32 thoughts on “Count Strahd Von Zarovich of Ravenloft (Tracy & Laura Hickman)”

  5. It’s a common concept to pile HP on a monster so that it isn’t squishy to the heroes, but i think it is a design flaw.   Giving too many HP is really just another form of plot armor.Note the apocryphal topic of the 16 HP Dragon.  

    The dragon survives by staying in control, out of range, taking advantage of impenetrable scales, magic, and cunning.  The heroes win by overcoming one or more of those challenges in a cinematic, appropriate way.

    Strahd survives so long not because he can take a big hit, but because he doesn’t get hit often, and when he does, he can escape to lick his wounds and plan a better attack/trap or rally forces against the heroes.  He surrounds the heroes with confusion, presses them from all sides, and turns them against one another.

    My suggestions would be to add an appropriate instinct. Also, a description.  And then develop those moves into brief conceptual statements, rather than a list of effects:

    Instinct: To rule his domain

    Charm – Entrancing Presence

    Drain Life – Vampiric Drain

    Gaseous Form – Evaporate into Mists

    Polymorph (Bat/Wolf) – Turn into a Bat or Wolf

    Animate Dead – Raise undead servants

    Summon Wolves/Bats – Rally bestial troops

    Go through the monster creation process in the book to settle out his HP, Armor, and Damage.  Feel free to adjust it after, but it is a good starting point.

    The reason he doesn’t need 25 HP – he knows you’re there.  that’s his thing.  He doesn’t engage you.  He uses “raise undead servants” and “rally bestial troops” to harry you.  While you’re under attack, he slips into the mix, either as a mist or as one of the bats/wolves.  He pops out in front of an isolated target and attempts to entrance them.  Just as the heroes react, he slips back into the mists or the beasts, and disappears, to plot his next attack.

  7. Here’s a different take on an Ancient Vampire Lord. I wrote it up a while back as an example of how to make a big-bad following the monster creation rules-as-written.

    http://codex.dungeon-world.com/monster/629012

    Like Andrew Fish says, I don’t think you need to pile on the HP. Instead, I use tags, qualities, and moves that make it hard to even trigger Volley or Hack & Slash in the first place, and that give me permission to make really hard moves.

  8. Good to hear all the input 🙂

    The way I will end up using him is I will just ignore the HP all together and just see what happens in the fiction instead of tracking his HP during combat. For example a slash on his arm by a sword wouldn’t even phase him since I would allow for the fiction to heal his wounds. Though, maybe a blessed sword would sever his arm where the blade would have hit him causing him to flee.

  9. Another version:

    Lord Abzu, the Revenant (Jason Lutes and myself)

    ……………………………………………………………………………………………….

    Solitary, Organized, Intelligent,

    Stealthy, Cautious, Magical

    Damage Life drain 1d8+5 ( hand,

    1 piercing)

    HP 10 Armor

    2 Special Qualities Undead; vulnerable only

    to sunlight, fire, moving water (ocean

    counts), a wooden stake through the heart

    Lord Abzu is only active at night. During the day he must rest in his coffin, filled with earth of his native land.

    Instinct: To feed

    Retreat to plot their demise

    Become a bat, a wolf, mist

    Drain them dry

    See: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/164249/3-Fiendish-Funnel-Starters?src=slider_view

  10. Josh Beckelhimer ignoring HP is cheating the players, and fundamentally against the spirit of DW.

    You would instead be playing a game where the GM has all the power to decide when the players are good enough, or have done enough.

    This has serious consequences, and I recommend you rethink it.

  11. Andrew Fish Explain please. Cause honestly I don’t see why that would be a problem? If a player describes their move by saying how they drive their spear into a creature’s heart and they get a 10+ (rolls damage 8) So the spear goes through the creature’s heart but that 8 damage wasn’t good enough because the creature’s HP was 10? Personally, as a player, that kind of situation upsets me. 

  12. Surely.  In Dungeon World, a GM follows the rules, same as the other players.  A GM is just as bound by Moves as the other players.

    So if a player character triggers Hack & Slash, for instance, that character will inflict damage on a hit.  That damage will include HP loss, in addition to whatever fiction happens.

    In your example If they roll a Hack & Slash to drive their spear into a creature’s heart and don’t do enough damage to kill it, then maybe the missed teh heart!  Hack & Slash doesn’t promise you hit the heart (it’s not a ‘called shot’), it promises damage on a success, possibly with traded blows.  Or maybe you DO hit the heart and blood gouts out and it is mortally wounded, but fights on with those last two hit points while it bleeds severely.

