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 quote:The Demon Lord wears many masks. It is the One Foretold, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Hunger, the Shuddering One, the One Who Whispers, the Shadow in the Void, the Dark Between the Stars, and the Unspeakable One. Its will alone snuffs out the stars and its shadow ends realities. Shadow of the Demon Lord is a 2015 tabletop RPG by Robert Schwalb. Schwalb has worked on various editions of D&D, writing supplements for 3.5 and 4th, and then working as lead designer on 5th Edition. He’s since started his own company, Schwalb Entertainment, and Shadow of the Demon Lord is his flagship product. Based in d20, SotDL is a dark fantasy game with horror elements, and it is one of the best implementations of the d20 system that I have ever seen. It uses a pretty smart math system that bypasses the issue of stacking bonuses and penalties, has a fantastic class design that allows for flexibility of builds and a huge variety of characters, and offers a coherent tone and theme that a lot of competing RPGs don't have. What makes it different? There are a few things that set Shadow of the Demon Lord apart from the competition, and here are the ones I consider most important: Style First and foremost is the sense of tone that the game presents. If you like Dark Souls, you'll find the art and the feel of SotDL to be very familiar, as they have a similar sense of style and tone. The world is falling apart because of cosmic forces beyond your ken, and you begin the game as a nearly naked regular person who grows over time in skill and ability to challenge the forces that loom over the world and hopefully triumph. All sorts of weird monsters lurk throughout the world, and they are all dangerous in their own way. Sanity is a thing you have to keep track of, and some monsters can cause all kinds of nasty effects to occur if you're unlucky or not careful. Unlike most games, SotDL doesn't have a sanity death spiral. You can get yourself back on track with moderate ease, and allowing your character to succumb to insanity is a choice you would have to consciously make. Your soul is also at risk, as your corruption score rises you become more like the evil things trying to kill you and the world around you reacts to that. And overall the aesthetic and tone of the game are very coherent and consistent throughout, which really counts for a lot to me, as most games don't manage to nail this sort of thing this well, and SotDL does it with ease.     Just look at these Dark Souls-rear end looking adventurers Mechanics Shadow of the Demon Lord attempts to take the familiarity of d20 and tone down the swinginess by introducing boons and banes, a system that allows for the math to be bounded in a simple manner that also leads to some interesting uses in play. Gone are the days of DCs as well, as now everything is a simple matter of rolling above a 10 (for skill rolls, attacks follow a more traditional model). We haven't gotten rid of ability scores, but they are massively simplified and constrained. The Path (class) system is also excellent as it allows you to start off with an iconic character archetype and then build on it in interesting directions. You could start as a bog standard Warrior, but then decide that you want to take up magic and add the Wizard Expert Path. Then, near the end of your time, you decide to synthesize the two and take the Master Path Mage Knight. That's a totally valid build! There are no prerequisites for the Paths, so you can build your character however you like, or as the story dictates.    Remember when I said the game has build variety? Yeah, these are the Expert and Master Paths available in the core book. You can come up with some wild and varied builds in this game. A few other quick mechanical things I like:
This game has a TON of supplements. I don't know how Rob does it, the man's a machine. Since the game's release in 2015 he has put out over 100 supplements for the game, ranging from a full expansion to six-page bite-sized documents that expand on a corner of the game, be that in mechanics or in the world. There are a shitload of pre-written adventures which are good not just for running but also as examples of how to design your own horror-fantasy adventures for your group. And the quality of these supplements is through the roof. Layout and art in each one is consistently as good as the core book, and they all feel worth the money you'll spend on them. And the best part is that they're optional. Everything you need to play the game is in the core book, the supplements are just that: supplemental. I have a few recommendations on what you should buy, but none of them are necessary to fully enjoy Shadow of the Demon Lord. What are the books? I'm only gonna cover the big releases, but towards the bottom of this page I'll throw in a link to the tons and tons of small supplements that have come out.    Core This is the big one. Contains everything you'd need to play or run Shadow of the Demon Lord.  Demon Lord's Companion (DLC) The first big expansion for SotDL. It has all the stuff you'd expect from an expansion book: new ancestries (races), Paths of all levels, magical traditions and spells, monsters and locations etc. A solid purchase in my opinion, as it just adds more good stuff to an already great core book, and there's not just something in here for everyone but almost all of the material will come in handy at some point.  Uncertain Faith This one is all about the gods and religions of the world of SotDL. It's got tons of setting and background info, some new spells and equipment and a Novice adventure. You could say I have my own uncertain faith in how much you'll get out of this book if you write your own settings or just aren't big on fluff-heavy supplements. The mechanical info is a little scant for my taste.  Terrible Beauty Okay now we're talking. This one gets you elves and some other faerie ancestries, more magic, more Paths, more monsters and stuff alongside loads of setting information and fluff. This one is a good purchase for my money as it comes with plenty of crunch, and elves are actually kinda cool in SotDL, so this is worth checking out.  Hunger in the Void Do you like cults in the style of Lovecraft and other cosmic horror writers? This book has you covered, as it goes into detail on all the cults devoted to the Demon Lord and its many servants, and backs that info up with lots of statblocks and new, evil spells. This one is good if you want to dial in on the horror/cult aspect of the game, and the statblocks read a bit like "Deities and Demigods only you might actually have a chance to fight this" vibe that I dig.  Tombs of the Desolation Vampires and other undead things galore. You can play as a vampire or an undead slayer and everything in between. Adds tons of mechanical options for people who want to go heavy on undead stuff in their games. Worth buying if that's what you're into.  