Har hastily slips through the underbrush.
Her breath crystallizing as her feet dart from rock to rock trying to avoid the snow drifts that are blowing through the trees.
The noise of movement causes her to pull short.
Ears straining, she flattens herself against a tree, bow tense.
A second or two passes.
The sound of men searching the forest comes from some way off, back towards Ajax.
A rabbit stirs again, this time darting fully back into its burrow.
Har starts breathing again.
Eyes flashing, she sees the water around her calming, as the sharks dash off into the distance.
A few deep breaths, and then she's moving again, heading to the concealed stream she hopes leads into the fortress.
The skinny bandit skids to a stop as a wall of horse cuts him off, deftly spinning around and catching Aub's strike on his shield. Nasim rushes forwards and flings a dagger, leaving a deep cut on the man's temple. The bandit continues to curse and yell, only stopping for a moment as he pulls out a small bottle and applies a thick liquid inside to his forehead, the wound closing immediately.
Outside, Har moves towards the cave mouth.
Colonel deals 2 damage to the bandit.
The bandit reacts to Aub's Measured Strike with Deflect, reducing the damage to 2.
Nasim moves to E16 and uses Execute, dealing 6 damage to the bandit. Nasim's shadow moves to B12.
The bandit uses a health potion, healing himself for 8, and moves to E14.
Geth, roll 1d2 for what to do...
Geth, roll 1d10 for ???
I should also mention that after a few months of testing the current item/crafting systems out, I'm working on another rework which should be ready in about a week. Overall it should be simpler and a bit less powerful, putting more focus on the skills.
Aub strikes from above, and Nasim shifts to the man's other side, slicing his throat with a smooth motion.
As the echoes of the man's cries fade, the party can hear the sound of something else splashing through the water - something large, and up to the right. As you move closer to the sounds, the chill winter air grows noticeably warmer.
Aub deals 6 damage, and Nasim uses Execute for 8 damage and kills the bandit.
You edge up along the stone wall, looking into the dimness to the right. You see a metal gate, criss-crossed with two heavy chains. A mass of darkness beyond the bars slowly shifts, and a wisp of steam winds its way through the bars. Even in the low light, you can see the silhouette of a massive creature, steam rising from every point it touches water.
You think of Coalfang, unconsciously turning your head, and do some quick mental math. This is indeed a full-size drake, but there's something unnatural about its shape. You remain still as it lumbers closer to the gate, and you can see that, instead of the brilliant red scales you expect, it is almost entirely covered with curved white plates of bone. The only breaks in the plating are around its faintly glowing eyes and its man-sized jaw. Your mind flashes back to the wolf rider you slew earlier, a strange hybrid of alien beast and man.
---
Nasim remains still, with only her shadow scouting ahead.
Har finally enters the cave mouth, seeing not a sign of anyone following her.
Geth, roll 1d10 for Nasim perception
Geth, roll 1d10 for drake perception
The drake continues slowly up to the bars, dumbly poking at them and smelling the air. The whole party can now see it, and hear the hiss of the steam it generates with every slosh through the stream.
Due to the low distance, you'd be at disadvantage - it's honestly a little surprising it hasn't noticed you already. You might be able to try to distract it, or run past it.
Going to make an official rule change here regarding stealth: Instead of being a background check, it will be Intiative for situations that involve finding the right moment to slip past, Reflex for active evasion or reactive hiding, or Speed for situations that mainly involve getting out of sight as fast as possible.
Doing this because I'm considering adding some social stats. I'm not really sure I like background checks, they feel a little TOO random sometimes. I'd like to have people be especially good in a mechanical sense for certain kinds of social situations.
Going to make an official rule change here regarding stealth: Instead of being a background check, it will be Intiative for situations that involve finding the right moment to slip past, Reflex for active evasion or reactive hiding, or Speed for situations that mainly involve getting out of sight as fast as possible.
Doing this because I'm considering adding some social stats. I'm not really sure I like background checks, they feel a little TOO random sometimes. I'd like to have people be especially good in a mechanical sense for certain kinds of social situations.
So, I sort of agree.
The question then becomes what checks merit the standard stat + d10 check in the first place?
Because you could just reduce the die size to a d8 and reduce the target for success to 6, making any character with any bonus better at those checks, whilst also reducing variance.
