Donjon Krawl

[Bankuei]

I thought I saw something about active defense can turn into an attack if you beat the opponent's roll.  In that case, it makes sense to always go for active defense instead of passive defense.  

As far as skill/attribute damage, I can see some really great ideas as far as,"I beat the troll until he can't fight, then question him about where he hides his treasure", or a bonus to loot.  Other, less scrupulous characters may take to slavery, using captured foes as stalking horses, cover, or extra rations ala Nethack.  

Chris

[Marco]

Fantastic idea, sharp lay-out. Clean mechanics--I like it.

Good tone--I'd lose the profanity (what little there is).

[rant] I'm annoyed at the constant suggestion that gamers will be "scared off" by all these "newfangled ideas." Gamers love new ideas--if they don't seem to like your ideas the fault may not lie with them. Also note: this has little to do with Donjon Krawl--but I've seen that turn of a phrase a few times in the last few days. [/rant]

Suggestions (brain dump):
1. Random dungeon generation tables. Why not? people love 'em.

2. Something I've considered but I'm not sure how to implement: when a player is primarily active in a scene, other players can get bonus dice (or whatever) by complicating matters for him. So if Joe is picking a lock on a chest, I can slip the GM a note that says "there's a glass sphere full of poison gas inside that will fall out and he'll have to catch it before it breaks"). I get a point/dice for that. Joe sees the note ... hilarity ensues (maybe?). [alternative--each player submits a whole (fiendishly) trapped encounter--secretely--and when it is discovered if the other players guess whose trap it was they get extra points and that player doesn't get any--encouraging him to keep quiet (if they guess the wrong person he gets a point and they don't)]

3. Random treasure tables. Especially with lots of inventive/humorus curses. When a horde is discovered the player who discovered it (or the one rolling high-die, or whatever) can enhance the number of "power points" in it by adding a secret number of "curse points." So we find a treasure consisting of (roll) 6 magic items. The power is (roll) 3 (so the average item is, say "good") the player--before the power roll secretly writes down +2 so it goes to 5 but two items are cursed ... something like that.

4. Random monster generation tables: especially fun if there are flow-charts and trends (the idea is that the monsters could be generated in real time so it's like "you open the door--Monster. Joe--roll for type. (wyrm), Fred roll for color (purple--breaths halucinogen gas), Kelly, roll for bio weapons (extra big horns), etc.)

I realize the game isn't necessiarily supposed to be *that* jokey. I really do think you're on to something.

-Marco

[James V. West]

Damnit, this is cool as hell!

I only skimmed the responses, so if I tread on trodden ground I'm sorry. Actually, I only have a scant few comments to make.

1) The art is great. However, it makes it hard to read the type. If the drawings were made lighter, this would be no problem. Also, you could make the font bigger and bolder.

2) Love the whole damn system. This runs close to a game I've been "working on" using d20s as the primary tool, so I'm into it. Good job to both Clinton and Zak on this one. I wanna play.

3) I'm with the others who have suggested more tables, charts, and random-generation stuff. Pile it on.

[DaR]

Quick question about dice:  are ties treated the same way as in Sorcerer (reroll or find something else), or is there some other way to handle them?  

Also, in the Brief Resolution section, there's some ambiguity about when a Total Success or Failure happens.  It's clear in Sorcerer that all the winner's dice must be higher than the loser's for it to be a Total Success.  However, in Donjon Krawl, you discard tied dice, which if you read it as meaning those dice are removed from play, you could then end up with a Total Success/Failure with the dice remaining.  I don't think that's what's meant, but it can be read that way.

Beyond that, it looks really good.  I rather like the ideas involved.  Now if only my brain didn't keep wanting to add in elements of TQB like using a character Story to derive the trait-like Skills...

[James V. West]

Beyond that, it looks really good.  I rather like the ideas involved.  Now if only my brain didn't keep wanting to add in elements of TQB like using a character Story to derive the trait-like Skills...

Nothin wrong with that...;-)

[Valamir]

Ok, in prepping for a hoped for DK session this weekend I came across a slight hole in the rules.  Namely Armor...no where (unless I just flat out missed it) does it say what armor actually does.

