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Does anyone cap modifiers? In my current campaign there's a PC who has 18 in both Strength and Dexterity, and was Blessed during a long combat, so he was rolling at +4 for all his STR and DEX moves. That means he has a 72% chance of rolling 10+, and it just got dull. I've considered capping modifiers to +3, but I feel lovely saying "You gain absolutely no benefit from Blessing." Any ideas for a good non-modifier perk I can give in exchange for capping rolls to +3? Something like "If you would roll at greater than +3, instead roll at +3 and gain [XYZ]".
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May 22, 2017 06:23
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I think the problem is specifically Blessing. I don't see anything wrong with people rolling +4, sometimes. But Blessing's duration, which makes sense for D&D, combined with its effect, which makes sense for Dungeon World, ends up being way too powerful. So I probably wouldn't apply a blanket change to +4, but specifically to Blessing when it's applied to a +3?
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May 22, 2017 06:40
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Yeah, Bless is a bit much with that duration. I'd say that if it pushes you to +4 then it only lasts for one or two rolls or something like that, maybe because the overwhelming power is inherently unstable or something.
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May 22, 2017 14:37
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Imo there's nothing wrong with houseruling that. The maths in PBtA games starts to break down at +4 so there's a reason it's difficult to get in core Apocalypse World (and only lasts for one roll, generally)
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May 26, 2017 00:08
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So in my roll20 game I've got a prospective player interested in joining, and he's looking for a wuxia/kung fu style character. Any good sheets that folks know of?
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Jun 15, 2017 22:04
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The initiate is it.
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Jun 15, 2017 23:40
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Recently I have had a thought about a house rule for Dungeon World that I think might be useful. Specifically it is a way to make hordes of monsters less of a slog. It would work like this: If you deal enough damage to kill something, and there is excess damage left over (so say you rolled 10 damage and slew a mighty kobold of 3 hp and 1 armour, meaning that there was an excess of 6 damage), you can apply the remaining damage to another enemy within your weapon's range(s) (or close enough to the slain critter to be reasonable for if you're killing at range), taking armour off again as normal (so if there is another kobold that's close enough you can slay another one with the leftover 6 damage, leaving a further excess of 2) - if that still leaves you with an excess then repeat until you run out of damage or you run out of things that you can reasonable hit. As noted armour applies each time separately, however I'd probably say that Piercing would apply separately each time as well thus in the above scenario if you did this with a Piercing 1 weapon then you'd be able to slay 3 kobolds and wound 1 - rather than slaying 2 and wounding 1 (this also makes Piercing a little bit more useful). So what do you think? Friar John posted:So in my roll20 game I've got a prospective player interested in joining, and he's looking for a wuxia/kung fu style character. Any good sheets that folks know of? Asides from the Initiate another interesting example is The Master.
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Jun 20, 2017 20:44
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I've always treated Hordes like a single monster. Like a group of 5 goblins with 2 HP each are a 10HP monster. The nature of hack and slash make it so narratively there can always be a counter attack.
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Jun 20, 2017 22:18
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The thing is, you can narrate that your hack and slash is attacking multiple targets, if the narrative justifies it. Just means that the 6- result is gonna be harsh. 
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Jun 21, 2017 18:09
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What are some engaging combat scenarios that people running games have thrown out there? I ran my first session as GM last Saturday and quickly realized that combat should have at least a few moving parts or active threats to keep the whole party engaged and make sure everyone has a hand on the ball. You can paint the whole picture if you want or just give me "flooding trap, archers, big guy with a sword" and I can work off of that. 