But then, speed adds squares to movement, so do we seperate a smaller speed skill modifier from the number of squares that are moved?
Are reflex/attack rolls interesting enough that we wish to maintain a d10 for those?
Initiative... probably doesn't need to stay on a d10 if it's only determining combat order and social.
And Spirit seems to be entirely social also, so no problems there.
But yeah, DnD 5e has +5 for things a character has trained for on a d20.
Here we have advantage (+ stat), and advantage on a d10 is (45 + 36 + 28 + 21 + 15 + 10 + 6 + 3 + 1) = (60 + 20 + 49 + 36) = 165/100 = +1.65 EV = +16% + stat.
So you're roughly equivalent for social skills if characters always have a stat bonus of at least +1 in a thing they're good at, and are allowed to apply it to the social roll +background advantage
Going to make an official rule change here regarding stealth: Instead of being a background check, it will be Intiative for situations that involve finding the right moment to slip past, Reflex for active evasion or reactive hiding, or Speed for situations that mainly involve getting out of sight as fast as possible.
Doing this because I'm considering adding some social stats. I'm not really sure I like background checks, they feel a little TOO random sometimes. I'd like to have people be especially good in a mechanical sense for certain kinds of social situations.
So, I sort of agree.
The question then becomes what checks merit the standard stat + d10 check in the first place?
Because you could just reduce the die size to a d8 and reduce the target for success to 6, making any character with any bonus better at those checks, whilst also reducing variance.
But then, speed adds squares to movement, so do we seperate a smaller speed skill modifier from the number of squares that are moved?
Are reflex/attack rolls interesting enough that we wish to maintain a d10 for those?
Initiative... probably doesn't need to stay on a d10 if it's only determining combat order and social.
And Spirit seems to be entirely social also, so no problems there.
But yeah, DnD 5e has +5 for things a character has trained for on a d20.
Here we have advantage (+ stat), and advantage on a d10 is (45 + 36 + 28 + 21 + 15 + 10 + 6 + 3 + 1) = (60 + 20 + 49 + 36) = 165/100 = +1.65 EV = +16% + stat.
So you're roughly equivalent for social skills if characters always have a stat bonus of at least +1 in a thing they're good at, and are allowed to apply it to the social roll +background advantage
I honestly just picked a d10 on a whim since I felt it simplified the math and made higher degrees of success more likely. I never really thought about changing the dice too much besides wanting to release a randomized damage conversion at some point. I should go look at the math a bit, but I believe I ran the numbers at some point and DCs usually in the 8-14 range with the max of a +6 mod is about the same as DnD.
The stat checks are for physical, combat/trap-related stuff only. Let me try to list them out:
Health: Resist mundane effects like extreme weather or natural poisons, perform feats of strength like grappling or grasping onto a cliff to avoid an otherwise fatal fall.
Spirit: Anything magic or willpower-related. Magic detection and analysis is Spirit, and many rituals that can be dispelled or resisted use opposed Spirit checks.
Reflex: Dodging traps and such.
Speed: How fast you can travel, usually only relevant when there is limited time such as a chase scene.
Initiative: Perception.
I'm pretty sure that background checks work fine just with giving advantage, but it feels a little too wishy-washy. Maybe it's just my IRL group, but they don't seem to leverage that system too much and something with a little more crunch might work better. Could be my own inexperience. Anyway, I was going to add a set of social stats, something like:
Going to make an official rule change here regarding stealth: Instead of being a background check, it will be Intiative for situations that involve finding the right moment to slip past, Reflex for active evasion or reactive hiding, or Speed for situations that mainly involve getting out of sight as fast as possible.
Doing this because I'm considering adding some social stats. I'm not really sure I like background checks, they feel a little TOO random sometimes. I'd like to have people be especially good in a mechanical sense for certain kinds of social situations.
So, I sort of agree.
The question then becomes what checks merit the standard stat + d10 check in the first place?
Because you could just reduce the die size to a d8 and reduce the target for success to 6, making any character with any bonus better at those checks, whilst also reducing variance.
But then, speed adds squares to movement, so do we seperate a smaller speed skill modifier from the number of squares that are moved?
