be67 Teaser: Full example of Combat in a Sixties Grindhouse Universe

So before we go into analysing motivations to play a bit more, I got to finish another important part of the rules for be67: there is a complete example of how combat works in the game and as of today, it is written. Since (I assume) lots of people reading this blog are familiar with the D&D RC or some clone of it, I thought it'd be a nice idea to share the example with you for reference and with some context, where needed. I think it is a good representation of how this will resolve at the table and can give you an idea why and how it produces a different playing experience than what you'd expect from a D&D game while using the same rules and principles. If nothing else, you might enjoy it for the story it tells ...

First things first, here is the character sheet of the game:

Open in new tab for more details ...

As you can see, all of it is D&D. Where it diverges, it does so to enhance it's themes. xp are mostly awarded for damage instead of for treasure, that's the main one. But the Token economy the game presents is important in that it allows to factor in two major features a "modern" game needs to address, which are, of course, guns and vehicles. Therefore, AC is opened up to be more flexible, if you spend the Tokens and they aren't countered and using machinery will give a character Vehicle Tokens to do even more in a round of combat (more damage, more movement, more protection, all depending on what you are using).

Long-time readers might be familiar with some of the ideas here from taht other game I'm writing, Lost Sogs of the Nibelungs (which is still happening, I assure you). If you'd like to see some more details, check out this post about be67. It explains the basics (some of it revised now, but it still will give you a more than complete picture). Echo and other little details explained here.

With the above and the example I'm about to share, you should get a pretty complete picture, so here we go (unedited, as of yet):

Example: Violet Flemming (The Spy), Sam O’Leary (The Saboteur) and Joel Maddox (The Outlaw) are attempting the assassination of a streetgang boss that dabbled in Voodoo enough to pose a problem for some Californian fey because Joel owed them big time (long story).

They decide for a low effort drive-by shooting. Joel is the driver, Violet is the one with the rifle riding shotgun and Sam is in a hide-out across the street observing that dive the gang uses as their headquarters.

The GM calls for Initiative when Sam informs the others via phone box that the gang is preparing their choppers to leave and Joel puts the pedal to the metal to get around the corner into the street the bar is in. They need to move fast now.

This fight has 5 Combat Units: Violet, Joel and Sam, 5 gang members (one Unit) and the Voodoo Gang Boss. Initiative is rolled and declared. Joel ends up with the lowest Initiative (3), Violet (7) is faster than the gang (6), but not as fast as the boss (9) or Sam, who is the fastest (12). Since Sam is in hiding and the car is not yet in the street passing the bar, this is handled as a Surprise Round.

Violet had already stated that she’d hide the gun until the last moment. The GM says it’s a tough one to call, since all the gang can be aware of is a car speeding around the corner and in their general direction, so the Saves will have a penalty of 3. Neither the gang nor the boss make their Save versus Supernatural regarding Joel’s intentions. However, the boss had also been faster than Violet, so he is allowed a second Save to see if more danger is afoot. A 19! Their eyes meet as the car shoots around the corner and he sees the death in hers ...

Next, the Actions are declared in order from slowest to fastest:

(Joel, Initiative 3, 2 Tokens, 3 Vehicle Tokens) Joel’s Free Action is driving the car fast and safe past the bar while bringing Violet into a good position to shot. He gives Violet 1T Aid and 1T Damage, uses 2VT for Movement and 1 VT for Armor Class, cowering behind the wheel for cover.

(The Gang, Initiative 6, surprised) They keep getting ready to hit the road, completely unaware.

(Violet, Initiative 7, 3 Tokens, 1 Vehicle Token) Violet’s Free Action is her Attack (since her cover is blown), she is using 2T for Armor Class, 1T Aid for Joel’s driving and uses the 1VT she got as additional Damage Die (it’s a drive-by shooting, after all … the GM allows it).

(Jamal The Boss, Initiative 9, 3 Tokens) Jamal’s Free Action is Casting a Spell on Violet to confuse her. He spends 2T for AC ducking for cover (just in case) and 1T Movement to draw his gun while shouting at the Gang that shit is going down.