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Jun 29, 2017 19:10
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My group was playing with the Inverse World playbooks and was running a Captain and a Collector, so their ability to do damage was pretty limited. As such, they tended to find themselves pretty outmatched in combat, so fighting was something that was generally an impediment to whatever else they were trying to do, usually running away. At one point they were split, with the Captain fleeing the City Guard over the rooftops and the Collector heading somewhere by the streets. The Captain blew a roll to jump an alley, so he fell to the streets, landing on the Collector, putting them both in the poo poo. The chase ended up back on the rooftops, and while there was some combat, most of the actual rolls were trying to either keep from falling off or pushing someone else off. Putting the players in a situation where they're outmatched in a straight fight (especially if they're playing something less combat focused) but giving them ways to be successful (like environmental hazards) has worked out in my game. The goal is not to kill all the enemies (which in that particular game was rarely an option, or at least not in the important bits- they hosed up smaller groups of bad guys in the build up); rather it's to get something done despite those enemies being there.
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Jun 29, 2017 19:35
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My players consist of a barbarian, a druid, a ranger and a wizard, so I think they're pretty combat-ready . Interestingly (ominously?), the wizard player is the one most interested in combat encounters.
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Jun 29, 2017 19:59
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In that case, I would try to come up with set pieces that involve more skills than just swinging a blade. An example: The enemy has something/someone the PCs want and are escaping in carts down a mountain road that switchbacks in zigzags down the mountain. The PCs can give chase on horseback/monsterback (requiring Control rolls, if you have Mounted Combat (by our very own Rulebookheavily), I don't remember if those rules are in the Core Book). °Use a countdown for each of the enemy carts, requiring Control rolls to advance (which is kind of a rip on Spirit of 77's chase rules, which I've been using a lot lately). If the PCs overcome an obstacle, such as cutting short a switchback, then fill in a box, and when they're all full, you've caught up with an enemy cart °PCs can jump onto the carts and fight the enemies inside, maybe take over the cart when the enemies are cleared °Rockslides can threaten PCs, cripple or kill their mounts °Monsters that lair in the mountain may make their presence known- swarms of carnivorous flyers are always good for throwing a monkey wrench into these things, especially for a Druid who turns into something that can fly °Depending on the circumstances, maybe the mountain is a volcano, and something that happened leading up to this chase sets it off? °whatever/whoever they want to catch in the leading cart is susceptible to being damaged, so they can't just nuke it with a fireball or boulder and be done with it °maybe there's a bridge at the bottom of the mountain, and if the PCs don't catch the lead cart, then the enemy's allies will blow the bridge (somehow) after the cart goes over, stopping the PCs? This is just some off the top of my head poo poo, but I've found that this kind of thing tends to work with my players. The scuff is secondary to achieving a goal, but important to allow the players to shine and have adventures. It's just the balance of being fans of the PCs and making their lives difficult and interesting. Vulpes Vulpes fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Jun 29, 2017 |
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Jun 29, 2017 21:06
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poor life choice posted:What are some engaging combat scenarios that people running games have thrown out there? I ran my first session as GM last Saturday and quickly realized that combat should have at least a few moving parts or active threats to keep the whole party engaged and make sure everyone has a hand on the ball. You can paint the whole picture if you want or just give me "flooding trap, archers, big guy with a sword" and I can work off of that. I... uh... just... combat? In general? Just keep in mind a couple things. 1) There is no mysterious combat dimension. When you have a combat the other side is probably not expressly lined up to kill you; they have their own goals, which you are interrupting, and they may continue furthering their goals absent mortal peril. You know, killing the hostages, summoning the demons, escaping down the river, that kind of thing. So when there's a fight it's not a special combat time when there's only time for combat, people can take a breather in the fight to try and read what's going on, spout lore about a weakness, sue for peace, all the actions they might "normally" take "outside of combat" because, again, there is no mysterious combat dimension. 2) Threats continue to exist. When somebody succeeds on an attacky move with a 10+ you may be tempted to think of them as being "safe" now, or that whatever they did the move against is "taken care of". Do not do this. (Well, okay, if they dropped something's hit points to 0 it's not a factor.) They are likely not facing any immediate consequences for the thing they just did, and that's fine, but this is combat, and the thing about combat is that it's threatening to anyone at any time. Always keep in mind how your monsters are going to move to threaten people, and whenever you shift the spotlight to someone when a fight's about, give the person whose turn it is a threat to think about and maybe also the person whose turn it just was a threat to think about, too. Maybe it's a threat pointed at them. Maybe it's a threat pointed at one of the other PCs. Maybe it's a threat pointed at something else entirely - they're trying to get away and warn the others, they're getting ready to unleash something that will threaten everyone out of desperation, they're going to break something valuable out of spite. Those last ones are good to bring out as the last threats the PCs defuse.