Are reflex/attack rolls interesting enough that we wish to maintain a d10 for those?
Initiative... probably doesn't need to stay on a d10 if it's only determining combat order and social.
And Spirit seems to be entirely social also, so no problems there.
But yeah, DnD 5e has +5 for things a character has trained for on a d20.
Here we have advantage (+ stat), and advantage on a d10 is (45 + 36 + 28 + 21 + 15 + 10 + 6 + 3 + 1) = (60 + 20 + 49 + 36) = 165/100 = +1.65 EV = +16% + stat.
So you're roughly equivalent for social skills if characters always have a stat bonus of at least +1 in a thing they're good at, and are allowed to apply it to the social roll +background advantage
I honestly just picked a d10 on a whim since I felt it simplified the math and made higher degrees of success more likely. I never really thought about changing the dice too much besides wanting to release a randomized damage conversion at some point. I should go look at the math a bit, but I believe I ran the numbers at some point and DCs usually in the 8-14 range with the max of a +6 mod is about the same as DnD.
The stat checks are for physical, combat/trap-related stuff only. Let me try to list them out:
Health: Resist mundane effects like extreme weather or natural poisons, perform feats of strength like grappling or grasping onto a cliff to avoid an otherwise fatal fall.
Spirit: Anything magic or willpower-related. Magic detection and analysis is Spirit, and many rituals that can be dispelled or resisted use opposed Spirit checks.
Reflex: Dodging traps and such.
Speed: How fast you can travel, usually only relevant when there is limited time such as a chase scene.
Initiative: Perception.
I'm pretty sure that background checks work fine just with giving advantage, but it feels a little too wishy-washy. Maybe it's just my IRL group, but they don't seem to leverage that system too much and something with a little more crunch might work better. Could be my own inexperience. Anyway, I was going to add a set of social stats, something like:
I mean, I -like- the background checks.
It's much like 13th Age's one unique thing, where what you say your character can do, they can do.
That said, you have the possibility of someone choosing say an apiarist background and getting the advantage with birds and no easy social skills, or the reverse where a player picks an over-broad background and tries to get advantage on everything.
These should be resolvable with DM - player negotiations though.
But either way, to make a character feel good at something, their skills do need to matter on the roll.
So if your players are having a hard time getting stat and background lined up so that they have a significant expected chance of succeeding increase, then maybe refactoring the math so there's only one main variable is the way to go.
Advantage appears to give an approximate EV of 16% * the d by the looks of it.
So probably worth eyeballing where 50% chance of failing is (6+ success for no bonus, 7/8+ success with which is 6 on the die + 1.6) and figure out if that's enough of a seperation to feel like a skilled person, or in other words whether that's enough of a seperation that a skilled person only succeeds most of the time where a normal character would succeed half the time.
Going to make an official rule change here regarding stealth: Instead of being a background check, it will be Intiative for situations that involve finding the right moment to slip past, Reflex for active evasion or reactive hiding, or Speed for situations that mainly involve getting out of sight as fast as possible.
Doing this because I'm considering adding some social stats. I'm not really sure I like background checks, they feel a little TOO random sometimes. I'd like to have people be especially good in a mechanical sense for certain kinds of social situations.
So, I sort of agree.
The question then becomes what checks merit the standard stat + d10 check in the first place?
Because you could just reduce the die size to a d8 and reduce the target for success to 6, making any character with any bonus better at those checks, whilst also reducing variance.
But then, speed adds squares to movement, so do we seperate a smaller speed skill modifier from the number of squares that are moved?
Are reflex/attack rolls interesting enough that we wish to maintain a d10 for those?
Initiative... probably doesn't need to stay on a d10 if it's only determining combat order and social.
And Spirit seems to be entirely social also, so no problems there.
But yeah, DnD 5e has +5 for things a character has trained for on a d20.
Here we have advantage (+ stat), and advantage on a d10 is (45 + 36 + 28 + 21 + 15 + 10 + 6 + 3 + 1) = (60 + 20 + 49 + 36) = 165/100 = +1.65 EV = +16% + stat.