(Sam, Initiative 12, 4 Tokens) Sam skips his Free Action. He wants to be on top of the situation next round if this goes sideways. He gives Violet 1T Aid for her Save versus Supernatural (the Spell Jamal is preparing) and 1T Damage, just to be on the safe side. The remaining 2T go into Countering Jamal’s ducking for cover completely. He describes his support and counter as “Shouting at Jamal from across the street and giving him the finger”.

Example (cont. from p. XX): Initiative is resolved from fastest to slowest. Sam skips his Free Action and uses his Tokens to hinder Jamal from taking cover and supporting Violet’s Save versus Supernatural (by shouting and giving Jamal the finger). Since he is the fastest, no one can counter his Combat Actions and it works out as described.

Next up is Jamal. The Spell can’t be countered with Combat Actions, since it’s a Free Action, so this happens unchallenged a well. Violet feels like she’s getting lost in Jamal’s eyes and starts hearing drums and ecstatic singing in foreign voices in the distance. To avoid the effects of the spell, she’s entitled a Save versus Supernatural and has Sam’s support, so she rolls 1d20+1d4 … an 18 and a 3! So she shakes it off and lifts her rifle to take her shot while Jamal is checking out who strange guy across the street is and why he’s so mean to him. Doing that, he totally forgets to jump for cover (no additional AC), but he manages to warn the gang and gets his shotgun ready for next round.

Violet is next, but since Joel’s driving roll is necessary to get her into position (and might fail at that), Joel has to resolve his Free Action first (driving the car as fast as possible past the bar).

Joel has a DEX of 13 and a bit of a past as a Demolition Derby driver that brings a +4 to the Skill Test and there's another 1d4 Aid from Violet as well, so the roll is 1d20+13+4+1d4 versus a difficulty the GM declares to be 30 … and ends up rolling a 3 with the d20 and a 4 with the d4, which leaves him 6 points short (3+13+4+4=24). Not good, but no one is offering to sacrifice Funk for this, so the group accepts this as being a failure.

The GM declares that Joel miscalculates the turn, overwinds the steering wheel, botches his gear shifting and ends up rolling down the street towards the bar with a stalled motor. Violet’s shot will get a -2 as well, as this, if nothing else, annoys her as hell.

Still, this might work out after all, them still having surprise, so next is Violet with her pistol versus Jamal’s AC of 9. She gets to roll 1d20 with a +3 for her high DEX, a +1d4 due to Joel supporting her (he at least steers her enough into position to get a proper shot) and the -3 for Joel being an idiot driver. Her d4 turns out to be a 1, but the d20 is critical, a 20! And she is on a roll, as the d12 for Echo is a 12, which leads to the second Echo Roll (a d10) and ends the streak with a solid 8. That is another 20 to her result of 21 (20+1+3-3), all in all a brutal 41.

There was much rejoicing at the table.

After a critical result like that, a lot is happening, so the GM starts with the 20 and its Echo results: the 12 is the death sentence and also comes with an extra attack. Jamal is gone for good. Since he had his declared Actions already, the Voodoo Priest doesn’t even get a chance for his Dead Man’s Ten. The 8 has Violet in the highest possible, so she receives Double XP for learning something there, earns a permanent +4 circumstantial bonus against streetgangs. She also gets to describe this fatal blow and all gang members in sight have to make a Morale Check with a penalty of 4 to not flee in terror. It even leaves her with a Nickname (the group is undecided between “Voodon’t” and “Voodoo Chill”) and she gets to have an additional 1d6 with her next Initiative, with enough time to have a victory dance as well. The GM makes a note that the fey will give her a special little something for the beautiful work she has done here. A death so beautiful, generations to come will tell its tale …

Anyway, next for the Damage proper, as there are xp to be had for it. Her Small Ranged Weapon Mastery is at d6, Sam had spent a Token to raise that, so for this hit it is a d8. The height of the result determines the number of d8, so that’d be 6d8 with her result of 41. But she’d used 1VT for an additional Damage Die, so she rolls 7d8 for 35 points of damage. Jamal was a 5HD+2 Voodoo Priest with 21 Hit Points, which means 14 Points are left as Environmental Damage.

