Further Thoughts On Combat

Recently I looked into an alternative way of handling combat in Tunnels and
Trolls, which involved using saving rolls as the combat mechanic and, not just as a mechanic within combat.

Since then Dan over at The Lone Delver has really taken the idea (which was inspired by an earlier post of his) and, run with it. It's looking great too. So setting my original idea to one side (as too many cooks spoil the broth) I have been thinking about what else I can do with combat system to take it to new and interesting places, and I have a couple of ideas.

The first has sprung from the Talents conversation that I sparked over at the Tunnels and Trolls Google+ group, and seeks to address what I consider the dual-wield issue, where it is almost mandatory for a starting character to take two daggers as their initial weaponry.

It kind of bugs me if I'm honest but I can't deny the logic of it. On average two daggers are cheaper to buy and, more effective in combat than nearly any other weapon that a new character can realistically afford. Tunnels and Trolls doesn't penalise you for fighting with an off-hand weapon either, so why wouldn't you invest in a pair of daggers?

Maybe if there was an incentive not to. Notice I say incentive and not penalty, as the easy option would be simply cut down the dice and adds granted by your off-hand weapon.

My solution is to open up the option of weapon Talents, something that was also discussed in during the Talents conversation over at the Google+ group. Instead of rolling a dice for the bonus though, I would simply set the value of the bonus granted by the Talent to the number of character levels that the weapon has been continually wielded for plus one.

Example: Bobby the Barbarian takes a Weapon Talent in "Clubs" as he loves to bash things over the head and take their stuff. As Bobby is new to adventuring his bonus is +1, meaning that he'll roll an extra dice when wielding any sort of club in combat. The bonus only applies to one weapon, so even if he were wielding two clubs, he'd still only roll one extra dice.

For every level of his career that Bobby from the previous example uses a club predominantly as a weapon, he can boost his Clubs Talent by one as he increases in level (going from 2 to 3, 3 to 4 etc), in addition he still gets to pick a new Talent.

Whilst this may not seem to do a lot to offset the benefits of duel-wielding daggers from the word go, it does open up an interesting alternative. Now if a character instead chooses to invest in say your average Short Sword and a Short Sword Talent to go with it, they could be wielding the four dice normally granted by duel-daggers whilst leaving a hand free to take a shield into combat with them. Given that Warriors get to double the hits absorbed by armor that they are wearing, and a shield counts as armor, this is a good deal!

My second idea does away with Combat Adds completely (but not Missile Adds as of yet), replacing them with a more tangible alternative.

Whilst I like the simplicity of the Tunnels and Trolls combat system as it stands, I feel that Personal Adds could be so much more if you break them down, or as I have replace them completely with the following:

Strength Adds: Each point of STR beyond 12 adds +1 to your combat total.
Dexterity Adds: Roll 1 extra dice in combat for every point of DEX you have beyond 12, and then drop that many.
Speed Adds: Each point of SPD beyond 12 grants you one hit of "natural armor".
Luck Adds: Re-roll up to 1 dice for every point of LK you have beyond 12, once per combat round. You must accept the second result.

Personally I feel that this better represents the effects of the various attributes than the catch all, Personal Adds. Strength inflicts greater wounds, Dexterity allows you aim your blows with greater accuracy, Speed lets you dodge out of the way and, if you're going to rely on Luck, you'd better be lucky!

Both are just works in progress at the moment but I do think they show promise, if I do say so myself.

First Look: Mag Blast

As I mentioned only two post ago, Mag Blast, which I purchased less than 24
hours ago has already seen table time, and poor pun wholly intended we've had a blast with it.

It's light, fast-paced and, win or lose highly enjoyable. It's a perfect filler game, with only one major drawback that we have found so far. Your initial draw can make or break your game, with two of the three that we played yesterday lasting all of five minutes from start to finish.