So you're roughly equivalent for social skills if characters always have a stat bonus of at least +1 in a thing they're good at, and are allowed to apply it to the social roll +background advantage
I honestly just picked a d10 on a whim since I felt it simplified the math and made higher degrees of success more likely. I never really thought about changing the dice too much besides wanting to release a randomized damage conversion at some point. I should go look at the math a bit, but I believe I ran the numbers at some point and DCs usually in the 8-14 range with the max of a +6 mod is about the same as DnD.
The stat checks are for physical, combat/trap-related stuff only. Let me try to list them out:
Health: Resist mundane effects like extreme weather or natural poisons, perform feats of strength like grappling or grasping onto a cliff to avoid an otherwise fatal fall.
Spirit: Anything magic or willpower-related. Magic detection and analysis is Spirit, and many rituals that can be dispelled or resisted use opposed Spirit checks.
Reflex: Dodging traps and such.
Speed: How fast you can travel, usually only relevant when there is limited time such as a chase scene.
Initiative: Perception.
I'm pretty sure that background checks work fine just with giving advantage, but it feels a little too wishy-washy. Maybe it's just my IRL group, but they don't seem to leverage that system too much and something with a little more crunch might work better. Could be my own inexperience. Anyway, I was going to add a set of social stats, something like:
I mean, I -like- the background checks.
It's much like 13th Age's one unique thing, where what you say your character can do, they can do.
That said, you have the possibility of someone choosing say an apiarist background and getting the advantage with birds and no easy social skills, or the reverse where a player picks an over-broad background and tries to get advantage on everything.
These should be resolvable with DM - player negotiations though.
But either way, to make a character feel good at something, their skills do need to matter on the roll.
So if your players are having a hard time getting stat and background lined up so that they have a significant expected chance of succeeding increase, then maybe refactoring the math so there's only one main variable is the way to go.
Advantage appears to give an approximate EV of 16% * the d by the looks of it.
So probably worth eyeballing where 50% chance of failing is (6+ success for no bonus, 7/8+ success with which is 6 on the die + 1.6) and figure out if that's enough of a seperation to feel like a skilled person, or in other words whether that's enough of a seperation that a skilled person only succeeds most of the time where a normal character would succeed half the time.
I'm sort of rambling here though.
Math!
I was actually planning on keeping the background stuff and its advantage/disadvantage in place, the stats would be more of a way to codify personality type/social approach...but maybe I shouldn't be trying to do that and should be leaving up to the player and DM?
Going to make an official rule change here regarding stealth: Instead of being a background check, it will be Intiative for situations that involve finding the right moment to slip past, Reflex for active evasion or reactive hiding, or Speed for situations that mainly involve getting out of sight as fast as possible.
Doing this because I'm considering adding some social stats. I'm not really sure I like background checks, they feel a little TOO random sometimes. I'd like to have people be especially good in a mechanical sense for certain kinds of social situations.
So, I sort of agree.
The question then becomes what checks merit the standard stat + d10 check in the first place?
Because you could just reduce the die size to a d8 and reduce the target for success to 6, making any character with any bonus better at those checks, whilst also reducing variance.
But then, speed adds squares to movement, so do we seperate a smaller speed skill modifier from the number of squares that are moved?
Are reflex/attack rolls interesting enough that we wish to maintain a d10 for those?
Initiative... probably doesn't need to stay on a d10 if it's only determining combat order and social.
And Spirit seems to be entirely social also, so no problems there.
But yeah, DnD 5e has +5 for things a character has trained for on a d20.
Here we have advantage (+ stat), and advantage on a d10 is (45 + 36 + 28 + 21 + 15 + 10 + 6 + 3 + 1) = (60 + 20 + 49 + 36) = 165/100 = +1.65 EV = +16% + stat.
So you're roughly equivalent for social skills if characters always have a stat bonus of at least +1 in a thing they're good at, and are allowed to apply it to the social roll +background advantage
I honestly just picked a d10 on a whim since I felt it simplified the math and made higher degrees of success more likely. I never really thought about changing the dice too much besides wanting to release a randomized damage conversion at some point. I should go look at the math a bit, but I believe I ran the numbers at some point and DCs usually in the 8-14 range with the max of a +6 mod is about the same as DnD.
The stat checks are for physical, combat/trap-related stuff only. Let me try to list them out:
Health: Resist mundane effects like extreme weather or natural poisons, perform feats of strength like grappling or grasping onto a cliff to avoid an otherwise fatal fall.