The player’s description: “So while Joel is driving like an idiot, working hard on making this mission a failure, a great calm comes over Violet as she lifts her pistol and focuses on that priest. That spell does nothing to her. If anything, it helps her focusing. Time slows down and she sees the paths of the bullets before they leave the barrel. Almost leisurely, she empties the gun into the guy. The giant bar window in the background explodes around his convulsing body and I’d say she even hits some neon sign behind the window, adding sparks to the whole scene (the GM allows it). But the kicker is that the Voodoo gangster is standing right next to one of those bikes and the tank is hit as well, which makes the bike go ‘BOOM’ and engulfs him in burning oil. So now he’s also burning and stumbling towards his gang before he falls down twitching. He’s not screaming anymore, as his lungs are burnt, but the black smoke rising above the burning body looks like the faces of some damned souls or something because he’s a Voodoo Priest, you know, and there is a wheezing sound no one can explain … That should do it.”

And indeed, none of them make their Morale Check, they all flee in terror.

The player also announces that she’d use her second attack to blow up one of the other bikes as well, at best one in the middle so that an explosion could have them go boom as well. Since this actually resolve the whole Combat, the GM decides that no more rolls are necessary for that to happen. Joel panicky restarts the car with Violet screaming into his ear to get moving while emptying another magazine into the row of motorcycles while Joel is making a more subtle exit. They accelerate past the bar while the bikes start showing some flames from the hail of bullets and as they make for the corner away from the bar, all of the bikes explode in a ball of light and smoke while Violet is having her victory dance in the car.

It earns Violet the INSTANT KILL and the CINEMATICS AWARD (see Character Progression, p. XX). Fun was had.

Fun was had, indeed ... [source]

So now you know why I call it a "Retroclone Mutant" ... it is the D&D RC but with a twist (my revised house rules, basically). Players will get awards for spectacularly bloody murder and grindhouse-worthy theatrics in what plays like an adult sixties urban fantasy setting. It'll also feature 7+ new classes with some tools to do your own and rules to integrate existing classes into the game as well as rules to alter existing modules and gaming materials into be67.

If that tickles your funny bone, this will be a treat for you. For sure. It's a bit more complex than your average "old school" D&D, but not more so than, say, proper AD&D would be if played RAW. I like it that way. I know I'm not alone.

Anyway, that's it for today. I hope this will generate some interest for the game. As always, I'll be happy to get some feedback on this, so what do you guys think?

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While we are at it: You can check out a free preview of Ø2\\'3||, that other rpg I wrote, right here (or go and check out the first reviews here). I'm still doing a sale on the game proper ...

If you already checked it out, please know that I appreciate you :) It'll certainly help to keep the lights on here! I'd love to hear about that, too.

Just look at that beauty ...

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Plotting a Meta-System for some Core-Rules (LSotN design post)

I wanted to be somewhere else right now. Like talking about how combat will work in Lost Songs of the Nibelungs, for instance. Alas, I looked at my reference sheet after I had been occupied by other things for a few days and was like: "WTF ... ?!". Not that there is much wrong with it, but (I guess) it just didn't help me getting right back into it. Or I just, as the proverb goes, didn't see the forest because of all the trees overtime can do that to a brain ...).

Anyhow I needed something a good friend of mine described as "a meta-system for the core rules". Here you'll see me (finally!) getting somewhere solid with this. As in: the core mechanisms seem to work!

This post sums up my efforts so far. I'm serious, LSotN is happening ...

And it really is like building a car

The more I weasel my way into this, the more I believe that analogy fits describing the process: I feel like someone building his own car from scratch. It's not even about getting it done, it's also about getting there.

Funny story right there about my grandfather, who really went and build a boat from scratch. Took him months. I saw pictures of it and it was a thing of beauty. In my eyes, anyway. He was proud of it, too. So much, in fact, that he even invited friends and the press to the launch in the harbor. Everyone had been very excited, I've been told. They even had a little ceremony.

Well, that boat sunk right then and there.

True story. Sure, it must have been an embarrassing situation (and entertaining, really) but my grandfather took it with the right attitude and humor. Didn't stop him getting back on doing the next project, too. Because, as I stated above, getting there is as important as the thing itself. Maybe even more so.