    If your plan is to “ignore the HP altogether and just see what happens in the fiction” then you are changing the system such that the GM is not bound by any move that would inflict damage.  These moves include Hack & Slash, Volley, Defend, or spells that deal damage. What’s worse, if you let players think they’re rolling those moves, but you’re not abiding by them, you are not being clear, you are not being “player-facing” with what happens.  If you let them trigger a basic or class move, but then you don’t follow through with the effect of the move, you are arbitrarily re-writing the game and cheating..

    Similarly, letting them deal d8 HP against an undefined pool that waivers as you see fit, for instance, makes their action ultimately meaningless and subject to your discretion.  This is “plot armor” and is a GM-crutch implemented to circumvent from a core rule – “play to find out what happens.”

    The question comes in whether the GM is an authority over the fiction, or whether the GM is also “playing to find out what happens.”  This is a big distinction between DW and many other games.  Took me along time to learn to relax and let my players entertain me, rather than making them dance to the tune i’m playing.  And then i threw a monster “immune to mortal harm” against my players, and they found a way to kill it!  I was playing to find out what happens, and it was a great ride!

    Any gaming group would be well suited to match the system to the players’ agenda.  Other systems embrace that GM-heavy control.  I grew up playing many and running them.  Some players embrace that.  I grew up thinking that was the only way to play!  But now i want something different, and Dungeon World gives me the difference.  It doesn’t embrace GM-as-narrative-authority structure.

    You might accomplish a combat avoiding all tracking of HP fairly by creating custom alternative moves, for instance, by which they can affect the target.  This gets complicated, and my impression is that you are new to DW, and were planning on simply not recording HP damage, instead of writing custom moves.  If i’m wrong, and you do write custom, player-facing moves to let them know they are going for non-HP effects, that might work out well.

  13. This actually would have been my first attempt at ignoring HP with DW. But I had a question come up about direct kills. I would rather use HP. It’s just a player can say, “I want to stab the creature with my spear” or “I want to drive my spear through the creature’s heart” I mean you can shoot someone in the arm or leg and they won’t die but if you shoot someone in the head they’re more than likely going to die instantly. I don’t see where harm is for letting the player get the killing blow since he described his action and was successful.

  15. As long as you have a idea of what can kill the creature and you make that apparent for the players and then follow The fiction based on that logik I think you will be fine not using HP

  16. Josh Beckelhimer I see where you’re coming from, but it raises a lot of questions:

    1) If I declare a lethal blow and get a 7-9 to H&S, is it still a lethal blow (but with the enemy getting a shot in first)?

    2) If I declare a called shot (e.g. “I stab him in the leg”) and roll a 7-9 to H&S, does my shot hit it’s intended spot & have the effect I want?

    If so, why would I (player) ever declare any attack other than a specific, intentional blow?

    (Edit: there are more questions, but these are the first two and most important, IMO.)

  17. Yes and yes.

    Maybe the character shoves the spear into the creature’s heart but can’t pull the spear out easily.

    Or the player stabs the creature in the leg to hinder it but it still smacks the player after the blow. The creature would still be hindered.

  18. So, why would I ever NOT say something like “I stab him in the throat?” or “I cut his head off?” or “I slide my blade between the seams of his armor and right into his heart?” (edit) or “I smash him in the knee to hobble him?”

    Why WOULD I ever say something general like “I leap into the fray swinging!”

  19. When you say you do you mean you as in the player or you as in the character?

    I encourage specifics like you have suggested but they come with serious consequences.

    I sometimes run games for my brother and daughter (9 & 8 years old). They understand when it comes to specifics that the consequences are greater. So there are times they say things like, “I will attack this creature” Especially if they are not familiar with what’s in front of them or if they are extremely outnumbered. I find that little kids can be very creative when they have to be.

  20. I like your example of “I slide my blade between the seams of his armor and right into his heart”

    Think of The Walking Dead (if you watch/read it) at first they struggled and lost people when it came to the walkers. Now it’s like it can be 3 of them and 30 walkers but they can drop them like its nothing. So if the party is fighting a group of soldiers or what not that they have been dealing with for some time now then yes, “I slide my blade between the seams of his armor and right into his heart” is a really good specific. But you better believe that there will be serious consequences if not successful.

  21. Maybe your called shot does something besides HP damage? Someone–I think it was Jeremy–posted a tweak H&S a while ago: 

    When you engage a foe in hand-to-hand combat, make your intention clear and roll +STR. *On a 10+ your maneuver works as well as can be expected; inflict your damage if appropriate. *On a 7-9 it works, but with one of these consequences:

    • It costs you something (footing, gear, advantage, etc.)

    • It’s less effective than it could be (roll damage twice, take the lower result)

    • You caused unwanted harm or danger

    • You expose yourself to your enemy’s attack

    If you were fighting from a position of relative strength or safety, you choose. Otherwise, the GM chooses. 

