Pyramid #3/89: Alternate Dungeons II

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by PK

I know that for the purposes of DF only, Kromm has ruled that the only benefit of Striker (Limb, -20%) is the +1/die damage; it isn't treated as an armed attack in DF.

Weird. I'd think that DF would do the reverse and cause any sort of natural weapon (including claws) to count as an armed attack; monsters need a way to attack without being shredded by parries...

[Pseudonym]

Hey, outta curiosity is there a list of notes on what was corrected on the new release of this issue?

[PK]

Originally Posted by Pseudonym

Hey, outta curiosity is there a list of notes on what was corrected on the new release of this issue?

Two power ups from Eastern Adventures were updated: Aggressive Defense and Knifehand.

[Pseudonym]

Originally Posted by PK

Two power ups from Eastern Adventures were updated: Aggressive Defense and Knifehand.

Thanks, friend.

[Ternas]

Hate to pop in again, but I got into another conversation about this issue with one of the players I know.

Is there a real difference between Dragonbone from DF8 and the Spirit Wood weapon modifier from this issue? I mean other than the latter being +5CF more expensive and allowing for bows to be made unbreakable from taking Spirit Wood?

I can absolutely understand it fitting in with the whole Eastern Adventure theme, with a good portion of the Eastern culture myths I know revering dragons, it's probably more unlikely they'll be killing them for bones than such western adventures which consider dragons to be little more than overgrown reptiles that double as a firestarter. But hey, at least with this material, Bow Fencers won't have to worry about breaking them on a parry.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Ternas

Hate to pop in again, but I got into another conversation about this issue with one of the players I know.

Is there a real difference between Dragonbone from DF8 and the Spirit Wood weapon modifier from this issue? I mean other than the latter being +5CF more expensive and allowing for bows to be made unbreakable from taking Spirit Wood?

I can absolutely understand it fitting in with the whole Eastern Adventure theme, with a good portion of the Eastern culture myths I know revering dragons, it's probably more unlikely they'll be killing them for bones than such western adventures which consider dragons to be little more than overgrown reptiles that double as a firestarter. But hey, at least with this material, Bow Fencers won't have to worry about breaking them on a parry.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. in most eastern mythology you don't fight a dragon you worship or run from it. And if you kill it (good luck!) you've probably irked off the gods.

More mechanically - it's never set right with me that you couldn't use Dragonbone for bows. I know WHY it was done (it'd be hard to shape the stuff) - but it always felt weird to me. I've always been of the mind that as long as it's not unbalanced just make it cost more. So a spirit wood bow does pretty much what you say: it won't break easily when used by someone with a Bow Fencer power-up. That's essentially it. (Under the hood it's just Essential Wood with a cost factor.)

I suppose if you wanted you could say that spirit wood bows cost +16 CF more and give the effects of elven because of their tensile strength. The GM would need to decide if this could stack with elven and/or the Strongbow perk - I personally would probably allow it since the cost would be prohibitive as hell.

[Ternas]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I suppose if you wanted you could say that spirit wood bows cost +16 CF more and give the effects of elven because of their tensile strength. The GM would need to decide if this could stack with elven and/or the Strongbow perk - I personally would probably allow it since the cost would be prohibitive as hell.

Thanks for the quick reply, and that's actually a rather interesting way of handling it.

I'd be more tempted in a campaign I run to just say that bows made from Spirit Wood get the effects of the Balanced weapon modifier that then can stack further with an explicitly purchased Balanced for a total of +2 acc just from the weapon itself. Lends itself better to being enchanted by spirits for Quick-Aim and justify the additional +5cf with the remaining 1cf difference of Dragonbone + Balanced versus Spirit Wood merely being an effect of "Cool Weapon" that needs to be paid for.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Ternas

Thanks for the quick reply, and that's actually a rather interesting way of handling it.

I'd be more tempted in a campaign I run to just say that bows made from Spirit Wood get the effects of the Balanced weapon modifier that then can stack further with an explicitly purchased Balanced for a total of +2 acc just from the weapon itself. Lends itself better to being enchanted by spirits for Quick-Aim and justify the additional +5cf with the remaining 1cf difference of Dragonbone + Balanced versus Spirit Wood merely being an effect of "Cool Weapon" that needs to be paid for.

In that case I'd call it an additional +9 CF, not +5 CF. But that works as well.

[simply Nathan]

Also some people might have specific Vows against using plants in general, animals in general, or pieces of sapient lifeforms as equipment. This is a flavor-driven mechanics difference. :3

[RogerBW]

Review from my blog:

Havens and Hells (Sean Punch) is a development of a post on the SJ Games forums from some years ago, a world in which video-game-style respawning is a way of life. There are towns ("havens") which are magically protected from the monsters of chaos outside, and when someone dies he's automatically brought back to life (for player characters, at the nearest haven). The good-vs-evil approach and limitation to tiny settlements means that this is strictly a game of humans against monsters, with no factionalisation possible. PCs are Collectors, who go out to gather resources to keep the havens working. There's no money or social status, and many of the other elements of the traditional fantasy campaign are stripped away in order to keep the focus on the lone heroes. I can't see myself running this any time soon, though it's a good example of building a different fantasy setting.

Eastern Adventures (Christopher R. Rice) is the Oriental Adventures of Dungeon Fantasy. It's not quite wholeheartedly Dungeon Fantasy, though, as it does suggest the possibility of buying non-DF traits such as Games, Artist, Social Regard and so on. There are tweaks to all the standard templates, a Samurai lens to add to the Knight or Swashbuckler templates, and various notes on tweaking DF for a Chinese/Japanese background. The main thing missing is monsters and adventures, in other words ways of making your game feel Eastern as opposed to just dropping samurai into a generic fantasyland the way ninja have already been dropped. This article does rather point up the limitations of DF (one of the things about a samurai is that he is an important person in his society, and stock DF can't do that), and I was never much of a fan of OA in the first place; I don't think I'm likely to use this. Designer's notes here.

Eidetic Memory: The Titan's House (David L. Pulver) is, well, a dungeon, but one built to roughly 5× scale – complete with giant chickens and bees. For people looking for a dungeon, well, this is a dungeon.

Random Thought Table: The Secret of the Explorers (Steven Marsh) twists the basis of dungeon-bashing: there's a general agreement between humanity and monsters to leave each other alone, and player characters threaten that by kick down doors, killing monsters and taking loot. Adventuring becomes a covert activity, because fellow humans will try to stop them, and if they succeed the monsters will come back and kill other humans.

Short Bursts: Five Best Places to Nearly Get Killed Before You Die! (Matt Riggsby) is more tie-in material for Car Wars (it gives short descriptions of five arenas). Author's notes here.

This is all competently done, and I like the experimental format of fewer and more substantial articles, but the dungeon bash isn't my preferred style of play. If I do ever run The Turbulent Century I may use some of the Random Thought Table, but that's not on my schedule for the immediate future.