Anyway, that's what I'm doing here and I must say, I'm having a good time fiddling with the rules, finding out what is where and why.

Where to start with writing a complete system?

This is, of course, a really subjective matter and depends hugely on what floats your boat [ha!] as it mostly is about what one wants to achieve. For me it's as much about understanding D&D as it is about finding out if I'm able to transfer this understanding into my very own D&D Frankenclone. One proves the other, so to say.

It's not so much about taking what's already there and re-labeling it, but about making informed decisions to get to a concise variant of the game. A game (but that should go without saying) I'd really like to play myself.

Over the course of the last few weeks I kept looking for a perfect point of entry and collected ideas. Some of it I wrote, some of it is still on scattered notes all over my place. To bundle all of this (or as much as possible) in a way that allows me to build upon, I need to outline what I got on a meta-level to make sure I didn't miss something crucial. Here is another attempt (and the one I will expand on in the future):

Start with "Quality". Circles define the function,
squares elaborate on that.

How it works

There are, just like the attributes in D&D, 6 qualities (Muscle, Finesse, Grit, Wits, Nerve and Wyrd). Those qualities are divided in two categories (terms might change): Physical (Muscle, Finesse, Grit) and Mystical (Wits, Nerve, Wyrd). For each of them 3d6 are rolled to define them (again, just like D&D).

The results of these rolls have several functions true for all qualities:

(1) The sum of the 3d6 constitutes the main value of a quality (check value). Instead of being a fixed number, it is considered a pool or potential of a quality and might either be actively drained by the player or suffer from damage from external sources (could be anything from straining a muscle to the character being victim of some intrigues).

(2) To see how a quality reacts to damage, the 3d6 need to be separated even further. So the three results (A, B, C) are grouped as A (Lowest Die) and B + C. B + C constitute the drain a quality can get without any other effect than resulting in a low check value. Below that it's either a save to avoid permanent scars (A) or permanent damage to the main value (below zero).

(3) To compensate the changing nature of the qualities, a second interpretation of A, B and C helps formulating some fixed values that correspond with the original value but also allow for constants that are needed for several sub-systems called "defences" (yeah, British English here, might change that ...). (B + C) provide those constants. This has two benefits. For one, the target numbers are lower and in fact work in a way that allows the use of a d20 for task resolution. the second benefit is that the average result of "roll 3d6, drop lowest" is 8 or 9 (8,5) instead of the 7 for just rolling 2d6, which, again, is far more suitable for the use of a d20 in the game.

Example:

A roll for Muscle comes up with 3, 4 and 6. The main value (pool relates to a character's endurance) is 13 (3/10). The "defence" value (10) is a character's ability to use excessive force without harming oneself (like bashing doors in D&D and I'm aware that "defence" is not quite the right word for that, for now it's for the lack of a better term ...).

All the qualities and their defences:

• Muscle (pool: Endurance - defence: save vs. harm when using excessive force)
• Finesse (pool: Speed - defence: base armor class)
• Grit (pool: hp-buffer - defence: save vs. paralyzing pain)

• Wits (pool: Sanity/mana-buffer - defence: save vs. magic)
• Nerve (pool: Patience/Concentration - defence: save vs. provocation)
• Wyrd (pool: Fate - defence: base reputation)

Permanent damage on qualities as result of the narrative

Every permanent damage a quality receives is always somehow connected to the narrative. If, for instance, a characters Wits is damaged below zero, it not only reduces the main value, but also produces a drawback directly connected to the event that caused it. The defence for Wits being Sanity, it most likely will be, depending on the severity of the damage, a quirk or mental illness related to similar situations happening in the future (nervous ticks, etc.). Damage on Wyrd could result in ill repute, to give another example.

This way a character will, with time, collect an assortment of scars and disadvantages that tell a story and give a character more depth. System and narrative have a strong connection.

Check difficulty with Endurance, Skills and Echo

To do the changing character of quality values some justice, the difficulties of tasks will be oriented on a range of a  3d6 average (10) plus d20 for easy tasks (higher difficulties for more difficult tasks, etc.). Skills will be fixed bonuses on specific tasks and are added to the result, allowing a higher possibility of success. The active use of Endurance will allow a player to bridge the result of an unsuccessful check to the difficulty.