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Jun 30, 2017 01:07
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I figure now's a good time to do an update on the old "What are the best playbooks available?" question. I personally tend to run DW for pickup games so my preference is for a set of playbooks I can keep in a folder and mesh well together in whatever subset gets picked by a group. It's reached a point where I need to reprint all my sheets anyways, so I'm going to compile a brand new list from scratch. So what do people think would be good inclusions for that folder?
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Jul 1, 2017 22:22
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poor life choice posted:What are some engaging combat scenarios that people running games have thrown out there? I ran my first session as GM last Saturday and quickly realized that combat should have at least a few moving parts or active threats to keep the whole party engaged and make sure everyone has a hand on the ball. You can paint the whole picture if you want or just give me "flooding trap, archers, big guy with a sword" and I can work off of that. I'll often go for a set piece dangerous situation like a crumbling cavern or a large unique foe the characters can clamber over or try to stay ahead of. Generally my games tend to be high chaos that destroys the status quo.
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Jul 2, 2017 00:37
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Comrade Gorbash posted:I figure now's a good time to do an update on the old "What are the best playbooks available?" question. I assembled a list of playbooks for Dungeon World that I've been using as a more generic collection, from earlier: Vulpes Vulpes posted:On a similar note, I've been putting together a set of playbooks with idea of using them as a "DW 2.0" when I can get a RL group together. I'd be curious as to what people think. Depending on how you like to do it, you could cut out the RAC playbooks, or add in a Ranger or Cleric equivalent. I made up a simple setting that was concerned with cultural tensions between humans and the other peoples to run with my players, which is why I included the Orc, Dwarf and Halfling playbooks. Vulpes Vulpes fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Jul 2, 2017 |
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Jul 2, 2017 01:01
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You need the Princess as well, that one rules.
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Jul 2, 2017 03:10
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Here's a weird question: some friends and I are about to start a DW campaign over roll20, and I have my heart set on playing a suit of armor inhabited by a spirit. (This is probably dumb for my first time playing DW, but whatever.) I searched the OP and a lot of other sites, but I couldn't find a playbook that I felt sufficiently fit this. I want to be a balanced character too; it would be easy to be unkillable but maybe damage to the armor is damage to the spirit? Is there a good playbook for this, or should my buddies and I put our heads together and (prolly poorly) hack something up?
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Jul 2, 2017 03:35
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Just roll as a fighter, they get crazy armor. You can say hp stands for Haunt Points. Should work fine since if you're stuck in the suit you can't really do anything a human couldn't.
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Jul 2, 2017 03:52
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Pretzel Rod Stewart posted:Here's a weird question: some friends and I are about to start a DW campaign over roll20, and I have my heart set on playing a suit of armor inhabited by a spirit. (This is probably dumb for my first time playing DW, but whatever.) The Golem from Inverse World is probably what you're looking for.
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Jul 2, 2017 03:52
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Haha. I briefly thought about that before my searches--looks like the easiest answer was staring me in the face. edit: I'll check out Golem too!
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Jul 2, 2017 03:53
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We've just started a game where a friend is playing a suit of armour full of spiders using the golem.
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Jul 2, 2017 12:09
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That's awesome. Yeah, it looks like you can just fudge the stuff about being under people's command (or lore it up to make it work) and play a pretty good armor-with-thing-in-it. Thanks y'all.
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Jul 2, 2017 16:19
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Roach Warehouse posted:We've just started a game where a friend is playing a suit of armour full of spiders using the golem. Do they get to play normally or do you force them into an Everyone is John type situation?