Tales of the Demon Lord Easily one of my favorite books, Tales is a book of adventures and some setting info. There are adventures for all four tiers of play (Starting, Novice, Expert and Master), and each one is substantial enough to be run in any game easily. If you want to know how to design adventures for any level or need something to slot into your game, Tales rules.  Exquisite Agony Where Hunger in the Void was about cults of the demons, Exquisite Agony is about the devils themselves. Here you can get info on how they operate, how to build your own devils, and get a new Ancestry and some new Paths as well as spells and an adventure. Like some of the other books I've talked about you'll get out of this what you're looking for. If you want to deal with devils, this is the book for you.  Forbidden Rules The Unearthed Arcana of SotDL, this book has tons of options for changing up your game. I like the Fortune overhaul, which along with a healing system clearly influenced by D&D 4E's healing surges, allows you to completely change the game's tone to be far more heroic and pulp. At the same time there are rules for wounds that cause death spirals and gridless combat. Social combat and equipment simplification are here, bell curves for dice rolling, a new Path and rules for handling chase scenes, a skill system, power points instead of spell castings - this book has way more variant rules than I can list here. Probably my favorite book aside from the Companion, it just gives you too much cool stuff to be passed over.    Godless Are you reading all this, nodding your head and going "better D&D sounds good but I'm just not into the dark fantasy setting"? Well, SotDL has you covered with Godless, which takes the excellent engine of the game and fits it into the rusty, spike-and-chain-covered blood-spattered car body that is Mad Max. This is a full conversion that lets you take the Ancestries and Paths from the core book and use them in a post-apocalyptic world of car battles and shootouts. It's also got its own Paths, a crafting system, more in-depth rules for vehicles and chases, and tons of other stuff that can easily be brought back over into the dark fantasy setting if you like. This is one of the weirder books, but in my opinion the most interesting. So what do goons recommend? Evil Mastermind posted:A few more useful mini-supplements: How do I find out more? Shadow of the Demon Lord official site. It's run by Schwalb and he posts regular updates on stuff that is coming out and things he's working on there. Offical Google+ page There's tons of info on here, with rules clarifications, homebrew, and updates from Rob. You should check it out. DriveThruRPG page for Schwalb Entertainment This is where you buy the books and the smaller supplements. There's lots to sift through, and if you have questions about a supplement, ask the thread. I probably already own it and can help you out. My F&F of the core book Consider this shameful self-promotion since I got sidetracked with other projects and haven't finished it yet. I'll get back to it. I have covered the core systems of the game, so if you want a more in-depth look at exactly how the game shakes out, the first few posts will tell you a lot of what you want to know. I made a Discord! We discuss the game, and I'm using it to currently organize one-shots. Come on by and hang out! 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May 24, 2017 02:59
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Upcoming Releases Freeport Companion The classic Freeport setting done up in SotDL style. This was a Kickstarted project, but Rob is making good time on the book. I'll be sure to post about it once I've gotten my hands on it. Demon Lord's Companion 2 A stretch goal for the Freeport KS, this is a promised 32-page supplement in the style of the first DLC that will offer more Paths, Ancestries and magic. Basically even more good stuff that can go in any game. This one is further out on the horizon, but Rob has a proven track record with this, so I have no doubt it'll be coming before too long. Foglet posted:Regarding upcoming releases: Asunder, a third-party SotDL-engine RPG taking place in a fantasy world without metal, was and probably still is in the works, though there's been silence on its progress for a while. At least it has a 400-page playtest document available. Third-Party Products Evil Mastermind posted:I think this might be the first third-party SotDL setting: Mists of Akuma: Eastern Fantasy Noir Steampunk for Shadow of the Demon Lord Misc stuff Check out this good-rear end post by gradenko_2000 explaining how SotDL eliminates dead levels and weaves your choices throughout the entire leveling process. gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah SOTDL is also good: Serf fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jun 18, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 03:00
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Emy posted:You may also want to have a mention of this, at least for the next 19 days: it's currently on a BoH sale with the basic bundle costing less than the core book does on DTRPG. https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DemonLord Done! gradenko_2000 posted:Hey Serf, thanks for the shoutout. They're part of the Paths of Shadow series of small supplements, and they basically are semi-errata for Expert Paths. They're a mix of fixes and alternative options. And each one so far has included a new Expert Path from that type. Paths of Power is for magic-users, and includes the Occultist. Paths of Battle does the same for fighter-types, and introduces the Knight. Presumably there will be a Paths of Skill coming up soon.
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May 24, 2017 10:56
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Foglet posted:Regarding upcoming releases: Asunder, a third-party SotDL-engine RPG taking place in a fantasy world without metal, was and probably still is in the works, though there's been silence on its progress for a while. At least it has a 400-page playtest document available. Added to the upcoming releases! Brother Entropy posted:can anyone recommend a good actual play where they play this system? i've given the core book a skim and it definitely seems interesting in the ways the OP talks it up but usually seeing how other people play is my best way of 'getting' it The only one I have personally listed to was by The Play Better Podcast. It is a decent overview of playing as Starting characters, and it's funny to boot! There are lots more APs listed on the G+ page if you poke around a little, but I haven't given them a listen. Also, I'm planning on running some of the pre-written adventures as one-shots through Discord/Roll20 to get people some experience with the system, so look forward to that in the future!