This way it's for the player to decide if his character is "not making it" or if he's willing to deplete a resource (Endurance) to make something happen. Bad luck with the dice does not necessarily mean failure, but is a threat to the resources a character has.

Furthermore there is the use of an "echo" rule, allowing for an additional roll with the next lower die if the initial die shows his maximum result (hierarchy: d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, d4). The beauty of it is that it allows a slighter higher base difficulty, while leaving room for exceptional successes every now and then.

Character advancement and qualities

The last two aspects connected with the qualities are related to character advancement. One is the player's decision for core qualities, the other are Fractional Quality Points. With the core qualities LSotN becomes a hybrid between class-based games and classless games. Since all class-related abilities in D&D are connected to abilities one way or another, it's easy enough to associate them with qualities to begin with (those will be called "traits") and let the player decide which development his character should make level by level with the points he gets to buy those traits.

So with every new level a player gets 1 core point to distribute among his qualities (those core points are basically the bonuses a character gets in D&D for high ability scores, they also work pretty much the same way) and trait points equal to the new level to buy traits in the qualities he focused on (Grit might give more hit points, Wits might buy a character the ability to cast magic, stuff like that). For humans there will be one leading core quality (primary core), other core qualities he chose and those he decided not to choose ...

Specifics will follow (and are partially already established in older posts ...). For now it's just important to point out that a steady development of qualities is not connected to how high a main value is, but with how the player chose his focus. Sure, a higher pool is a benefit, but it's not that a character with a set of low qualities is doomed to be stupid or weak or whatever. It's just a low pool, how this pool is to be managed is for the player to decide.

Fractional Quality Points are just a little system that allows a steady (if partial) growth of all qualities. Primary core qualities will grow the fastest, core qualities after that and normal qualities will be pretty slow, all things considered. But echo applies here, so a few lucky rolls can go a long way in this.

There is more, but not today

What I described above is the core system of Lost Songs of the Nibelungs as I have it right now. All following sub-systems will be somehow connected to how the qualities work. There are lots of fiddly bits and especially combat will be quite the challenge, but I'm up to it. I won't promise when to do what (a mistake I make far to often ...), but instead say all this will happen in the next few weeks. I hope this managed to give a good impression what happened this month in developing LSotN.

Ideas and questions are very welcome, of course. Feel free to share your thoughts!

Wits in Lost Songs of the Nibelungs

I think a detailed example how Qualities will be structured and what they can do would be helpful to understand Lost Songs of the Nibelungs a bit better. And it's what I thought about on my way to work, so this is what I got ... Anyway, after presenting the outlines of the core system I have in mind in my last post, this will give an impression how those ideas could manifest in the rules.

Nothing is set in stone yet, of course (as the point buy aspect needs to be calibrated and I need to see how strong all those ideas impact each other). But some of the stuff is oriented on house rules I've been using for quite some time now, so it's not really arbitrary or random.

Short summary of the rules, a detailed example and magic ...

I'll take Wits as the first example, because it will also give an impression what magic will look like in LSotN and it's my gold standard for the rest of the game (need first to know how those elements of the game shape up that have nothing at all to do with combat). Here goes (summary of the rules first):

Characters are defined by a set of six Qualities: MUSCLE, WIT, NERVE, FINESSE, GRIT and WYRD, each with a random value of 3d6. As the characters advance in level, the players decide where the characters strengths will be by assigning the Core-Points they get with each new level (1 Core-Point per level, 10 Core-Points all in all). With human characters one Quality needs to be the Primary Core Quality. It's the one Quality that needs always to be higher than the other Core Qualities (from now on referred to as Secondary Core Qualities). A Quality can't have more than 5 Core-Points (Core Value).

Choosing a Quality as Primary or Secondary Core Quality will have several benefits. There are, for one, several aspects the Qualities will be used for (a value function, a passive function and an active function) and being a Core Quality will bring benefits with those aspects. In addition to this, choosing a Quality as Core enables a player to choose from several traits associated with a quality (number of points available is the number of the new level a character achieved - you level up to 3, so that's the number of Trait Points you get to spend).