Spirit: Anything magic or willpower-related. Magic detection and analysis is Spirit, and many rituals that can be dispelled or resisted use opposed Spirit checks.
Reflex: Dodging traps and such.
Speed: How fast you can travel, usually only relevant when there is limited time such as a chase scene.
Initiative: Perception.
I'm pretty sure that background checks work fine just with giving advantage, but it feels a little too wishy-washy. Maybe it's just my IRL group, but they don't seem to leverage that system too much and something with a little more crunch might work better. Could be my own inexperience. Anyway, I was going to add a set of social stats, something like:
I mean, I -like- the background checks.
It's much like 13th Age's one unique thing, where what you say your character can do, they can do.
That said, you have the possibility of someone choosing say an apiarist background and getting the advantage with birds and no easy social skills, or the reverse where a player picks an over-broad background and tries to get advantage on everything.
These should be resolvable with DM - player negotiations though.
But either way, to make a character feel good at something, their skills do need to matter on the roll.
So if your players are having a hard time getting stat and background lined up so that they have a significant expected chance of succeeding increase, then maybe refactoring the math so there's only one main variable is the way to go.
Advantage appears to give an approximate EV of 16% * the d by the looks of it.
So probably worth eyeballing where 50% chance of failing is (6+ success for no bonus, 7/8+ success with which is 6 on the die + 1.6) and figure out if that's enough of a seperation to feel like a skilled person, or in other words whether that's enough of a seperation that a skilled person only succeeds most of the time where a normal character would succeed half the time.
I'm sort of rambling here though.
Math!
I was actually planning on keeping the background stuff and its advantage/disadvantage in place, the stats would be more of a way to codify personality type/social approach...but maybe I shouldn't be trying to do that and should be leaving up to the player and DM?
I suppose the question is whether the backgrounds seem to cover it already?
Perhaps backgrounds feel like they're what your character is and not how they do it, or rather how they approach social/other situations?
Maybe you could just give a third emotional background as well, like brash, cautious, shy, cowardly, etc, to help people think about approaches and how a character tends to react?
Disadvantages for acting against these too.. maybe. Back seat driving other people's characters because the barbarian doesn't suggests the players plans might not be great though.
Going to make an official rule change here regarding stealth: Instead of being a background check, it will be Intiative for situations that involve finding the right moment to slip past, Reflex for active evasion or reactive hiding, or Speed for situations that mainly involve getting out of sight as fast as possible.
Doing this because I'm considering adding some social stats. I'm not really sure I like background checks, they feel a little TOO random sometimes. I'd like to have people be especially good in a mechanical sense for certain kinds of social situations.
So, I sort of agree.
The question then becomes what checks merit the standard stat + d10 check in the first place?
Because you could just reduce the die size to a d8 and reduce the target for success to 6, making any character with any bonus better at those checks, whilst also reducing variance.
But then, speed adds squares to movement, so do we seperate a smaller speed skill modifier from the number of squares that are moved?
Are reflex/attack rolls interesting enough that we wish to maintain a d10 for those?
Initiative... probably doesn't need to stay on a d10 if it's only determining combat order and social.
And Spirit seems to be entirely social also, so no problems there.
But yeah, DnD 5e has +5 for things a character has trained for on a d20.
Here we have advantage (+ stat), and advantage on a d10 is (45 + 36 + 28 + 21 + 15 + 10 + 6 + 3 + 1) = (60 + 20 + 49 + 36) = 165/100 = +1.65 EV = +16% + stat.
So you're roughly equivalent for social skills if characters always have a stat bonus of at least +1 in a thing they're good at, and are allowed to apply it to the social roll +background advantage
I honestly just picked a d10 on a whim since I felt it simplified the math and made higher degrees of success more likely. I never really thought about changing the dice too much besides wanting to release a randomized damage conversion at some point. I should go look at the math a bit, but I believe I ran the numbers at some point and DCs usually in the 8-14 range with the max of a +6 mod is about the same as DnD.
The stat checks are for physical, combat/trap-related stuff only. Let me try to list them out:
Health: Resist mundane effects like extreme weather or natural poisons, perform feats of strength like grappling or grasping onto a cliff to avoid an otherwise fatal fall.