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May 24, 2017 12:31
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Doodmons posted:With all the content for this game, is there a starting adventure which clearly comes out as being the best of the bunch? I want to try to sell this game to some people but have never played or run it before, so it would help if the level 0 stuff (which is not really a gameplay style I'm familiar with) was well-written. Two of them stand out in particular. Dark Deeds in Hope is a really simple mystery adventure which can grow and branch in cool ways. It doesn't have a very tight structure, and that's on purpose. There are loose scenes and a progression of the plot that can happen with or without the characters. It can basically end as a Coen brothers movie, which is nice. The Witching Wood is the other one that I like. It's more about horror, leaning heavily on an elusive villain and scarce monsters and more creepy scenes that drive up the tension. It has a very definite end point, and it only shakes out in one or two ways, but there is a sense of pressure that keeps the PCs motivated.
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May 24, 2017 18:57
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Antilles posted:I had mentioned SoDL for my current RP group (currently playing a Dungeon World campaign) and there had been some interest, so earlier this week when two people couldn't make it and no one had brought a tabletop game of some kind, I suggested trying out SoDL to get a feel for it. This owns. I'm glad you had fun with the game! If you play again, please let us know about it. TheHoosier posted:I'd love to try this but I have exactly 0 experience with tabletop RPGs of any kind. Anyone plan to do a PbP of it sometime soon? I've been kicking around this idea for a while now. I was hoping to run the game through VoIP but we'll see how it shakes out. Evil Mastermind posted:A few more useful mini-supplements: These are good recommendations by the way, and I'm adding them to the OP. Of Monstrous Mien in particular is very good from what I've done. Monster building rules are absent from the core book which makes it really helpful.
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May 26, 2017 01:44
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" I think they had fun. And it also gave me an idea of what I need to prepare for the next, 'proper' attempt, so silver linings and all that.
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LGD posted:I just picked up Path of Battle for $1.19 and I'd say it's definitely worth it at the moment if you're planning to play/run a game where people would be interested in any of the included classes. Fighter in particular went from a super-dull "eh, I guess, if there's really nothing better" choice to an exciting and actively good choice. The fact that they get 1 extra Fighter Talent alone is huge and makes the Path way better than it was before.
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May 26, 2017 05:30
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After reading the Knight from Paths of Battle, I am very pleased with the design. This is the tank Path the game really needed. Only instead of drawing aggro it deals in damage mitigation, which is a very cool take on the archetype.
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May 26, 2017 06:25
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I think a lot of it depends on how you intend to use it. Like I'm not really into the dark fantasy aspect of the game, but I do think it works well mechanically. In the few times I've run it, I've played it more humorous than written or intended, I imagine. Like the grimdarkness in most things is pretty silly when you don't take it seriously, so I lean into that. The Corruption and Insanity systems can lead to very funny things happening if that's what you frame it as. I've never been into serious roleplaying and I prefer to keep things light, so the way I run SotDL reflects that. The gross and dark stuff in the book is good fun but can also be taken at face value or excised completely.
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May 26, 2017 23:34
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The Interesting Thing tables from Godless are  A few of my favorite results:
Also Godless includes this picture of an orc if you need any more convincing:
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May 27, 2017 16:38
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Gonna ask this one more time and then I suppose I should contact Shwab. I got a response for you! https://twitter.com/rjschwalb/status/870296622957252608
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Jun 1, 2017 16:14
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Gort posted:Gonna run my first game of this this weekend using Tales. Any advice for a new DM? 1. There's actually also a ghoul in there too, which is 25 Difficulty alone. When I ran it, I had the ghoul chained up as an optional fight and the Rude Boys surrendered once both of them had taken half Damage. It needs some eyeballing for sure. Hopefully this helps! 2. Is this the section you're referring to?   I think you may have an older copy of the book? I checked my physical copy and it matches this.
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Jun 2, 2017 05:14
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Gort posted:Yeah, it was this. Thanks for the answers, this makes sense now. I'm going to make the adjustments you suggested. Did you notice anything like this for the other adventures? 1. I would say that it depends on your group, but I would err on the side of caution if your players aren't prepared for a TPK or even for losing a character or two over an adventure. My home group is a lot like that, so I toned down the encounters by about 10-20 Difficulty depending on what you're doing. Also don't forget about Fortune! It can really turn the tide of a bad fight, and I tend to hand it out pretty generously. It's not always necessary, but if you think the tide is turning you can fork over a little Fortune to help the players out. (If you pick up Forbidden Rules, check out to Fortune Point system. It's a little like FFG's Light/Dark side system crossed with Fate points and I love it for a game that's more heroic in tone or if you just want the players to have an easier time of things) 2. I actually brought this up to Rob on Twitter and he confirmed that the chart is correct, which makes sense. Maybe he'll fix the text in another release? https://twitter.com/rjschwalb/status/871283507229843456 dwarf74 posted:Welp, now that I got buy-in from my players (once, you know, we finish the last adventure and a half of a Level 30 4e campaign), I went ahead and grabbed a hardbound copy of this glorious little rule set. This is rad! I'm glad you're enjoying the game. Let us know how it goes! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A new Monstrous Pages just dropped: Of Fire and Venom This one is all about drakes and dragons, and lets you customize both. There are rules for making acid-spitting drakes, dragons that absorb spells, and a few new types of both along with some details on dragon ecology. There's even a new Master Path tucked away at the end: the Dragonslayer which has a serious Shadow of the Colossus vibe to it in that it allows you to climb onto larger enemies and take them down.  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Also, Saturday, June 17th I'm gonna be running a one-shot of Shadow of the Demon Lord. I plan to run the Starting adventure "The Witching Wood" for 4-5 players, but if we have more than that I'm down for taking at most 6. I'm looking at running it around 4PM EST, so if you're interested hit me up in PMs or here in the thread. I plan to run a few of the Starting adventures as one-shots like this to hopefully get people into the game. Remember if you don't have the book but you want to try the game out in one of these one-shots, the SRD has just about everything you need!
