Anyone ever tried static damage in Dungeon World? For example, instead of a d10 base damage, the fighter would do 5 base damage. How much would change?
The thought occurred to me during our game last night. The Dwarven Fighter charged a goblin and rolled a “1” on his damage. Boo! I just thought it was kinda lame that a trained dwarven warrior can’t take down a goblin in one hit. I realize that there are numerous ways of narratively explaining the 1 HP damage. I was just thinking about implementing base static damage. It takes out the randomness of damage, but, to me, it makes the “hack and slash” roll a bit more important.
As an option, when rolling boxcars (natural 12) the character could do max damage, or maybe 75% damage?
Any thoughts?
Rolling boxcars leading to max damage is very reminiscent of critical hits in D&D. I like it.
Well, if you think narrative-wise the dwarf should be able to do that. It should just happen. So as long as he succeeded and it made sense, he should just drop the goblin without a damage roll.
Oh and I too really like the idea of maxing damage on boxcars (Or at least just the base damage die).
Maybe try giving the player the option of either roll dice or take the average damage. Make him/her decide before rolling dice. D4 or 2, D6 or 3, d8 or 4, d10 or 5
Not a fan of a standard damage. Sometimes you just flub it even the best fighters sometimes ‘whiff’ when they swing. Nobody except beer league softball bats .800 all the time.
Yeah, but the problem is that the narrative success level of the Hack and Slash roll should have already determined your ‘batting average.’ The damage roll has a chance of undermining your awesome moment by turning your 10+ into nil damage, and I feel that that is laaame.
Yeah me and my players have felt the disconnect between success on hack and slash and then dealing 1 damage. But i don’t know if the average roll is the right fix for that.
Actually maybe there should be more combat moves then hack and slash. I know there is volley and defend, but i think there should be moves about intention as well. You don’t care about killing the monster you just care about driving them back, or making them intimidated or trying to let your cleric buddy escape the horde to safety. That way your success actually gives you a tangeble thing.
When you know the dragon will always deal 6 damage you know how many more hits you can take before you are done. Makes the whole thing more predictable and arguably less fun.
james day Defy Danger can totally be used as an active move rather than a reactive one. When the intention is about something other than damage, I’ve had GMs work it as a DD roll, and I’ve done the same when running.
Tim Franzke I once felt the same, but static monster damage works quite well in 13th Age; the uncertainty there comes from knock-on effects like critical hits, special abilities that trigger above a threshold on the attack roll and so on.
Translating to DW, there’s still plenty of uncertainty to be had with your own rolls (does the dragon hit me when I move in, does it also get some other nastiness because the GM gets a hard move, etc). And having a better idea of the pacing of the combat isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Maybe you did 1 point of damage, but the goblin was knocked to the ground, or lost his weapon. I would play it that way to not deny a successful roll.
If you look at it like your evenly matched (against another fighter) or outmatched (some giant armored beast) then maybe you should be happy to get that 1pt of damage. the 5+ hits should be the exception. of course your 5 could turn to 1 or 0 damage depending on the targets armor. if the target is something you should kill in one hit, like a goblin or rat, then you probably shouldn’t have to roll damage.
Maybe if the creature’s hp is below your “halfway point” on your damage dice…. You just kill the creature. That way you are only rolling damage dice when it would be meaningful.