Spirit: Anything magic or willpower-related. Magic detection and analysis is Spirit, and many rituals that can be dispelled or resisted use opposed Spirit checks.
Reflex: Dodging traps and such.
Speed: How fast you can travel, usually only relevant when there is limited time such as a chase scene.
Initiative: Perception.
I'm pretty sure that background checks work fine just with giving advantage, but it feels a little too wishy-washy. Maybe it's just my IRL group, but they don't seem to leverage that system too much and something with a little more crunch might work better. Could be my own inexperience. Anyway, I was going to add a set of social stats, something like:
I mean, I -like- the background checks.
It's much like 13th Age's one unique thing, where what you say your character can do, they can do.
That said, you have the possibility of someone choosing say an apiarist background and getting the advantage with birds and no easy social skills, or the reverse where a player picks an over-broad background and tries to get advantage on everything.
These should be resolvable with DM - player negotiations though.
But either way, to make a character feel good at something, their skills do need to matter on the roll.
So if your players are having a hard time getting stat and background lined up so that they have a significant expected chance of succeeding increase, then maybe refactoring the math so there's only one main variable is the way to go.
Advantage appears to give an approximate EV of 16% * the d by the looks of it.
So probably worth eyeballing where 50% chance of failing is (6+ success for no bonus, 7/8+ success with which is 6 on the die + 1.6) and figure out if that's enough of a seperation to feel like a skilled person, or in other words whether that's enough of a seperation that a skilled person only succeeds most of the time where a normal character would succeed half the time.
I'm sort of rambling here though.
Math!
I was actually planning on keeping the background stuff and its advantage/disadvantage in place, the stats would be more of a way to codify personality type/social approach...but maybe I shouldn't be trying to do that and should be leaving up to the player and DM?
I suppose the question is whether the backgrounds seem to cover it already?
Perhaps backgrounds feel like they're what your character is and not how they do it, or rather how they approach social/other situations?
Maybe you could just give a third emotional background as well, like brash, cautious, shy, cowardly, etc, to help people think about approaches and how a character tends to react?
Disadvantages for acting against these too.. maybe. Back seat driving other people's characters because the barbarian doesn't suggests the players plans might not be great though.
Yeah, I think deepening that system a bit might do what I want...I think people do this anyway but making people actually write it down might save some time and effort.
EDIT: My original thought process on character creation had people picking virtues and vices. I think something like that combined with an actual backstory and social approach should be good.
A lot of this is because one of my IRL players is only able to show up about half the time, and he's super quiet and doesn't seem to be able to handle the roleplay at the same time he's thinking about the mechanical elements. The one time we did get him to really come out of his shell, he made an EXCELLENT speech, so I know he can do it, but the character itself is a bit of an enigma. It's more to make my job easier. My other players' social approaches are pretty clear (the arrogant former scholar wizard, the humorous and casual yet violent failed pirate captain, the paranoid yet kind escaped test subject). His character is a runaway vigilante, basically the Punisher but he skipped town and became an adventurer instead of continuing his vigilante campaign.
So first, I like the switch to being specific skills for some of these checks. Helps me in char building to understand what I think my character would be/do. For example, I don't really want Vic to be speedy, he's supposed to be tall and lanky, but init or reflex probably still fall into something he could be good at.
Secondly, I'd love for background stuff to get deeper, even if just to play with the specifics of the character more. I have a general backstory and behavior, but if there was some sort of game function that emphasized that (via needing to define it a little clearer), it feels like it'd be easier for me to build the character deeper with some sort of purpose when it comes to personality.
0
joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
You barely hear a small displacement of water as Nasim disappears from behind you and reappears up ahead, silhouetted against a lantern on a metal wall. You move to follow, but the drake's eyes track you. Red light shines out of the joints on the creature's underbelly, and moments later it spews a gout of flame! Ready for this, you cover yourself with your shield, but the flames fizzle out before they reach you, though they raise a super-heated cloud of steam for a few moments. With your Endurance, it barely touches you.
However, the chains on the gate look at least half-melted.
Geth, roll 1d10 for attack roll (Actually didn't need to roll because Aub's Reflex is over 10 and she's using Focused Defense and it's out of range anyway.)