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Jun 6, 2017 01:39
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Gort posted:My weekend game went really well, thanks to everyone who answered my newbie questions. Now I've got another: I found a thread from the G+ community that might have what you're looking for Also, since Saturday appears to be a bad time for folks, I'm considering moving the one-shot to Thursday, June 15th at 7:00 PM EST. I want to try to keep the session to no more than 3 hours, which shouldn't be hard, the adventure in question is pretty short.
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Jun 6, 2017 14:45
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SettingSun posted:I am extremely interested in being a part of this one-shot. I can do either time. Through what will you be running it in? Oh good question. My bad for not including this info originally. I plan on running it in Discord for the voice chat and Roll20 for any combats that may come up.
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Jun 6, 2017 16:10
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Duct Tape posted:I'm in, if there are still openings. I've GM'd SotDL twice, but it would be great to see the game from the player's perspective, and to correct any mistakes I've unintentionally brought to the table. Couple questions, should we make characters ahead of time, or just plow through that at the beginning? I'm gonna include a link to the Discord below and once we get the players hammered out we can roll up some characters in there. As for Roll20 tutorials there's the official tutorial and the crash course (though this is geared towards GMs, I still found it helpful). I'll also recommend DawnforgedCast's tutorial as well.  Here's a link to the Discord for the one-shots, or if you just want to chat about the game
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Jun 6, 2017 23:07
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The Malthusian posted:Are the monster specific supplements any good? The blurb and art for the lizard folk one caught my eye, and I'm a sucker for bipedal herp monsters. The books are good imo. As dwarf74 mentions, the production values are good, and both Foulest Reptiles and Ghastly Gourmands warns you that the lizardmen and ogres are probably too OP for most games. MTV Crib Death posted:Is this game married to a grid or can it be run ToTM with some adjustments? After breaking the tyranny of the grid I don't know if I can go back. In the base game it claims that you can play it without a grid, but distance rules pretty much mean that's as much of a lie as it was in every edition of D&D that isn't 4E.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:21
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homullus posted:You could play "without a grid," right? In the sense of "no need to confine people to this 5'x5' square," you could freehand maps and only pull out a ruler if you really need to, while still having all distances represented on a map. Last time I checked, Roll20 does this well enough. I will definitely be using a grid. The grid is safe and it feels like home. Angrymog posted:A real annoyance with the PDFs - you can't turn the background layer off. Yeah, some of them have no background versions but not all.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:58
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ritorix posted:If the discord is being used, could someone post another link? Old one is expired and I want to hear some ideas + opinions on this game. link to the discord
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Jun 10, 2017 05:12
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Pastry Mistakes posted:Bought the bundle and some other books, and ran two adventures this last week, A Year Without Rain & The God Below. We normally play 3.5e, 5e, and wfrp2e, so this game hits the spot. Aside from my character (ork lawyer/warrior) we have a human priest of the old faith who is a constable, a clockwork warrior who is a detective who can't help but try to solve the cold cases he inadvertently creates when his murderous split personality kicks in, a changeling rogue whose background as a pickpocket and ferryman made him an excellent narc for us, and a cowardly/former slave goblin mage who dabbles in cursed magic who has mad Stockholm syndrome for his deceased master. The only Path I can suggest is the Mountebank from The Demon Lord's Companion, which focuses around telling lies and using trickery to confound their opponents, which sounds like a lawyer to me. Pastry Mistakes posted:3. How often do you come across magic items? Not seeing much in the core book about it. The only suggestion the book makes is that a character shouldn't have more magic items than they have Paths. Other than that, I'd say hand them out infrequently, but remember that they're not game-changing and don't add static bonuses/are required elements of the gear treadmill like in D&D. Go with your gut, but you can be stingy. Pastry Mistakes posted:4. Incantations don't use up a spell slot correct? Correct. The scroll is just used up.
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Jun 12, 2017 03:36
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Gort posted:Trip report from Tales of the Demon Lord adventure 2 (spoilered): I read over the adventure and listened to the Play Better Podcast put on a (houseruled for 3 PCs) AP of it Here's my thoughts: The players and the cultists are supposed to meet with the cultists and probably run into the Rude Boys together. I don't know how five cultists kill 9 hired killers as the adventure indicates, but it looks like something is busted. Level 1 characters are more robust that it seems, but when you add it all up they'll most likely be fighting 130~ Difficulty of creatures (9 hired killers, 6 cultists, 1 Possessed Candace and 1 Small Demon), which is 30 over the recommended number per day. I think its intended that some of this will resolve itself as Rude Boys and cultists kill each other, but overall I wouldn't take the risk. Change all but 1 Rude Boy into bandits and give the remaining hired killer the Leader role if you think the players are doing pretty well. That brings your budget down to 60~ Difficulty, which allows you to throw more enemies at them if you think they need the additional challenge, but is low enough that you're not gonna have a TPK outta nowhere.