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Jul 2, 2017 16:26
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Anyone have any suggestions for playbooks for a steampunk-themed game? We're already planning on using a bunch of the Inverse World ones, any other we should look at?
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Jul 2, 2017 17:24
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Jimmeeee posted:Anyone have any suggestions for playbooks for a steampunk-themed game? We're already planning on using a bunch of the Inverse World ones, any other we should look at? Artificer, Witch, Princess, Dashing Hero Maybe: gnome's Mages, Spellslinger, City Thief
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Jul 2, 2017 17:52
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Sage posted his thoughts on Dungeon World now that it's five years old.
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Jul 2, 2017 19:53
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rumble in the bunghole posted:You need the Princess as well, that one rules. Checked the OP and that's actually a slightly older version of the playbook. You're welcome to it but I've gone in and clarified a few things (at least I think I have) and this is the updated version.
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Jul 2, 2017 21:48
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Hello. I'm planning a new campaign and trying to wrap my head around Dungeon World. I'm really excited about it in general, but I have some... concerns about the combat math. It seems like the monsters, particularly low-level humanoids like goblins and zombies, are almost laughably weak in comparison to the PCs. From what I can gather, the average Fighter or Paladin is likely to have about 25hp (10+Con) and armour that reduces damage by 2. Goblins deal a d6 of damage, which will work out to an average of 1.5 after subtracting armour. So a Fighter is going to take 17 (!) hits on average before going down. This sounds like a miserable slog. At the other end of the scale - a Wizard who put Con as their lowest stat would have 12hp, and might have chosen not to wear any armour. They are going to survive 3-4 hits from the goblin, which still seems like a lot for the squishiest possible PC. Healing between encounters also seems very easy with the abundance of bandages and healing potions. I am running the game for a group who have never played RPGs before, so I don't want to throw them into an old-school bloodbath. But it really seems like they are not even going to be worried about the possibility of death. What am I missing here? I am aware that DW gives you many ways to challenge the players besides just dealing damage to them, but I still think that damage should be an actual concern.
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Jul 9, 2017 02:13
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Sailor Viy posted:Hello. I'm planning a new campaign and trying to wrap my head around Dungeon World. I'm really excited about it in general, but I have some... concerns about the combat math. It seems like the monsters, particularly low-level humanoids like goblins and zombies, are almost laughably weak in comparison to the PCs. Goblins are small and weak, so how would they approach problems? Maybe they go for strength in numbers: one goblin will rarely take down a fighter, but when you have five or even ten goblins all rushing one person as a pack, it becomes slightly more cause for alarm. Or maybe they're tricky: the goblin keeps bouncing around the room seemingly for no reason, until a misplaced footstep triggers a trap and you realize the whole room is covered in them, and the goblin knows where every one of them is. Or maybe the goblin isn't trying to fight at all: it's got something you want, but he has no intention of sticking around for a fight, and you quickly realize during the chase that he's far more nimble and can take riskier and more dangerous routes than the fighter.
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Jul 9, 2017 04:18
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Better GMs will help with the other parts, but I can help with how weak the little guys seem. A mob of critters add +1 to damage for each critter attacking. Yup, per page 22 of the main Dungeon world book: when you have multiple attackers attacking a character, they get +1 damage for each attacker. You could always do something like this for a soft move, too: "Oh poo poo! There are like 6 goblins scrabbling at your shining, gorgeous armor and digging their horrible filthy rusted blades into the gaps in your armor! If you don't do something right away, they're going to open a gap! What do you do???" This either sets up them doing something rad to protect their armor or gives a buddy a chance to distract the gobbos or whatever.
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Jul 9, 2017 04:20
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They can all jump on you and knick your weapon. Let's see you do something about that, sunlover.
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Jul 9, 2017 05:41
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The mob rules are incredibly easy to miss and basically fix your issue. As for low level dudes, somethimg worth noting is Dungeon world also doesn't really scale in the way most rpgs do. An average fight at level 1 might not look massively different to a fight at level 10. You'll definitely get tougher, but goblins won't get made obsolete or have to be powered up to match the player.