(Should also mention that Fire Breath attacks a 4x4 square starting on a tile adjacent to the drake.)
(You think standing in or near water when it uses Fire Breath would be a super bad idea.)
Har moves to the corner, sees the others and the billowing steam, and prepares an arrow with Counter. @AustinP0027 is next
(@'s don't work if you add them with an edit)
Is "running past dragon thing" movement dependent? Meaning, Vic get's 3 spots and needs to roll init check multiple times? Or is it one single init check to get to the other side?
Is "running past dragon thing" movement dependent? Meaning, Vic get's 3 spots and needs to roll init check multiple times? Or is it one single init check to get to the other side?
Y'all got spotted, it's either run past, run away, or fight now. (Or do something else clever????)
Didn't know that about @s either, thanks discrider.
Posts
@joshgotro you go ahead
Her breath crystallizing as her feet dart from rock to rock trying to avoid the snow drifts that are blowing through the trees.
The noise of movement causes her to pull short.
Ears straining, she flattens herself against a tree, bow tense.
A second or two passes.
The sound of men searching the forest comes from some way off, back towards Ajax.
A rabbit stirs again, this time darting fully back into its burrow.
Har starts breathing again.
Eyes flashing, she sees the water around her calming, as the sharks dash off into the distance.
A few deep breaths, and then she's moving again, heading to the concealed stream she hopes leads into the fortress.
(Not sure whose turn it is)
Aub moves to D15 using Measured Strike on the bandit and Focused Defense directly north.
Geth roll 1d10 for WarHorse Violence
Geth roll 1d10 for Swords, Swords, Swords
@Xagar, @AustinP0027, @discrider Sorry for the dropoff.
Outside, Har moves towards the cave mouth.
The bandit reacts to Aub's Measured Strike with Deflect, reducing the damage to 2.
Nasim moves to E16 and uses Execute, dealing 6 damage to the bandit. Nasim's shadow moves to B12.
The bandit uses a health potion, healing himself for 8, and moves to E14.
Geth, roll 1d2 for what to do...
Geth, roll 1d10 for ???
@AustinP0027 Victor's turn.
Start of Round 2
@joshgotro for Aub and Colonel
Geth roll 1d10 for Going for the Head.
As the echoes of the man's cries fade, the party can hear the sound of something else splashing through the water - something large, and up to the right. As you move closer to the sounds, the chill winter air grows noticeably warmer.
Geth, roll 1d10 for ???
Start of Round 3
@AustinP0027 You have a Reposition if you want to use it, I'd say. Otherwise go ahead and take your turn.
Move ->D15 -> C15
Geth roll 1d10 for WTF it better not be a dragon.
@Xagar
You think of Coalfang, unconsciously turning your head, and do some quick mental math. This is indeed a full-size drake, but there's something unnatural about its shape. You remain still as it lumbers closer to the gate, and you can see that, instead of the brilliant red scales you expect, it is almost entirely covered with curved white plates of bone. The only breaks in the plating are around its faintly glowing eyes and its man-sized jaw. Your mind flashes back to the wolf rider you slew earlier, a strange hybrid of alien beast and man.
---
Nasim remains still, with only her shadow scouting ahead.
Har finally enters the cave mouth, seeing not a sign of anyone following her.
Geth, roll 1d10 for Nasim perception
Geth, roll 1d10 for drake perception
Round 4 Start
@AustinP0027 Victor's turn!
@joshgotro
Doing this because I'm considering adding some social stats. I'm not really sure I like background checks, they feel a little TOO random sometimes. I'd like to have people be especially good in a mechanical sense for certain kinds of social situations.
The question then becomes what checks merit the standard stat + d10 check in the first place?
Because you could just reduce the die size to a d8 and reduce the target for success to 6, making any character with any bonus better at those checks, whilst also reducing variance.
But then, speed adds squares to movement, so do we seperate a smaller speed skill modifier from the number of squares that are moved?
Are reflex/attack rolls interesting enough that we wish to maintain a d10 for those?
Initiative... probably doesn't need to stay on a d10 if it's only determining combat order and social.
And Spirit seems to be entirely social also, so no problems there.
But yeah, DnD 5e has +5 for things a character has trained for on a d20.