There is a brief mention of armor being rated "by the amount of damage it stops".

Ok...that leaves 3 options.
1) The armor rating could simply refer to dice the way weapons refer to dice and the armor dice could be added to the damage resistance roll.  This in not indicated in the rules as the damage resistance roll is given to be Wherewithal + Hit Dice + Skill.

2) The armor rating could simply negate successes from a successful Damage roll.  With Plate being rated a 5, that makes damageing someone virtually impossible.

3) The armor rating subtracts from the opponents damage dice

I'd put my money on Choice 1 or 3 (which are essentially the same), but that leaves a very difficult situation.

I hit, lets say I get 2 Successes and am using a standard sword type weapon (2 dice), and have a Virility of +4 (typical fighter type strength).

I would roll 8 dice for my damage.

Lets say I'm facing an opponent with 3 Hit Dice, a Wherewithal of 3, and Chain Mail.  He'd roll 9 dice to resist my damage.


I'm also not clear on why Hit Dice is added to your resistance roll at all (this might be part of the reason why you ran into frequent whiffs on damage).  Seems to me having 2 points of Wherewithal is sufficient.  The idea is not to determine IF I hit you but by how much.  Your highest roll will prevent a certain number of my damage dice from becoming damage and that's good enough for an effect.  To become very damage resistant requires then wearing heavier armor.

Tied to this monsters then would have to purchase a seperate Armor Rating rather than rely on Hit Dice to reflect natural armor.  This might be a good thing given your comments about monsters dishing out serious whooping (it would spread their dice around making them incrementally weaker).


Idea:  Vir + Whe modifier = Carry Capacity (every old school game needs one of these).

Encomberance =
Armor Rating +
Weapon Rating (fatigue factor for swinging big heavy weapons) +
1/10 Provision Save +
1/10 Wealth Save (if carrying your gold with you) +
1 per Wealth Die of loot found in item form in dungeon.

[Zak Arntson]

Choice 1 it is. At least, that's how we played it out this weekend. It's the simplest method, and seems to work fine.

So, to roll Damage you roll:

Attacker's Vir + Skill + Weapon vs. Defender's Whe + Skill + Armor

We did notice that a PC/Monster with Attack, Damage and Dodge skills is super-super deadly. But then, it'd be hard for me to give up a skill like "Spot Trouble" for "Dodge blades."

(Clinton, maybe combat skills should be limited ... like instead of "Somersault out of trouble," it's "Somersault out of pointy danger."? Just a thought. We limit Attack skills to one weapon (sort-of ... I got away with Rapier & Main Gauche as one weapon) ...)

[Valamir]

Choice 1 it is. At least, that's how we played it out this weekend. It's the simplest method, and seems to work fine.

So, to roll Damage you roll:

Attacker's Vir + Skill + Weapon vs. Defender's Whe + Skill + Armor

That makes sense, and is how I'd do it.  The rules currently have
Defenders Whe + Skill + Hit Dice.  

I will substitute Armor for Hit Dice if I get a chance to run the game this weekend.

[Zak Arntson]

Oops! My bad. It's:

Defender's Whe + Skill + Hit Dice + Armor.

[Valamir]

Ok, roger that.

Here are some ideas I'm going to try (hopefully).

1) Damage.  Instead of allowing the attacker to determine Hit Dice vs Ability Dice damage, I'm going to say any Odd Success damages Hit Dice and any Even Success damages a random (1d6) Ability.   HOWEVER, for the cost of 1 Success the attacker can Narrate a Called Shot and apply the rest of the Successes against any Score he chooses.
---I think this will accomplish 3 things.  a) It reduces the need to worry about whether Hit Dice or Ability Dice hits are "better".  Which is hit will be determined randomly unless a premium is paid for the privelege of selecting the "best" choice.  b) It is a little more familiar to Old School gamers, random hit locations and Called Shots are standard Old School fare, c) it ties back into the concept of using a Success to establish a Fact...in this case the Fact is a Called Shot.

