even think these are arguments in your favor is very telling.

You might not be playing The Gurps atm, but you are what people mean when they say
>Oh him? He's okay most of the time, but he plays Gurps.

Gurps hate is a meme, no doubt. But the meme has a lot of truth behind it: experience gathered from reading the books, trying to play with Gurpsers, and from lurking Veeky Forums where the Gurps faction is one of the most verbose and least able to convey their fascination.

Gurps set out to fix DnD by making in more DnDish. In the process it lost what little genre DnD has left and replaced it with
>You can do anything - but do it so badly, what's even the point anymore?

If you want something rules lite and easily adjustable go with Barbarians of Lemuria. The mythic edition even has lite rules for naval warfare (ramming, boarding, etc,).

Storm King's Thunder.

/told

Where can I find the core rulebook for Yggdrasil?

check out symbaroum

If you take this and go snoop up a copy of Vikings of Legend, you're pretty much set.
Bonus: you get to roll d20 for hit location.

I'll second the suggestion of Symbaroum. English materials available here: www85.zippyshare.com/v/uSuMNELr/file.html

I came here to post this.

Although it's rooted in Dark Fantasy along with being more generally Low Magic, although magic is most definitely a thing (but it comes at a pretty severe cost if abused). Magic items are extremely rare, and players should generally only ever get ahold of one of them per person, and they also come at a similar cost like magic, although they usually come with a few things they can do rather than just a single ability.

Emphasis definitely on martial combat and roleplaying, but combat can be pretty brutal in Symbaroum, so is to be avoided more often than not unless you have advantages. It is a d20 system, so it seems to fit the bill.

Only problem with basic rulebook is that it doesn't go into great detail into the setting itself and the game's branded core elements like treasure-hunting and what encounters might be like in the setting itself, although premade adventures are decent.

Pendragon