So we've house ruled our way around this by introducing a mulligan style mechanic:

House Rule

If you are not happy with your initial draw of 6 Fleet cards you may shuffle them into the Fleet deck and draw 5 replacements, of which

you must choose 4 for your initial set-up.

If this still doesn't work out for you, you could theoretically drop down to 4 cards using the same method but, no more than that and even then you are really pushing your luck. That really does seem to be the name of the game though, luck.

You have to be lucky with the initial fleet that you draw, you have to be lucky with the action cards that you draw and, if you want to cause catastrophic damage, you have to be REALLY lucky! This isn't such a bad thing though (particularly in the case of the latter).

When I initially looked over the cards prior to the rules I was a little concerned just how easy it seemed to blow a ship out of the sky instantly, which can end a game just like that.

This was however an error as it's actually very difficult to achieve a "critical hit" along those lines as you need at least three cards to pull it off and, you only draw up to five every turn (unless you draw something that lets you draw more) at the most. There are still plenty of devastating attacks that you can throw out there though, for example the name-sake Mag Blast, which will happily take out the majority of fleet ships.

Overall, play is of the fast and furious variety, so if a fast-paced space skirmish sounds up your street you can't go far wrong with Mag Blast. If you're looking for deep strategy though, this really isn't going to be the game for you.

Let Me Thrill You With Tales Of Mundane Adventure

Let me thrill you with tales of mundane adventure.. Said no GM ever.

That's because there is a lot of onus on the GM to weave an intricate and engaging story that leaves their players crying out for more. They have to be original, but what of the players?

There is no real pressure on the players to create  fresh and original characters. Obviously those that do get a lot of enjoyment out of the new opportunities that they open up to themselves but by and large it's a lot easier just to stick to the familiar archetypes. The rules are geared that way, so why would you do anything different? Well, because it just doesn't make sense.

I mean, think about it. Your warrior has just spent days risking life and limb to haul back that sack of gold, and what does he do with it? He spends it on weapons and armor like some kind of survival nut. In real world terms that is the equivalent of someone who works to work, which in my opinion a rather joyless existence but why would the player do anything but? They need those weapons. They need that armor.

Back to putting the onus on the GM.

So what to do? Well if you're players are the kind that fixate on draining every last copper piece for all that it's worth, I would recommend introducing what I loosely refer to as hobbies and obsessions.

It's only a work in progress at the moment but, essentially what you are creating is a means of spending gold and time between adventures that helps flesh out the character a little more. Quite how I would implement this I'm not sure as of yet but I would suggest relating the reward given for the activity to the cost, availability and, legality of the hobby in question.

For example, Olaf The Drunk likes ale. He LOVES ale! So every GP's worth of ale he consumes (which is a fair bit given how cheap it is) gains him 1AP, because his particular is vice cheap, readily available and, generally legal. It's also only a hobby, not an obsession, so Olaf can go without if more pressing needs present themselves.. He just wouldn't be happy about it.

This is only a quick example of a common activity, turned hobby but it already adds more dimension to the character. No matter the quest at hand he has a reason to delve and, the impairing effects of alcohol gives the GM something to play with in return.

In Space, No-One Can Here You Scream PEW! PEW!

It's been a while since I paid a trip to my FLGS, mostly because times are hard in
the UK and, gaming (well professionally produced board and card games) has and have become a luxury that can't always be easily justified.

Sometimes though you have to treat yourself, and buying new doesn't have to cost you the earth. There are plenty of great games out there that are inexpensive and, nothing I bought yesterday set me back more than £20. Which when you consider the overall cost of gaming in general is more than reasonable.

The first two items that I picked up were the Rebel vs Imperium and The Brink of War expansions for Race For The Galaxy. Whilst it may seem a little lavish to fork out close to £40 on expansions (for which I could have bought a whole new game), I have been playing a lot of Race For The Galaxy solitaire of late, and getting a lot of enjoyment from doing so. The expansions also bring a lot of new bells and whistles to the party (not to mention close to doubling the number of cards in-play), so if I had to make the choice again; the expansions or a new game; I don't think my decision would be any different...