2) Finding Magic Items:  Instead of allowing the player to determine exactly what magic item he wants, I'm going to allow him to search for what power of magic item he wants but leave the stats undefined.  Then:
a) each Success on his roll allows him to name an effect or add a +1 to an effect, b) any remaining effects are defined by the GM.  This also ties back into the standard resolution mechanic, where the player gets to narrate his successes and then the GM fills in the rest.  It also allows for interesting, quirky, or even cursed items to be introduced.

Also, Successes from other rolls can be rolled into the Loot roll in the hopes of getting more successes when searching for a specific artifact.  In this way if enough other Successes can be added in eventually the player will beable to pass the Loot roll with enough Successes to define the item exactly as he wants it.

3) I think Experience Points for Items needs to be reworked.  As it stands (if I'm reading it right) I'm motivated to look for puny items because the more surplus Successes I can rack up the more XPs I get...More XPs for discovering lesser items doesn't seem kosher to me.  I'm thinking the XPs gained should be equal to the value of the Item IF the value of the Item is at least as high as the character's level.


Oh, I also summarized all of the core game mechanic rules onto 5 pages for my own in game reference (a DM's screen as it were).  I have a page for Character Creation and Die Mechanics, a page for using Wealth and Provision Saves, a Page for Combat, a Page for Magic, and a Page for Experience and Treasure.

If you'd like to see it, I'd be happy to pass it on.

Here's hoping I have enough time (between days spent moving my old apartment) to play a session.   I'm really looking forward to it.

[Zak Arntson]

1) Damage.  Instead of allowing the attacker to determine Hit Dice vs Ability Dice damage, I'm going to say any Odd Success damages Hit Dice and any Even Success damages a random (1d6) Ability.

I found that choosing the Ability Score works really well. Hint: Always take out Adroitness. It gives the players a sense of accomplishment and choice. I like this.

One suggestion, Clinton, would be to give monsters preferred Ability Scores they like to damage. So a brain eater would most likely hit Cerebrality, or a withering git would hit Adroitness. Default would be Hit Dice.

As for the magic items, I'm not much at gamist strategy in roleplaying, so I didn't pay much attention to trying to get XP. It was more like "Heck, I need to up my Dodge, so I'm looking for a Brooch of Defense +1"

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ralph,

As always - great, great comments. Here's my thoughts:

1) Damage.  Instead of allowing the attacker to determine Hit Dice vs Ability Dice damage, I'm going to say any Odd Success damages Hit Dice and any Even Success damages a random (1d6) Ability.   HOWEVER, for the cost of 1 Success the attacker can Narrate a Called Shot and apply the rest of the Successes against any Score he chooses.
---I think this will accomplish 3 things.  a) It reduces the need to worry about whether Hit Dice or Ability Dice hits are "better".  Which is hit will be determined randomly unless a premium is paid for the privelege of selecting the "best" choice.  b) It is a little more familiar to Old School gamers, random hit locations and Called Shots are standard Old School fare, c) it ties back into the concept of using a Success to establish a Fact...in this case the Fact is a Called Shot.

I see the appeal of this. I'll think on it. I really like your comments further above, though, where the roll to resist damage is Wherewithal + skill + armor (not counting Hit Dice.) That's actually going straight in the rules.

2) Finding Magic Items:  Instead of allowing the player to determine exactly what magic item he wants, I'm going to allow him to search for what power of magic item he wants but leave the stats undefined.  Then:
a) each Success on his roll allows him to name an effect or add a +1 to an effect, b) any remaining effects are defined by the GM.  This also ties back into the standard resolution mechanic, where the player gets to narrate his successes and then the GM fills in the rest.  It also allows for interesting, quirky, or even cursed items to be introduced.

Again - I like it, but want to think on it. I forgot to add the rules for cursed items, actually. The player can call for a rate of curse - each die of curse is -1 die on the loot roll. The DM determines the curse.

3) I think Experience Points for Items needs to be reworked.  As it stands (if I'm reading it right) I'm motivated to look for puny items because the more surplus Successes I can rack up the more XPs I get...More XPs for discovering lesser items doesn't seem kosher to me.  I'm thinking the XPs gained should be equal to the value of the Item IF the value of the Item is at least as high as the character's level.