Here we have advantage (+ stat), and advantage on a d10 is (45 + 36 + 28 + 21 + 15 + 10 + 6 + 3 + 1) = (60 + 20 + 49 + 36) = 165/100 = +1.65 EV = +16% + stat.
So you're roughly equivalent for social skills if characters always have a stat bonus of at least +1 in a thing they're good at, and are allowed to apply it to the social roll +background advantage
And then as quietly as possible moves towards the stairs.
@Xagar
The stat checks are for physical, combat/trap-related stuff only. Let me try to list them out:
Health: Resist mundane effects like extreme weather or natural poisons, perform feats of strength like grappling or grasping onto a cliff to avoid an otherwise fatal fall.
Spirit: Anything magic or willpower-related. Magic detection and analysis is Spirit, and many rituals that can be dispelled or resisted use opposed Spirit checks.
Reflex: Dodging traps and such.
Speed: How fast you can travel, usually only relevant when there is limited time such as a chase scene.
Initiative: Perception.
I'm pretty sure that background checks work fine just with giving advantage, but it feels a little too wishy-washy. Maybe it's just my IRL group, but they don't seem to leverage that system too much and something with a little more crunch might work better. Could be my own inexperience. Anyway, I was going to add a set of social stats, something like:
Imagination, Empathy, Presence/Charisma, Guile, Education.
[/spoiller]
It's much like 13th Age's one unique thing, where what you say your character can do, they can do.
That said, you have the possibility of someone choosing say an apiarist background and getting the advantage with birds and no easy social skills, or the reverse where a player picks an over-broad background and tries to get advantage on everything.
These should be resolvable with DM - player negotiations though.
But either way, to make a character feel good at something, their skills do need to matter on the roll.
So if your players are having a hard time getting stat and background lined up so that they have a significant expected chance of succeeding increase, then maybe refactoring the math so there's only one main variable is the way to go.
Advantage appears to give an approximate EV of 16% * the d by the looks of it.
So probably worth eyeballing where 50% chance of failing is (6+ success for no bonus, 7/8+ success with which is 6 on the die + 1.6) and figure out if that's enough of a seperation to feel like a skilled person, or in other words whether that's enough of a seperation that a skilled person only succeeds most of the time where a normal character would succeed half the time.
I'm sort of rambling here though.
Math!
Perhaps backgrounds feel like they're what your character is and not how they do it, or rather how they approach social/other situations?
Maybe you could just give a third emotional background as well, like brash, cautious, shy, cowardly, etc, to help people think about approaches and how a character tends to react?
Disadvantages for acting against these too.. maybe. Back seat driving other people's characters because the barbarian doesn't suggests the players plans might not be great though.
EDIT: My original thought process on character creation had people picking virtues and vices. I think something like that combined with an actual backstory and social approach should be good.
A lot of this is because one of my IRL players is only able to show up about half the time, and he's super quiet and doesn't seem to be able to handle the roleplay at the same time he's thinking about the mechanical elements. The one time we did get him to really come out of his shell, he made an EXCELLENT speech, so I know he can do it, but the character itself is a bit of an enigma. It's more to make my job easier. My other players' social approaches are pretty clear (the arrogant former scholar wizard, the humorous and casual yet violent failed pirate captain, the paranoid yet kind escaped test subject). His character is a runaway vigilante, basically the Punisher but he skipped town and became an adventurer instead of continuing his vigilante campaign.
Secondly, I'd love for background stuff to get deeper, even if just to play with the specifics of the character more. I have a general backstory and behavior, but if there was some sort of game function that emphasized that (via needing to define it a little clearer), it feels like it'd be easier for me to build the character deeper with some sort of purpose when it comes to personality.
@xagar
However, the chains on the gate look at least half-melted.
@discrider Har's turn!
Geth, roll 1d10 for attack roll
(Actually didn't need to roll because Aub's Reflex is over 10 and she's using Focused Defense and it's out of range anyway.)
(Should also mention that Fire Breath attacks a 4x4 square starting on a tile adjacent to the drake.)
(You think standing in or near water when it uses Fire Breath would be a super bad idea.)
@AustinP0027 is next
(@'s don't work if you add them with an edit)
Didn't know that about @s either, thanks discrider.