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Jun 14, 2017 02:00
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Trip report for running The Witching Wood via Discord + Roll20 for a good group of goons: Everything went better than expected! The characters had a little difficulty with the first fight against two burrowing centipedes that led to the changeling losing their disguise by going unconscious. The players then did some footwork in Respite and I was maybe a little too generous with providing equipment for them. They headed out into the woods the next day and basically aced the Intellect rolls to find Vizreen's hut and got the drop on her. I had to improvise in the final fight by bringing in two fomors, but the players made some lucky rolls and shoved the witch into her fire and killed her. They then finished off the fomors and won the day. Things could have gone much more poorly if they had not done so well on the rolls in the woods, and I can just as easily see that adventure going sideways real fast, but I had a blast running it. If you're looking for a good starting adventure, The Witching Wood is really quite good.
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Jun 16, 2017 04:37
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Astro Ambulance posted:yeah giving us a pistol and a sword in addition to poisoned blowdarts and a spell was probably overkill. And yet immaterial in the face of shoving.
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Jun 16, 2017 04:54
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Jack B Nimble posted:Listed property costs in the companion ...is that per month or total purchase price? I don't know if you meant Insupposable Instruments, but that pdf was just updated to make the prices far, far more reasonable. For reference:  version 1  version 2 Evil Mastermind posted:I think this might be the first third-party SotDL setting: Mists of Akuma: Eastern Fantasy Noir Steampunk for Shadow of the Demon Lord This looks cool as hell and I'll check it out soon.
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Jun 17, 2017 02:42
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Gort posted:Played another game of this last night. My players are up to level 2 now, and it feels like they can actually convincingly win a fight now, after levels 0 and 1 being just "survive this godawful poo poo somehow". The warrior and rogue pretty much just roll attacks each round within that fight though - there are special moves you can do for melee and ranged, but none seem worth giving up your only boon for. I've suggested that they pick up some magic in their level 3 paths so they can get some limited-use abilities. This is a rule from Forbidden Rules, under Variant Healing. It's called Regroup, and it allows you to take 10 minutes to rest and recuperate and heal equal to your Healing Rate. It's a rule that I'm strongly considering making baseline for my games. (Also you can rest twice per 24 hours technically, as if you extend your resting to a full 24 hours you heal twice your Healing Rate). As for your first point about special attacks, I've seen players start to realize how good they are after a while. We just had a game where players used the Unbalancing Attack to knock an enemy down and start giving other melee attackers 1 boon. I think the game kinda expects warriors and rogues to sacrifice those boons to start forcing enemies into disadvantageous positions for the rest of the party. ------------------------------------------------------------------ I will be running the 0-level adventure A Year Without Rain this next Thursday, June 22nd at 7:00 PM EST. Again looking to take a max of 6 players through it, if you played in last week's adventure you're more than welcome to come to this one too, and the game is newbie-friendly. Really just working on getting people into trying the game out. The week after that I'll be running a 1st-level adventure, but after that I'm gonna look at running more 0- and 1st-level adventures at different times to fit other people's schedules. You can always drop me a line over in the Discord to let me know times that would work better for you or if you just wanna discuss the game.
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Jun 18, 2017 15:09
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Jack B Nimble posted:Ever since I played Darkest Dungeon I wanted to have some mechanics for rest, for everyone contributing actions towards a camping session. My players already enjoy that stuff, but without explicit rules it tends to be variations of "who and how will we take watch, and what traps/spells can we use to stay safe?" Well, while reading SofDL I'm seeing rules that are simple and "clean" enough that I could maybe work out a rest system (more so than, say, with D&D). I should also say my gaming group has been trying to work "stress" and "down time" into their RPGs too, so again this could be a way to work that in as well. I like a lot of these ideas, but you're right about this being a heal tax under some circumstances. I would make it so that no matter what you choose to do with your rest you still do heal equal to your Healing Rate. That way you're always getting some baseline health back. Here's my suggestions: Practice: this should be a bit more versatile, as 1 boon once a day is kinda peanuts. Instead, make it 1 boon to all challenge rolls that use a single Attribute. Like you spend some time exercising and get 1 boon to Strength/Agility rolls, or you spend time in prayer/meditation and get 1 boon to Will rolls. Magician: Corruption isn't that much of a problem unless you're doing evil stuff or studying dark magic, and getting rid of it should be a lot bigger deal that just sleeping for a night. I would let Magicians spend their time doing something a bit more universal, like giving all allies 1 boon to resist a magical attack the next day or give 1 ally the ability to expend a casting of one of your spells during the next day.