The reason for the XP rule is this - the less of an item you get, the more XPs you get. It's a trade-off: do I want the more powerful item or the experience? It's not "realistic" at all - but a very good balancing rule. That said, your idea works really well with the rules above you suggested.

Oh, I also summarized all of the core game mechanic rules onto 5 pages for my own in game reference (a DM's screen as it were) ... If you'd like to see it, I'd be happy to pass it on.

Please do.

[Valamir]

I see the appeal of this. I'll think on it. I really like your comments further above, though, where the roll to resist damage is Wherewithal + skill + armor (not counting Hit Dice.) That's actually going straight in the rules.

Ok, I'll play that way then :-)  I'll probably just assume the monsters in your scenario have Armor=Hit Dice to avoid haveing to recreate them all, unless I managed to scrape together the time somewhere.

I think this will allow monsters to be weakened just enough (by having to spread dice around more to buy armor seperately) to make them more suitable opponents.  Rather than a level 1 monster being *equal* to a level 1 character, it will be slightly inferior (because characters don't have to spend dice to get armor) thus, PC's should be able to win the fight against a equal opponent.  Making battles more challenging then becomes the simple matter of throwing in more beasties in tried and true dungeon hack tradition.

Again - I like it, but want to think on it. I forgot to add the rules for cursed items, actually. The player can call for a rate of curse - each die of curse is -1 die on the loot roll. The DM determines the curse.

Absolutely, these are just some ideas that occurred to me that may or may not work as envisioned.  My goal here was two fold 1) prevent the fortune of a great roll from allowing a player to fully design an absolutely mac piece of equipment.  Based on what effects the player picks the GM can then add effects that compliment without being uber.  2) tie into the basic resolution rule of "Player Narrates Success - DM Narrates the Rest."  In this case the player's Successes are defining Facts about the item, the remainder of which are up to the DM to define.

That Cursed rule should work well.

The reason for the XP rule is this - the less of an item you get, the more XPs you get. It's a trade-off: do I want the more powerful item or the experience? It's not "realistic" at all - but a very good balancing rule. That said, your idea works really well with the rules above you suggested.

Ahhh, you're right.  Not very "realistic" but might be a powerful game tool.  May help with the possibility of players looting every body looking for Uber Item on the theory they'll roll killer eventually.  With this rule, there's a motivation to forgo searching for Uber Item in order to Level Up faster.  Ok, I'm convinced...I'll play it that way.

On the other hand, as you mention, using my idea for shared item creation has its own built in motivator against searching for Uber Items...that being, the lower power the item, the more likely you'll have extra successes to define it how you like.

Probably be worth testing both ways.

Please do.

I'll be away from my home computer till Monday, but I'll certainly send it to you then.



Couple more things I came up with:

1) Revisting the Carrying Capacity idea: I'm thinking maybe just using the actual Vir 3-18 score as CC.  Encomberance is then simply Armor Rating + Weapon Rating + Wealth Carried + Provisions Carried + 1 per Item Carried.  Every 3 points that your Encomberance exceeds your CC is a -1 to Initiative.  Simple, and I like the idea of players scratching their heads wondering if they should dump Provisions in order to carry more wealth.

2) On a related note, maybe the Wealth successfully brought back to town should equate to XPs in true AD&D fashion.  This would be another potential motivator to searching for Wealth over items...especially since Wealth appears to be largely disposable.

3) Far too early to call this a concern (not having played yet) but its something I noticed when tossing some dice in practice (and something I noticed when playing Sorcerer using similar mechanics).  I'll call it an issue I'll keep my eye on, but some of your comments on tweaking difficulties down make me think you ran into the same thing in your games.

Namely:  the die mechanics seem geared to not produce multiple successes very often.  2-3 successes seem to be uncommon and more seem down right rare.  This is perfectly fine for situations where 1 Success is "success" and more are "dramatic / critical success".  However, my worry is that it may not work as effectively given that your rules seem to desire generating multiple successes frequently (Combat Successes to Damage and Gathering Spell Points especially).