A character can't have more basic Traits than he has Core Value in a Quality, but there will be traits that'll stack with a basic Trait (see Mana Pool in the example below). The stacking is not unlimited, though. it's a system that'll work like Skill Mastery and Combat Mastery (both will be discussed in another post, but it's not unlike the Weapon Mastery the Rules Cyclopedia uses), which (in short) means that mastery has 5 steps (basic, skilled, expert, master, grand master) and a character can't go beyond that.

WITS

Justification: To describe Wits as some variant of Intelligence doesn't do the term justice. Wits is an old word and if you assume that it connects somehow to "wizard", you'd  be right about that. It's all connected and that's how Wits describes best all the functions the quality needs to have in the game: the magical (like in "wizard"), the sanity (like in "not losing your wits") and the knowledge (as in "quick learner").

Unseen Academics do not approve ...(art by the great Paul Kidby)

Value Function: Every Quality or Skill Check were Wits could be used, allows for a roll of Wits + D20 (+Endurance)*  vs. Difficulty

Passive Function: Pool of Sanity a character has.

Active Function: Can be used instead of Mana to cast magic.

As Primary Core Quality:

• Core Value as permanent Skill Buffer for knowledge and social skills (every skill-check needs a difficulty, the Skill Buffer does not reduce that difficulty but allows a partial success if the result of the check is not below Difficulty minus Core Value).
• Core Value as bonus to the healing rate of sanity.

As Core Quality:

• Core Value as skill points to distribute per level.

Traits (examples):

• 1 Point: buy 1d6 Mana, this allows the use of Cantrips (which basically means a character with this trait can spend Mana to get an edge on several checks and saves, even in Combat). The trait may be purchased more than once. With every level up a re-roll of all the bought dice is allowed and the higher result is kept.**
• 1 Point: Cast level 1 spells
• 2 Points: Cast level 2 spells
• 2 Points: Force 1d6 Mana from the surroundings (takes one round, every living thing is entitled to a saving throw for half the damage (or no damage, if they have the Trait mana pool) and will be seriously pissed). Can be bought more than once (Trait Mastery).
• 3 Points: Cast level 3 spells
• 3 Points: Create minor magic items
• 4 Points: Cast level 4 spells
• 5 Points: Cast level 5 spells
• Variable: The Spells themselves cost the original point value of the spell level minus 1 (1 point will either buy 2 level 1 spells or 1 level 2 spell).*** A character can't hold more spells than his Core Value (so the maximum is 5 spells per spell level).

I could go on and I guess there will be quite the list before I see what gives way and what holds.

A few words on Magic

To cast spell costs two times the level of the spell in mana/essence/spiritual energy (for now I'll call it Mana ...). It's as easy as that. Mana usually regenerates over night, but only if Wits was not affected. If Wits has been in any way affected, mana won't regenerate until Wits is completely restored, too. With the right trait, a character could get some mana from his surroundings, but such a deed might have dire consequences.

A word on armor and magic. With the mana approach there is an easy solution to handle the effects on armor on a caster: the Armor Class a character is wearing is added to the spell level before it is multiplied with 2 (so in order to cast a level 2 spell, a warlock wearing armor with a bonus of plus 4 would need 12 mana to cast the spell instead of 4). The maximum Mana a character could muster is 50, and only if he's very lucky****. So wearing armor might not be a wise decision (but possible).

Wanted to keep it short, but fresh ...

That's it so far for today. Rituals and other forms of magic will be part of another post, as will be several other posts

This wants to happen, so who am I to complain?