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Jun 20, 2017 12:45
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Jack B Nimble posted:Thanks for the help, these are all good points. I'll absolutely change Practice to that, although this is going compete with the Rogues power but I'll address that later. And since I haven't run a game yet I wasn't sure how much Corruption would show up, but what you're say makes sense that it might be too infrequent to base a foundation (novice path) rest power over, yeah they'll need something else. In large groups, monsters are scarily effective. I had a TPK on a 0-level party with just four fomors vs. four PCs. This math changes a bit at even at level 1, but be sure to look carefully at each monster's stats. A tiny demon, for instance, gets +5 and 1 boon to an attack that does 1d6 damage, and can trade that boon away to attack two targets at once each round, and it gets a ton of good Attributes and a built-in teleport all for Difficulty 10. Combat in SotDL is always gonna be dangerous, as even 1d6 damage starts to stack up fast. The book is wise to talk about outnumbering, since the action economy is a delicate thing in this game and enemies are going to almost always be baseline more effective at hitting than PCs. Really it all depends on the tone of game you're going for. For a more grim game, sure restrict healing to the Wound Care options, as that makes the tradeoff more interesting. But I tend to run games a little less harsh than the book recommends, and baseline healing while resting is definitely something I would implement for sure just because I would rather avoid TPKs if at all possible. As for the Rogue's long rest action, I think letting another boon apply wouldn't be a bad thing. I love your idea of having it apply to a narrow set of actions, so as to not be too powerful. And don't forget that boons and banes cancel out so it could allow a character to take a long shot action with a little more certainty. And like homullus says: homullus posted:A thing I like about Boons/Banes over Advantage/Disadvantage is that having more sources of them means something, but not a big something. You can have a million Boons, and it just makes it very, very likely you'll get +6 on the roll. Boons and banes are pretty brilliant because they have a set amount that they can impact a roll, so giving out lots of boons is never going to get you more than a +6 to a roll, and boons canceling banes lets you create interesting decisions in how to trade them off to attempt more unlikely actions. homullus posted:A PC can very easily lose half to all of their health in a single fight. Also, Insanity kind of takes care of itself, so I think the Priest's skill is the least useful one. This is also an excellent point. Going mad isn't something that is gonna happen often. Instead of removing Insanity, Priests may want to be able to do something like give allies +1 to their Healing Rate for the next day (per number of Paths they have would also make it scale pretty well) or something like removing Afflictions or even granting a bonus to Health equal to your party level.
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Jun 20, 2017 14:23
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Darkest Dungeon is on sale today for  so I'm downloading it now to see what's up.
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Jun 21, 2017 00:00
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Jack B Nimble posted:First of all, assume all rules are as written (pointing that out since I was working off of some rule changes the last time I posted my ideas). Second of all, in this revision the night's rest is divided up into 3 stages / catagories: Security, Recovery, and Preparation. There is one universal action for each of the three, but also a path specific action for each (novice path has one special action for all 3, expert and master paths would probably only add one). Each rest, the player can choose one of their path's special actions, the other two stages are then occupied with the universal action. So while there's now 3 rest powers per path, the players are actually only making one choice (what path power they want to use). I think this is a solid idea, but the complexity and usefulness of it might be getting away from you a bit. You could easily simplify it down to just a single rest action. I like the idea of each Novice Path having specific actions they can do, but this is beginning to seem a little too complex for SotDL. Tracking and resolving all these modifiers and bonuses could add a lot of overhead to running the game. I do have a few thoughts on some of the actions that you may find helpful: Jack B Nimble posted:Security - Keeping safe throughout the night Security as an idea is a big sticking point for me on all this. If the GM decides to throw a fight at the players during their rest, the rest is wasted. Unless you get those 8 hours of uninterrupted rest, you get nothing. This is, to me, deeply unfun and does little besides bog the game down. Security makes things easier in the event that the GM decides to have an encounter during a rest period, but it still doesn't negate the fact that your rest is wasted, and you've probably taken more Damage and wasted more resources and are even more in need of a rest now. As a GM, I've used the threat of an ambush while sleeping as a flavorful element, but never followed through on the idea, and unless the players are flagrantly asking for it (camping in the middle of a monster-infested dungeon etc), there's no situation in which I would waste more time with an ambush. Jack B Nimble posted:Recovery - Rest and recuperation from the day's travails(remember, normal Heal Rate applies each rest.) These are mostly good, but you may still be overestimating how often Corruption comes up and how deleterious the effects of Insanity are. In practice, Corruption and Insanity are not that bad (although Corruption explicitly calls for a character to commit acts of uncontested good to be cleansed, so getting rid of it shouldn't be easy). I would focus the Recovery actions on healing things like Afflictions and letting a player heal another increment of the Healing Rate. As noted, combat SotDL is pretty deadly, and giving players an opportunity to heal more is going to almost always be useful. Consider things like giving a small bonus to Health for the next day or adding a point or two to their Healing Rate to make their in-combat recovery actions a little better. Jack B Nimble posted:Preparation - Anticipating the challenges to come I'm a fan of all these actions. It seems like you want to run a game with more frightening/horrifying creatures, in which case the Priest action is very good. The rest seem universally useful, and therefore it creates an interesting choice to make between that +1 Attribute and other useful stuff like granting spells and sparring. I have no critiques of these really, they're all cohesive and solidly useful. Overall, my recommendations would be to reconsider the Security actions and the usefulness of effects that remove Insanity and Corruption. Some counterpoints to myself: -I'm a pretty big carebear of a GM, so maybe others will ambush resting PCs more regularly? I'd like to hear other people's experiences on this, as I'd consider this sorta thing GM dickery, but I'm biased. -If you are planning on running a more horror-oriented game where Insanity will be a bigger issue, the actions that resist/remove it become more useful, so feel free to ignore me on that one if that's your plan.