In other words, will the die mechanics produce frequent enough multiple successes to "power" big time hits and big time spells reliably?

6 Dice vs 6 Dice is a 50/50 shot at succeeding at all.  But I would estimate that the probability of more than 1 success drops off dramatically, producing a very steep and narrow curve (i.e. low standard deviation).  My 2 years of statistics classes eons ago doesn't leave me with the tools to actually calculate out these probabilities...Mike H: can you do some number crunching on this? [/i]

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ok. I wrote the previous post late, late last night, and was barely concious. This morning, here's the thoughts I'm having:

Combat and Damage

I originally had the roll to resist damage equal to Wherewithal + Hit Dice + skill + armor. I chose this because I assumed most characters (or creatures) would have an attack skill of some sort, and as they rose in character level, you needed something to balance against their damage (Hit Dice.)

This was bad, bad math. The balance here is an increasing active dodge (i.e. parry - Adr + attack skill) or passive dodge (Adr + dodge skill). If you have neither of the above - well, you're screwed anyway.

Your successes from this roll that roll over into damage should stay roughly the same as you go up in level if you're fighting creatures of your same level. Your damage modifiers will not go up except through magic weapons, or if you have a damage skill (not unusual, but not highly likely, either.)

So, I now think Wherewithal + skill + armor should be enough for that roll. This also lets me eliminate the inane "fake damage" rule I had to make up to compensate for the fact that some creatures just couldn't be hurt.

My problem with this is that it makes Hit Dice a misnomer. You're not rolling these dice for anything. So - my suggested change is that you can actually spend Hit Dice. You can strain your body past its limits and trade 1 Hit Die for a die added to any roll. (Please comment on this part. Is good? Should I extend it to trade X Hit Dice for X dice added to any roll?)

Thinking about how damage works - I like all the above suggestions, but here's my idea:

Damage is first applied against Hit Dice, always. When Hit Dice reach zero, damage is applied to an ability score (probably chosen randomly).

However, you can make a "called shot," hitting whatever ability score you want at any time. You will have to spend 2 damage dice for each point of damage you want to do (frex, if you do 4 damage, they could all apply to Hit Dice, or 2 damage to whatever ability score you choose.)

Once you reach 0 Hit Dice, you must roll Wherewithal + any sort of "staying up" skill versus Difficult (6 dice) before any action in combat, or pass out. (After combat, you can continue to move on, as long as you attempt nothing strenuous.) This applies to creatures and characters alike, making the rules to pass out equal to both of them instead of being different.

(Again, please comment. Is good? I'm flying by the seat of my pants here.)

Lastly, healing. Healing using these rules will no longer be an automatic thing. In the games I've run, I noticed that (a) healing Hit Dice happened quickly, but (b) ability score damage was awful, remaining until the next step of the dungeon.

Instead, in each scene, you can make a Wherewithal + any healing skill roll versus the amount of damage you have total. Successes are damage removed, starting with Hit Dice, and then ability scores. (Like above, you can spend 2 successes to heal whatever you want.) This makes light wounds heal quickly, but heavy damage may be totally unhealable without help. (Someone with a Healing Others skill could roll Dis + Healing Others against your current damage. These successes would roll into your Healing roll.)

Opponents

I think this will allow monsters to be weakened just enough (by having to spread dice around more to buy armor seperately) to make them more suitable opponents.

They basically already do. Natural armor or weapons are treated as skills, which take up a skill slot and take up dice.

Treasure

I like both sets of rules. Urg. I like my original rules for their XP vs. treasure balance, but I like yours for system integrity - the 1 success = 1 fact rule still applies. I think I'm going to go with your proposed change, actually, and discard XP's for magic items. This rule will also help the DM balance the characters - one guy can't get the +4 Sword, and the +4 Initiative Ring, and the +4 to Damage Ogre Gloves. The DM's narration will balance the items.

As for cursed items - I think I'll still let the player mention that beforehand - frex, "I'm looking for a 6 die item, with 2 dice of curse." (An item that would fit this description is a Broadsword (2 normal dice of damage) with a 'Burst into Flame 2' magic skill, and a 'Set Random Things on Fire 2' curse.)