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Jul 9, 2017 08:36
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Also, a really important thing in Dungeon World is to make sure you have stakes other than "Do the players kill all the monsters before the monsters kill them back?" There should be a whole load of things going on in any fight scene that require the players' attention: stopping a ritual is the all-time classic, but there are plenty of other standbys you can go for. It is abundantly possible for the players to defeat all their enemies and still lose the fight -- hit points are just a resource they need to manage in the process of doing that.
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Jul 9, 2017 08:58
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You know, it's a little shity to be "Yeah, we are five years late with one of the major stretch goals but whatever, I can live with that. It gets here when it gets here". Like, I doubt anyone who backed the kickstarter even remembers or cares at this point but be a little more professional in how you remind people about that.
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Jul 9, 2017 16:56
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The Lemondrop Dandy posted:Better GMs will help with the other parts, but I can help with how weak the little guys seem. A mob of critters add +1 to damage for each critter attacking. OK, this seems like it will just about work out. I'll start with monsters from the book and crank up the damage if it seems necessary. One other question: how does the system handle Bluff checks? Would it be Defy Danger with CHA?
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Jul 10, 2017 07:29
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It'd probably be Parley, with the leverage being some reason to believe the lie.
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Jul 10, 2017 07:47
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It depends on the context, I think -- Parley is more for if you are convincing someone to do what you want in exchange for something you can do for them. Defy Danger Charisma is if you're talking your way out of trouble or past an obstacle; like any Defy Danger, it only triggers if talking could feasibly be a solution to the problem.
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Jul 11, 2017 12:48
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Whybird posted:Also, a really important thing in Dungeon World is to make sure you have stakes other than "Do the players kill all the monsters before the monsters kill them back?" There should be a whole load of things going on in any fight scene that require the players' attention: stopping a ritual is the all-time classic, but there are plenty of other standbys you can go for. It is abundantly possible for the players to defeat all their enemies and still lose the fight -- hit points are just a resource they need to manage in the process of doing that. This is one of the big things about Dungeon world that makes it my go-to fantasy action game. Whne I run DW, the stakes are rarely just a fight to the death. Someone wants to steal something, or secure something, or destroy something, or the environment itself is unstable, unpredictable, or hostile. Someone is trying to trigger an alarm. The enemies are actually trying to kill civilians under your protection. The most lethal game of dungeon world I've run was an old school style dungeon delver where I essentially improvised the various rooms and their inhabitants. I made hard moves real hard, and mixed up the sorts of conflicts with groups of weaker enemies like skeletons and a kobold village that the party ended up befriending and an ancient beguiling vampire on some giant ogre-like horrors. A total of 3 PCs died, going out like badasses. One thing to remember is that you'll have plenty of opportunities to deal damage. Not only do the monsters get to make an attack (Which can be damage, putting the PCs in a bad fictional position, or both) on a 6- and a 7-9, but you can always tempt your players to open themselves up to the enemies attacks for some extra damage. Sure, a lot of your monsters are going to die. That's fine, they're like arrows in your quiver you have plenty more where they came from. If you like to prepare, set yourself some hard limits on the types and number of beasties in your dungeon. 2 tribes of Goblins engaged in open conflict. 60 Notch-ears tribe. 40 Rat-clan tribe. A kobold village and their raving shaman worshiping a precariously perched fossilized dragon skull. A hardened war-band of 10 orcs, set to guard a convoy of loot from the depths. Some valuable, some touched by darkness. A lonely ogre, looking for love or meat for it's pot. A lost and desperate merchant, are they what they seem to be? A diamond encrusted magma filled cavern, home to a gigantic serpent made of molten rock. A small library filled with moldering scrolls filled with scraps of ancient secrets, home to a skeleton that will answer only 3 questions before turning to dust.
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Jul 12, 2017 15:13
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