Random Thoughts & Links for 4/26/2024

A few links for a Friday.

- A look at Kara-Tur. I agree it feels a little uneven. But the maps are gorgeous and looking at them makes me really want to play a game there. I own the "trail map" of it, too, which is pretty awesome unfolded.

- Joseph Bloch has a Kickstarter for the 2nd edition of his Adventurers Dark & Deep system.

- I love the idea of a rule that makes killing down foes requires a roll to overcome natural reluctance. You can see it featured here in a game of Twilight: 2000 run by Wayne.

- Maybe game on Sunday . . . so far only one definite yes and a lot more definite nos. I'll run game for 2 players but solo . . . just not as fun anymore.

- Reflections on Psi-Wars. The experience there with ST matches mine - even in very high tech situations, ST is just useful to have, and at 10/level people still want it and buy it.

More thoughts on Only Heroes Get to Resist

I've never implemented this rule, but I keep thinking about running a game that would use it:

Only Heroes Get to Resist

I have a few more thoughts on it, nine years on.

- I think it should totally affect allied NPCs, too, with an exception made for any characters 125+ points, who'd get treated as worthy and get a roll.

- In a DF-style split, Fodder don't resist, Worthies may, Bosses do. Worthies with a base resistance below the effective skill of the caster don't get to resist; those with equal or better do get a chance. Don't apply the Rule of 16 until this comparison is made.

- If an effect has a chance for recovery, the same rules apply - Fodder stays down until the effect naturally ends, Worthy and up get to try and evade the effects.

- You still have to make the roll to put the resistable effect on the target.

I don't intend to use this in Felltower, but I do think it would make a good Heroic DF rule.

DFRPG Companion 3 on the way!

I got a shipping notice for a copy of DFRPG Companion 3!

I'd kind of let this one slide out of my awareness. I'm excited to see it in person . . . it's always nice to get a physical copy of something you contributed to.

It's available here.

DF Felltower: What if all critical hits did max damage?

In Felltower, we use a little rule buried in the back of Basic Set: Characters (p. B326) that makes critical hits just bypass defenses, no table roll, and a "3" is max damage.

One way I thought of speeding combat - thanks to additional lethality - is to make all critical hits maximum damage. Roll a 3-4, or a 5 or a 6 with sufficient skill (or a 7 for some templates) and bang, max damage and bypass defenses.

This would add a lot of lethality to combat when the big boys roll a 3-6. Less so when others do . . . but make wizards really happy when they nail a crit on an Explosive spell thrown at an actual person.*

It wouldn't help fodder much, but at least sometimes they'd manage to hurt someone.

It would make boss monsters really, really scary. You can't get critically hit and luck out with a low damage roll against you. A giant doing 6d+12 or something would just flat out do 48 damage and that's that.


I don't think my players would go for this but part of me wants to try it. I think it would increase the bloodbath of combats and certainly erase a few foes here and there much more quickly.



* I joke. They all take the +4 for targeting the floor that I find totally bogus, but accept as a rule.

Felltower Updates

Updates to Felltower in anticipation of next week's game.

Volunteers?

For quite a while, no one had delved into Felltower. Those that did, returned battered and usually no better off. But the last group came back talking about beating up some beetles and taking home a nice payoff. That's the kind of thing that makes volunteers show up.

As usual, volunteers tend to be the kind of guys you wouldn't pay for. Wizards who may or may not actually cast spells, like Ken Shabby. One-armed swordsmen. One-eyed archers. No-morals semi-human thugs. Folks as dangerous to you as they are to the enemy, and/or themselve.

But my players love them, so we'll see a few more of them if this keeps up.

Rumors

All rumors are true, even the false ones. Like a Nostradamus prediction, they get contorted around until they match what happened, or what happened gets contorted around until it matches the rumor.

Either way, I wrote a bunch of rumors.

Restocking

Very little. I think I'd benefit from a more systematic, roll-based approach. For now I eyeball it and do some randomizing, but I wonder if I could generate a system based on my stocking system that would tell me what moves into Felltower, and what moves out, and just modify the dungeon based on that each time? Hmm . . .

Limits on Targeting Hit Locations?

This post is thanks to Faodladh, who made a comment on my last post on this subject.

In GURPS, it's very common to target specific hit locations. For skilled fighters run by skilled players, they often target a very small handful of optimal locations. You get eye shot guy, neck slicer guy, I only shoot the vitals guy. It's not always that realistic - the vitals or eyes or neck are always targetable? You can go for them over and over again. So let's say you want to limit the options.

Option 1: Minimum Effective Skill 10.

Like Deceptive Attack, attacks aimed at a specific location must have a minimum effective skill of 10. Therefore, to target the vitals (-3), you need a minimum effective skill of 13. Skull? 17. Eyes? 19.

Pros: Easy to implement. Limits tricky shots to the skilled.
Cons: You can't try a Hail Mary eye shot to win a fight unless your skill is higher.

Option 2: Only What's Open

I think Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch suggested this or something somewhat like this, back in the day. Roll on the Hit Location Table. Whatever comes up is your best target, at a -0. Or you can choose anything else, but with an extra -2 on it.

Pros: Has a realistic feel to it.
Cons: Probably just imposes an extra roll and/or people buying 2 extra points of skill to eat the penalties.

Option 3: Saw it Coming

Use the rules as written, but give a +1 to defend against any targeted attack after the first one on the same target.

Pros: Can be used with the RAW or the rules above.
Cons: Still allows anyone who wants to hunt for specific areas to do so.

I have some more ideas, but it's late so they'll need to wait for another post.

Multiple Defense penalty not automatically resetting?

I had a stray idea for a rough, gritty rule for cascading defenses.

Instead of resetting the penalty for multiple defenses on your turn, do not reset it unless:

- you spend a full second without using any defenses

or, optionally

- you spend a turn doing Evaluate


This is a simple, but very nasty rule. Being outnumbered and unable to take a breather - to step back and just reset - means your defenses will eventually be whittled down. Good ways to trigger the first is to use Move and clear the battle area, a classic swashbuckler move. Allowing Evaluate means you can stay in the fray, but not launch any offense, and it helps make Evaluate do something.

Why not reset when you do All-Out Defense? I think it just rewards taking a second being even more defense, which someone pressed is going to just do fairly often.

This would be a pain to deal with in a large fray, but it's probably a good way to make multiple foes - even weak ones - nasty in a realistic game with more detailed combat and/or smaller numbers of combatants. It also should have the emergent behavior of making outnumbered fighters either moving very defensively to try to limit their exposure, or very aggressively to take out a foe to cut down the odds. Right now, that's not always worth doing - the first might be useful, but with high defenses you can just ride out the attacks. The second is just standard behavior, but usually folks get a lot more tactical about which foe they choose to try to take out. Suddenly this would make "take out someone, anyone, even briefly so I can reset or even up" very attractive.

I haven't playtested this but it might be fun to try it out sometime.