Carrying Capacity

The 3-18 scores have been dropped, so that won't work. Outside of that - nope. I hate the idea of encumberance in any game, and I want to keep this simple. Plus, I like the idea of walking around with an assload of stuff.

I think I will use this simple rule, though - dice of armor greater than your Virility (that aren't magical) subtract from all Adroitness based rolls. Frex, if you have a Virility of 2 and 4 die plate mail, subtract 2 from all Adroitness based rolls. This also makes Virility more useful, which it's strangely not in Donjon.

Mechanics and number of successes

I have noticed that the large dice used have kept successes down. It's really been a sort of "when it rains, it pours" system, though - you might go for a couple of actions with 1 or 2 successes on each roll, and then the DM rolls 10 as his highest die - and you suddenly have 8 successes or something.

This is really fine with me - outside of Gathering Spell Dice (which I modified to work), one or two successes is all the player needs - I don't want them giving 7 facts about every situation. I should run some rudimentary math on it, though.

Obligatory gangsta comment

Damn. Game pimpin' be hard, mofo.

[Mike Holmes]

Actually the sorcerer mechanic is rather complicated statistically (what with the possibility of the high die being equal). So what I have below are the results of a practical test of 5,000 rolls.

Code Select Expand

Six dice vs. six dice
Successes  Result
1              55%
2              27%
3              12%
4              4%
5              1%
6              .1%

Note: This does not indicate how many of these were "Total Successes". Even one success could be a total success if five higher pairs of dice match.

Anyhow, this bears out what Ralph was saying. I was trying to think of ways to ameliorate the effect. One would be to not "discard" tied dice. This results in a slight shift. Even better is to capture the opponents tied dice. So on a 5,4,2 vs a roll of 5,5,3 the latter roll would win with not just one success but with three (one for the regular success, and two for the captured tied high pair). Still this only changes things slightly.

Code Select Expand

Six dice vs. six dice
Successes  Result
1              45%
2              23%
3              18%
4              8%
5              4%
6              1%
7+            1%

Still very slanted towards one success. For a much broader curve you might try something like the following. Compare each set of dice starting with the each rollers highest. Ties are captured by the next comparison winner. Each compared set won counts as a success for the first character to get them. A successful comparison by the other character thereafter serves to stop the comparisons. Comparisons against an opponent out of dice count as successes. For example, 9,7,5,3,1 vs 9,8,6,2 results in four successes for the latter roller (two for the captured pair, and one each for the next two comparisons). 9,7,5,3,1 vs. 8,6,5,2 results in six successes for the first roller (One for each successful comparison including comparing the 1 vs no opposing die, and two for the captured pair).

Kinda complicated, but it gives you an idea of the sort of thing that you can do to adjust the mechanic away from producing results of one.

On a different note, what you have above means that, more or less, Hit Dice are now Hit Points? Hmmm. That seems to violate the nature of the game. How about doing away with them altogether? Instead, a character just takes either ability damage (perhaps at -2 per damage) or a -1 penalty die on all actions due to injury. Or, in other words a wound is just an ability penalty that applies to all abilities. Or perhaps a wound also incurs an ability damage that makes it unique. So a leg wound might reduce all rolls by one and combat rolls a further one (but only one die penalty for knot tying). Anyhow, just say a character is unconcious at -5, dying at -7 and dead at -10 or something. Rest restores these dice. Something like that.

Work this in with armor and soaking in general. Keep track of the number of successes on the "to hit" roll. For each that does not result in a wound after the damage roll do an ability penalty instead. This is the result of outmaneuvering, unbalancing, blunt force trauma, etc, whatever the player wants to describe it as.

Also, if using Valamir's encumberance penalties, allow the player to take the penalties accumulated as whatever combination of Initiative or Adr penalties they want (it taking an adr penalty, then they still roll full adr for Initiative purposes). This will help to balance out armor, and would work well with the idea above.

I know, all probably not dungeony enough. But just some ideas I had.

Mike