* One of our house rules in D&D was that a character could spend Endurance points to substitute a gap between his role and a difficulty. So making a successful skill check wasn't the problem anymore (which is good to have) and a character depleted a resource he had (also something I wanted to have in the game). Here is a post with some thoughts I had about it back in the day.
** An idea I first encountered in the fantastic retro-clone Epées & Sorcellerie (if you've never heard of the game, check out this review I wrote in February 2014), although there it was used for generating Hit Points (and I still might formulate a Trait for Grit to allow something similar ...).
*** Incidentally, if a character advances to level 5 and buys only spells with his Core-Points, he could buy 2 level 1 spells, 2 level 2 spells and 1 level 3 spell (costs: 1 + 2 + 2), which mirrors exactly what a level 5 character in the Rules Cyclopedia can memorize ...
**** Another house rule of mine I intent to implement into LSotN is that if the highest natural result of a die is rolled, it will produce an echo. This echo is nothing else but adding another roll with the next lowest die to the result (a rule inspired from HackMaster, here are more old words about it, but I'll write an update soon ...). So with 5 possible dice, a player might wind up echoing all the sixes with some d4s. And if someone would manage 5 sixes with the original set and 5 fours with his echo, he'd have reached the 50 points maximum. It's unlikeley, but possible.

Maybe I should write a post about all those house rules I intent to use. Ah well ...

Critical Countdown (addendum to yesterday's post)

This is like talking to myself, but in an OFFICIAL way. So this is good, right? Right. Well, I talked to myself yesterday (on the balcony, with a cigarette) about how to streamline the whole echo-thingie from yesterdays post a little bit more.

In our game, when you roll a 20 for an attack, you get maximum damage and a reroll. If you hit the 20 again (rolling 1d20 + level this time), you have yourself a critical hit! We use the Arduin critical hit table, which is something between cutting of some toes and cutting of a head for 3d6. It's not very balanced and it's on my to-do-list to make a new one.  Hackmaster has a nice critical hit table, but you have to roll 1d10.000 and there is a severity level for an attack. The higher the severity (it's a separate roll), the higher the gore factor. It's one of those nice but time consuming subsystems in Hackmaster I mentioned before. A light version of this system would suit me just fine.

And then it hit me! When using the echo rules for attacks, it would fit very nicely, I thought. Here it comes:

• Rolling a 20 for an attack = always a hit, maximum damage and echo
• Rolling 1 - 11 on 1d12 = straight damage to Endurance
• Rolling a 12 for echo = a critical hit! and third echo
• Rolling 1d10 = severity of the attack (as I see it, some severe damage, like a cut artery or internal damage)
• Every echo after that adds to the severity (if you are that lucky)

Needs testing next saturday!

For severity:

1. no fatigue left, he keeps fighting exhausted*
2. blinded, fighting blind for 1d10 rounds
3. no moral necessary, this one pissed himself and runs 1d6 rounds for his life (or pleads for mercy)
4. enemy is down in agony for 1d3 rounds (no attacks or anything, just screaming)
5. badly stunned for 1d10 turns, your mighty hit made him fly 1d3 meters
6. artery cut, bleeds out in 2d4 rounds, moral check every round, this one is messy
7. internal bleeding, he doesn't know it, but he's dead in 1d6 rounds (keeps fighting, though)
8. guts ripped out, 1 in 1d10 chance of tangling feet, dead in 1d10 rounds, won't fight, but may cast spells
9. groin attack! hacked, clubbed or pierced, it's no nice feeling, this one is down until put out of his misery
10. severe head trauma, goes down and is dead in 1d3 rounds
11. clean kill, he's dead alright
12. man, you're fast! your enemy is not only dead, you get a bonus attack, too
13. off with his head, bonus attack and every enemy in sight has to check for his morale
14. describe this fatal blow, get a bonus attack and every enemy in sight has to check for his morale
15. as 14, but you learned something, get double xp for this kill!
16. as 15, but there is more: a circumstantial bonus of +4 the next time you encounter an enemy like this
17. as 16, but you keep the circumstantial bonus against enemies such as the one you killed (and may give yourself a nickname referring to it, like "Zombieslayer" or something)
18. as 17 plus victory dance, the 1d6 echo roll after that goes to your fame**

That's it for now, folks. It scratched more topics than I imagined. Let's take it to playtesting and see if it rolls...

*We play with fatigue, but this is a subject for another post. In short: you may fight for halve your Con in rounds, after that it's a cumulative -1 on attacks and armor class every round. After a number of rounds equal to his fatigue, he is to exhausted to fight on.
** We play with that, too. More on that later on.