[Donjon] Healing potions and other items

[Darren Hill]

How would a healing potion, or other item that produces a spell-like effect, work mechanically?

the cost is 1 worth per one-time magic bonus.
My ideas:
a) potion heals 1 FW per bought bonus
b) Gives a pseudo-skill, at 1 rank per bonus, which you then combine with a stat. Roll against an appropriate difficulty, and number of successes is wounds healed.

Also, how would you handle an item that gave effects like the following:
     Ring of invisibility
     teleport 1000'
i.e. effects that either work or they don't.
By 'handle', I mean - calculated their Worth, as well as come up with their game mechanics.

[Jason]

For the ring of invisibility, I'd handle it like a hide ability. More like the Blood goblin's ability to hide in a red background.

You could do the same for a teleport item. A teleport +3 would allow the use to teleport farther, or through materials. You could give a difficulty on the fly, like line of sight to target= easy difficulty, while going through 800 feet of marble = difficult.


jason

[jdagna]

Nothing in Donjon either works or not.  Everything works by degrees (facts and successes).

A teleport power, BTW, should really be used to add to movement tests (for charging in combat or changing range categories).  It could also probably be used to handle other challenges.  For example, if crossing a dangerous rapids has a difficulty of 6, then use the difficulty of 6 to see if you can teleport across.

If you want to guarantee that you teleport 1000' each time, remember that you get to narrate the GM's facts when you fail.  So you say "I teleport 1000' and... [insert GM facts here]"  In some cases, this may mean that you fall in the river because you teleported 1000' straight up and then fell in.  And, since you get to dictate your own facts when you succeed, you just make "I teleport 1000' feet" your first fact every time you use it.  Then the GM can narrate it, and if he narrates that 1000' was only enough to move you one range in combat (because you only had one other success to use for that), then so be it.

Likewise with the invisibility ring... if you use facts or narration to stipulate invisibility, then anyone who notices you must have felt or heard you.

A little group cooperation can make items work in this way without any trouble - you just have to remember that the facts are what controls the ultimate outcomes.  There are no hard numbers in the game - a pile of gold is worth only what you find it, and 1000' is worth only what you can actually accomplish with it.

[Christopher Weeks]

I would do the ring of teleportation like this:

The ring allows the user to teleport himself and whatever he's carrying.  The user defines the endpoint and the GM states a difficulty (In the text Clinton suggests medium for teleporting 100 miles.  I think that's too easy but I suppose it depends on your game's flavor.) as modified by situation, distance, surroundings, local available magic (maybe), encumbrance, etc.  I'd also assign some number of default combat actions that it takes to teleport so that it's not an issue (usually) out of combat, but the user can eat up successes by making it faster.  And if I were GMing it, I would normally chooose to ignore my successes when the player fails.

Worth would simply depend on how many dice the ring was going to yield. (1 per).

But this is an exercise for me.  I'm reading the rules for the second time now and haven't played.  Am I missing something?

Chris