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Jun 21, 2017 12:52
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I ran A Year Without Rain last night for some goons, and I've got a trip report: The players caught on to the mystery pretty quickly, and found their way to the well before long. On the first day they went ahead and descended into the well and into the ruins. Per the adventure, the strongest character was given a suit of mail armor by the blacksmith, but here's the thing: mail armor requires a Strength of 13 or it fucks you on Strength and Agility rolls, and I don't think the 15 Defense is worth the tradeoff. A much more reasonable option would be to give the character and brigandine instead, which is Defense 13 but only requires 11 Strength. The characters explored the ruins, using waterskeins to avoid the heat penalties to Health (which are really nasty), and managed to disarm the blade trap in the first hallway (the adventure doesn't specify that you can do this, but c'mon), and killed the large spider in the next room. After that they fought the animated corpses in the bottom room, which was a pretty good fight. Animated corpses are a great enemy for 0-level groups as they aren't too tough and go down pretty quick. Also, one player hit on the idea of attacking with their torch against the very dry corpses, and that was really clever so I added 1d6 of fire damage to those attacks. After that the players entered the blasted chamber and were attacked by the Laugher in the Well. Per the book, the medium construct in the room should've attacked, but instead I just had it reveal itself and observe. The characters mostly chipped away at the Laugher while her attacks were horribly devastating. I don't think she missed a single attack. One player managed to tame the construct and got it to fight with them, but the Laugher still ended up killing 2 PCs before she finally died. By that point we were out of time, and the players never dealt with the ghoul or the two tiny demons. Thoughts: 0-level adventures are rough. The large spider and animated corpse fights went well because they were reasonably tuned. But the Laugher had a Defense of 17(!!) at level-0, had a +6 and 1 boon to hit, and dealt 2d6 damage per hit. If she ever incapacitated a character they died instantly, which got one character. The other took 11 damage from her in one hit and died instantly as well. I'm gonna go ahead and say she was too tough. Reduce her Defense to something reasonable like 14 or 15, take away her boon to hit and reduce her damage to 1d6 and she would be way more appropriate for characters who have no abilities yet. Also, ghouls are not appropriate 0-level adversaries, and tiny demons can also wreck people. The characters could have left the well, and I allowed for the Regroup rule from Forbidden Rules, and each character had a healing potion as well, but even with all that things are really tough. I feel like SotDL would work better either as a funnel system like Dungeon Crawl Classics, and you just have each player roll up 3 PCs and if one dies, then it's not a big deal, or if you take time to tone down the pre-written adventures. Most of them were not written by Schwalb, and were written really early on in the game's lifetime, so I feel like most of them are overtuned. It's taken me 4 adventures to really get a handle on what I think can be done to fix them, and in most cases it involves trading down monsters for weaker versions, or just straight tweaking their stats. Also, the surrounding rule is a great one to use for 0-level adventures, as that boon can be clutch Last night one of our players, poster Astro Ambulance, came up with a great idea for tracking fast/slow turns in Roll20: at the start of each round when choosing which kind of turn you'll be taking, use can use the decals to indicate your chosen turn. Red = fast, blue = slow. When you are finished with your turn, you remove the decal, and when there are no more decals remaining, the round ends. Next week I'll be running a sequel-ish game to my first one-shot, and I'm also considering adding a Saturday game because I really love running SotDL. If anyone's interested in that, I'll be posting details on the Discord.
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Jun 23, 2017 16:10
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Makaris posted:How does one go about making a monk in SotDL? I've poured over some stuff but nothing jumped out at me as being implicitly focused on unarmed fighting. Well, the warrior by itself can be a good starting point. Unarmed strikes still count as weapons, so they benefit from the Warrior's abilities. After that, the Fighter is still good (especially if you have Paths of Battle and can use the updated version). At Master, there's the Brute, or maybe the Mage-Knight if you want to reflavor the spells as monkish stuff. Weapon Master could also work, just by picking your fists as your favored weapon. But as mentioned above the good stuff is in the Companion. The Mystic is tailor-made for Iron Fist shenanigans, the the Martial Artist just completes it. Mystic/Martial Artist is also very dependent on not wearing armor, for that classic monk feel.
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Jun 23, 2017 17:29
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FunkMonkey posted:Sorry yeah, it's mystic not adept. My bad. Normally I would go Priest > Mystic > Martial Artist but Adept would actually make a really good Novice Path for that build too. You give up the Priest's heal for Spell Fighting at level 8, which would let you cast and punch at the same time.
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Jun 23, 2017 17:50
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I hadn't thought about it before, but it would be cool as a variant rule to let a player pick up a rank-0 spell with 1 casting with that level 4 feature.
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Jun 26, 2017 11:33
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It would be helpful if there as a little parenthetical that told you that you can't learn spells unless you know a Tradition included in the level 4 sections. Once you flip down to the magic section you find out that this is the case, but just going through the book at first you would think that every kind of Ancestry offers the ability to learn a spell at level 4. That said, I think I would totally allow a character a rank-0 spell of their choice with 1 casting (depending on the setting, really) but that's obviously not how the rules are intended to work.
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Jun 26, 2017 13:53
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Ratpick posted:I got this game and most of the supplements on that Bundle of Holding a while back and it seems pretty decent. The system is good and it's a drat sight better than a lot of "dark" and "mature" games on the market. I absolutely love this game, but to be honest, most of that love hangs on the system and not the setting. I could take or leave the "dark" aspect of things, and even when running it I don't lean into that aspect of the game. I listened to the interview with Schwalb posted earlier in the thread, and besides being a really fascinating look into how hard the freelancer life is, he said that the published version of SotDL is a toned-down version of his own vision of the game, which apparently deals much more with body horror etc. For me, that's totally fine, as I'm not really into body horror and running a horror game is beyond my capabilities. Given the choice between his extreme vision and the more palatable and bland stuff in the base game, I'll take the latter as it has less of a chance of turning people off (myself included). But given that, your criticism is totally valid. And you're absolutely justified in wanting to run it in your own setting. I like the base setting fine enough for one-shots, and the worldbuilding supplements are fine reading if you're a huge worldbuilding nerd like me, but when I start up an actual campaign I'll definitely be running it in something of my own design that doesn't play so much to the dark aspects of the game. The good news is that the mechanical aspects of the game aren't too dependent on reinforcing that tone. Forbidden Rules has all kinds of stuff that can be used to make the tone much more heroic and adventurous, and ignoring things like Insanity and Corruption is pretty easy. Also, just as a general message to anyone looking into purchasing the supplements, Horrific Parasites has an example of Schwalb's preferred style of horror, and I can't say I liked it very much. The mechanical info in the supplement was good, but just be forewarned that at a certain point it crosses a boundary from "poo poo and tits", as Ratpick so finely describes it, to something a lot less appealing. e: also the Victims supplements are great for more info on the various Ancestries. Ghosts in Machines, which covers clockworks, is particularly informative and interesting.