  23. I resolve it with something equally as generic like, “you deal X amount of damage” then will encourage them that next time be a little more specific even if it is as simple as, “slash across the creature’s belly.”

  29. Josh Beckelhimer I’ll back off if you like. I’m definitely not trying to pick a fight. I certainly haven’t taken anything you’ve said as being hostile in any way.

    I’m asking a lot of questions about how you actually play because 1) I’m honestly interested, 2) have opinions that might be relevant, but 3) don’t want to make assumptions about how you’re actually doing this.  

    So, if you’re game and want to keep discussing this: when someone does make a non-specific attack (“I wade in swinging!”), and gets a 7+, how do you determine the amount of damage they do?  Do foes have an actual number of HP, and drop when they get to 0?  If not, what does that look like?

    (If you’re not interested in continuing, that’s cool! Just say so or don’t reply, all good to me.)

  30. Everything is pretty much the same. Monsters have HP and stuff. For example let’s take the zombie. Depending on how zombies work in the game world you are creating it might be different. By the book Zombies have 11 HP 1 Armor. So it has HP and such. But lets say that destroying the brain can kill the zombie instantly. I like to have that option to where the characters can go for destroying the brain to drop the zombies much quickly. Or maybe these zombies are controlled by something else so even removing the head or destroying the brain may not even work (for example an animate dead spell may work through the caster rather than what’s being animated). So in a case like that the zombie would have to drop from 11 HP to 0 for it to become useless for the caster. Say if (cause of the walking dead) a party thinks, “oh these are zombies just go for the brain” If that’s how these zombies work then I would allow them instant killing blows for destroying the brain but up the soft/hard moves on them. But then say they encounter zombies again but this time through animate dead spell, they will probably go charging in and try to destroy the brain to only find that it didn’t drop them instantly, but it did do the damage that the player rolled. Another example could just be regular humans. Say if someone says, “swing my 2-handed sword at their legs” they roll and then roll their damage  (say the human has 8 hp ) and they get a 6 I might say how they cut one of the legs off and he has fallen prone. He still has 2 hp left but at the same time he is pretty useless now cause he will probably bleed out soon enough. So they could finish him off or move on to the next thing. Instead of describing something like the human took some serious damage and doesn’t look like he has anything much left in him. So really it’s pretty much the same style of combat but I look to the fiction of it and the players really enjoy it. Yeah we could say something has 10 hp someone tries to wack it’s head off with an ax. Rolls the damage and gets like an 8. Yeah maybe the ax didn’t completely slice through the entire neck, but it did enough damage that this thing is now on ground spitting blood and choking. It probably wont be getting up anytime soon to fight back. 

  31. Got it, cool, thanks!  I agree that what you describe isn’t very different than “standard” DW, and it’s not far off from what I do, either.  I was getting the impression from you earlier that you were more-or-less just ignoring HP and having foes drop/not drop based on the description of the attack. But what you’re describing boils down to “if they describe an attack that would incapacitate the foe, on a 7+ it will incapacitate them (regardless of damage done) but I’m gonna make the enemy’s attack hurt more than it would if they did a safer, more general attack.”  That seems fair.

    The big difference in how I do it is that I use damage & a foe’s remaining HP to inform the fictional effectiveness of the attack. I like the fact that sometimes the fighter goes for a finishing blow and connects–but not hard enough to take the baddie out. I like the damage roll to add that uncertainty and tension. I also like that the fighter/paladin/barbarian are more likely to take that one foe out with a finishing move than the cleric/wizard are, and not just because they’re more likely to get a 7+ on their hack & slash.

    In your “slash my greatsword at their legs example,” on a hit I’d totally say that they got the foe’s leg. If the foe has 8 HP and they do 7 damage (after armor), I’m probably gonna say cripple the enemy’s leg, maybe even severed it clean off (if the attack was forceful and messy). Bad guy has almost certainly fallen over, and they’re not gonna be thinking straight or moving much. But they’re not done. If you come near them, they’ll slash or stab at you! They’ll try to drag themselves away to safety, maybe apply grab a crossbow from a fallen ally and take a shot.  

    By contrast, if they do 0 damage after armor, I’ll probably be like “your blow lands, but he ducks back and scrapes across his greaves. He staggers back a second, regaining his balance. What do you do?”  

  32. Too many moves. I’ve had an Assassin Vine rip a party to shreds and they have two moves.

    Also they aren’t really “moves” in the DW sense so much as a list of standard vampire powers. A lot of the re-writes people have done in this thread are more interesting and give a better feel as to what the monster would actually do in a fight.

    And who is this guy anyway? What’s his story? What does he want? Fill out more info to give the monster life (or unlife, well you know what I mean!).

Comments are closed.