This isn't to say that I didn't buy a new game however, as sitting in the corner of an alcove on a low-shelf a little box caught my eye. Mag Blast.

Without a doubt, the thing that drew me in was the Kovalic art and, upon seeing the price-tag, I was sold. Even if the game was a bust, less than £20 for a game where every card is a full-color Kavolic piece of art is still a win in my book. I think it must be a Munchkin thing. :0).

As it turned out though, the game was actually great and in the few games that we have played so far, we have had a hell of a lot of fun. I'll review the game in more detail in a coming post but suffice to say I think it's well worth owning and if you ever happen to see a copy in a FLGS of your very own, it's well worth checking out.

What's In Box 13?

The current play-by-post adventure going on over at Gems and Giants, combined
with my general Supernatural fandom has set me thinking about curse boxes, and why they might make an interesting addition to your game.

In the slip of reality that is Supernatural curse boxes are, well, boxes, built with the express intention of binding the magic of the item contained inside.

Usually this is because the item inside is cursed in some manner but, generally speaking it could be said that this has a lot more to do with how magic is portrayed within the Supernatural setting and the mythos surrounding it. It's generally a bad thing, being one of the main paths that leads a human to become a demon.

It's an interesting idea but, high-fantasy is of course a million miles away from this in it's perspective. Magic being wide-spread and relatively common place. Even settings that are not jammed to seams with spells and incantations are generally populated by a wealth of magical beings. Which, if you think about it, creates an even greater need for curse boxes.

But why might you introduce them?

• "Radioactive" Magic: Occasionally a magical item may become unstable and, unable to hold it's own power, leaking it's effects into the surrounding area. Such items, even those with purely beneficial effects would become abhorrent to magic-users in this instance as the chaos created by the radiation would make any magic used within it's vicinity high unpredictable. A curse box in this case would work a lot like a lead container.

• A Fiendish Trap: Delver love nothing more than looting a ruin and finding a magical object. It's their big score. That's probably why cursed objects were invented by GM's in the first place if truth be told.. So why break with tradition? Maybe the next chest that they find contains a dancing sword.. That attacks whosoever is close by, be they friend or foe.

• A Quest Of Duty: This one comes straight out of Supernatural, where hunters often keep such boxes locked away so that the item within can do no harm. Now if we ramp that up to a high-fantasy level of magic, the item within could be truly devastating. What would your party of adventurers do if they came across what is effectively a Pandora's Box? If they're smart, they won't open it but, how will they keep it safe from others? They can lock it away, but thieves may break in. They can drag it to the end of the known world but someone may still find it. It's quite the dilemma!

There are obviously many more reasons to introduce such items, but in the interests of time (and not rambling on) I'll just keep to those three, that illustrate a few likely possibilities.

Geeks Do It Better #5: The Helm Of Rodent Enchantment

This particular piece of art has to be one of my all-time favorites ever to feature in a roleplaying manual. A big thank you to Jerry over at The Delving Dwarf for both tracking it down and, pointing me in the right direction of much more by the same artist (Will McLean).

Expect to see much more of his work here, as his superb art combined with his rapier sharp humor really is proof that Geeks Do It Better!

Saving Throws AS Combat, Not Just In Combat: Revisited

Following on from my previous post, where I looked at the possibility of long since been picked to the post by Dan over at the Lone Delver.
introducing SR's as a combat mechanic, and not just a mechanic within combat, I soon found that I found that I had

Despite my being massively behind the times, unearthing the topic has heralded some interesting things as Dan has begun to explore the topic once more, progressing his earlier work and, creating something very functional that has also been described as pulling missile weapons into a much more even playing field.

Personally, I like it. Combat becomes a lot more deadly and, especially so if you're not a Warrior. Which makes perfect sense to me. It's still a work in progress, I feel but, one well worth checking out. :0).