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Jun 28, 2017 12:54
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Night10194 posted:Eh, I've always just done 'Main Character Played By Player and then Partymates They Control In Combat' when I've done solo games in other systems. The pistols and rifles as presented are pretty much spot on for muskets and muzzle-loaded weaponry, so you're good on that front. Aside from that its a question of how much supernatural stuff you want to ignore. You'd probably be restricted to just the Warrior and the Rogue Novice Paths, unless you want Priests and Magicians to be like low-powered superhumans or something. It could be done without that much work.
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Jun 28, 2017 14:41
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Last night I ran the level-1 adventure "Blood Will Run". Here's some thoughts: The adventure is one of the least railroaded ones I've seen, and players are allowed to gather clues and tackle the scenes in just about any order. We heavily tied it in to the first game, so the players figured out the mystery with relative ease. To the adventure's credit, the adventure rarely calls for die rolls for clues, but I called for them just because it's fun to roll dice. The clues are easily discovered, and it leaves it to the players to piece them together. There are red herrings and intrigues going on, and it could easily go a lot of different ways. The Bonesmith is the pivotal fight of the adventure, and thanks to some good roleplaying the players performed an alpha strike on him and he only got a single turn in, but if he were able to get more turns in, he could easily down a level-1 character. I handed out some extra stuff afterwards because it's a one-shot, why not? The players then descended into the Old Sparrow Estate and fought the fomors down there, which included the dwarf rogue kicking over a bench and knocking a beastman into the fire pit and the priest using foretell to turn the orc rogue into a dual-swords blender who killed 4 fomors in 2 turns in a Battle of Thermopylae situation in a narrow hallway. The jump in power between level 0 and 1 is immense (though having 7 people did tip the odds in the players' favor). Monsters that were an entire fight on their own in level 0 are killed in two hits at level 1. It almost feels like a different game, in a good way. The feeling of progress is fantastic. I flubbed it again on handing out Fortune, and I think I need to make a cheat sheet for myself so that I don't forget certain rules. We also tested out the Endurance rules, which didn't come up very much since the players were very proactive about killing enemies before they could act, but Endurance definitely brings in that 4E Healing Surges feeling and I like it. Overall, I can slap a recommendation on "Blood Will Run". It would make a good level-1 adventure to cut your teeth on and get people a taste of the system above level 0. SotDL is a very fun game to run, in my opinion, and I'll be running a campaign soon. Next Thursday, July 6th at 7PM EST, I'll do doing a level-0 one-shot, "Dark Deeds in Last Hope" where we'll be testing out the zone-based combat and fortune points systems from Forbidden Rules. Drop by the Discord if you're interested, we still have 2 slots open!
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Jun 30, 2017 12:52
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Jack B Nimble posted:Nice write up! Regarding the rolls for clues, what did you do if they failed? Actually no one failed a single roll on looking for clues! But if they had, I was gonna give them the clue but I was keeping a Blades in the Dark style clock in the background with 4 segments. For each failed roll, I would fill in a segment and it was ticking down to a hunting party of fomors attacking the village. We had an interesting party composition: 4 Rogues, 2 Priests and 1 Adept. Trickery is strong as hell and a lot of their challenge and attack rolls were 20+.
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Jun 30, 2017 14:27
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Antilles posted:I was playing one of the Rogues, a dwarven James Bond with a pretty drat good +4 bonus to Perception, 1 boon from Trickery and 1-2 additional boons from my Professions. I don't think I had a single Perception challenge roll under 15... In case anyone is wondering or doesn't care about spoilers: the weapon was a goreblade, a special item for the adventure. It is a shortsword/cutlass type weapon made from human bone and inscribed with evil symbols. It does an extra 1d6 damage and gives 1 boon to all attacks using it, and when you kill people with it, you send their soul straight to Hell for a devil master, and you take 1 Corruption. When you grab it you make a Will roll, and if you fail you get a curse that forces you to take 1d3 Insanity each week, and if you go mad from that insanity you kill yourself immediately and also go straight to Hell. The player managed to not get cursed and used the goreblade really well on some fomors. Lifting the curse or destroying the weapon takes a Rank 4 spell that the GM thinks is appropriate.
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Jun 30, 2017 14:58
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Makaris posted:I wanna make sure I'm getting something right. Might be edging into house rules or GM fiat here. If he's taking the Priest path, he has opportunities at Expert and Master to branch out into other paths that will make him better at melee combat if he wants. Unless he wants to stick to straight Priest > Cleric > Theurge, he can explore other alternatives and pick up some combat talents elsewhere. I think that the boon that comes with Trickery and Weapon Training are pretty integral to the identity of the Rogue and Warrior, and giving a boon to all attack/challenge rolls might dilute things for people who take those other paths. Then again if your group is cool with it and its something that will make the game more fun for everyone, ignore what I said and do it anyways. That's the most important thing in elfgames, the rules take a backseat to fun.
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Jun 30, 2017 21:19
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