First stab at FotF 2e treasure tables

17 thoughts on “First stab at FotF 2e treasure tables”

1. I’ll give these a shot for next week’s game.

2. I think it’s elegant, although the mental arithmetic involved in the booty die’s base value is just okay. Very interesting, though, I will ponder.

3. I am so addicted to spreadsheets… Anyway, Average Silver Pieces by Booty Die: d4- 20sp, d6- 101.5sp, d8- 423sp, d10- 2277sp, d12- 5226sp.

   As you can see, the growth is exponential. The growth is 3 factored, as you roll the die more times, it’s multiplied by the sharp growth of the Base Value. This is most evident in the difference between the d8 and d10 as it’s multiplied by 5 (10 up to 50). The third factor is the 2x multiplication of Valuables, which really makes the difference between the d6 and d8 average.

4. Thanks Kyle Strong — I have been wrestling with the base values, and I appreciate the analysis. I will probably adjust things downward some.

5. I like the overall setup quite a lot, so good on you for making a simple, comprehensive, yet still interesting system. IMO, it’s mainly just the numbers that need some tuning.

   Keep in mind that those averages include the randomly rolled values of Items and Rarities which have a decent chance of staying in PC pockets instead of merchant shelves, so the d10 and d12 would yield about 15% less raw coin, and the d8 would drop up to 30%. The d4 and particularly the d6 would also have more value than those averages I posted if proper attention was paid to the Items one rolled up. Using their actual Market value will tend to be higher than 2bd, especially when you roll the Fine tag, or things like scrolls and armor.

   I was thinking that the jump from d8 (10sp) to d10 (50sp) is rather large. However, the only creatures with a d10 damage are Large Solitary, or Huge Groups, so we’re talking manticores, golems, wyverns, giants, serious contenders. Of course Large Solitary is a big category, so it could be just an owlbear or something. I could see dropping the Base Value to around 30 instead of 50.

   d12 is only Solitary Huge, so dragons, or the very few things that compare to dragons. It’s supposed to be a big deal. I wouldn’t lower the Base Value beyond 70.

   I’ll try to pretty up and automate my Google spreadsheet and link it so we can fiddle around with the numbers.

6. I had this notion for a system a while ago and it’s somewhat similar, but the main function is to keep things going in the dungeon and only worry about math all in one go. I haven’t revisited or refined it, but it might be worth some inspiration as-is:

   Treasure Dice

   – You can’t count coins in a dangerous, dark dungeon. You can only briefly assess how much each Load/Weight of treasure is worth.

   – A monster will drop its HD worth of treasure, including modifiers. Record that as a Treasure Die.

   – Each TD is 1 Load.

   – When you get a chance to Count Coins (perhaps short rests count, perhaps Make Camp, perhaps only at town), roll each TD and multiply by 10; it’s worth that many coins.

   – It’s up to players how they divy up the coins at that point.

   – “Dense” treasures more specific than “bag of coins”, like gems, may be 0 load.

   – “Oddments” could act like TD except the roll is checked on a table of interesting/useful objects/results.

   – Of course, players may drop less valuable TD to make room for more valuable ones.

   – If you want some more detail, subtract 1D8 from the result.

   – Some moves might allow more detailed appraisal, allow the roll in the dungeon, or add modifiers.

   – If you roll maximum for a TD, there’s a gem hidden among the coins! Roll a TD of one higher type and add it to the value.

7. I’ve made a terrible mistake! The previous averages that I posted assumed Booty Units equal to a maximum roll on the Booty Die. Axing those values in half gives you the coin earned from Avg. Booty Units and Avg. rolls on each Booty Die. That wouldn’t be the actual average, however, because it wouldn’t account for monsters with +damage on top of their base damage die.

   Here is what should be a working Google Sheet to fiddle around with: docs.google.com – Gimme dat Booty

8. Tweaked and updated the Beasts & Booty PDF:

   dropbox.com – Playtesting

9. I’m not sure if you’ve already done this Jason, but I updated that Google Sheet with the new averages beneath the old. Halving the Base Values of the d10 and d12 will help players avoid drowning in coins, but that loss is largely negated by doubling the roll range of Valuables and increasing the value of Rarities. I have a good feeling about the changes, but we’ll have to see how things go during play.

   With your new Rarities charts, it’s actually possible to get stuck in infinite loot-loops, so that’s fun. I can’t wait for a player to encounter a path like bd>Item>Incidental Item>Useful Item>Valuable>Art Object>Rarity>Major>magical Common Item>conveyance/cart/wagon and finally end up with a magic carpet after 10 rolls.

   Will you be including rules/lists of magical/unique items in the booklet? I’m also QUITE intrigued about what sort of playbooks will show up in the Advanced booklet. I’m eager to check those out.

   docs.google.com – Gimme dat Booty

10. Thank you for checking my work, Kyle Strong!

    I will be including examples of magic items, but not comprehensive lists. I want people to make up their own. Still tinkering with how to handle things like scrolls, wands, etc.

11. I think the “details” tables could be unified, perhaps expanding to two sheets, but not redundantly duplicated in both beasts and booty (and any other generators). This would be good to just have as a single printed sheet for the GM to refer to to add interest to anything else they generate, without taking up booklet space and pushing generators to more than 2 or 4 pages.

12. Looking at monster tags, there are a couple of omissions from Dungeon World that I find troubling.

    There’s no support for a creature who uses the best/worst of 2 damage dice. I think this mechanism is particularly good for communicating to players that the creature is a serious contender/weakling. Perhaps you could apply it to “pathetic” and “born or trained to fight” in order to differentiate them from the other %HP tags.

    While there are “devious” creatures with a lowered damage die, you’ve removed any tag for a higher damage die. Base Dungeon World uses that mechanism for “ancient” creatures, but of course you want to be able to use your “legendary or ancient” tag on anything, even it it has a d12 already. It seems important to have a tag indicating that something hits above its weight class, especially since it’s so important to loot rolls. Perhaps “mighty” or “powerful”.

    And there’s something else unrelated that I’ve just recalled as well. I forgot about it since I just stuck the Move back into the original Freebooters. Anyway what do you have against the Defend Move!?

13. I’ve never liked the best/worst of 2 damage dice thing because of the extra notation, so the idea is to stick with hard modifiers across the board to keep things consistent. In the most recent draft I also replaced the die-stepping with hard modifiers (i.e., “pathetic” now reads “-50% base HP, -2 damage (minimum 1)”). I would like to keep the damage rolls as direct as possible, and I think that if the Judge tells the party a monster does 1d4-1 or 1d12+3 those rolls will telegraph the creature’s relative power just as clearly.

    Most recent version of creature creation is here:

    dropbox.com – FotF2e – Beasts & Booty.pdf

    Regarding defend, I’ve never liked the way it played out in our Dungeon World games. I feel like you can accomplish much the same results using the existing Freebooters moves within the fiction.

    As always, I am open to argument on these points!

14. “I’ve never liked the best/worst of 2 damage dice thing because of the extra notation”

    I guess “vulnerable” and “resistant” are okay in that case because there’s no b[2d8] or whatever? That argument doesn’t really have legs because you could simply leave it as a tag without the notation. Personally, I like the feedback that players would get from “vulnerable” or “resistant”. “The blunt force of your mace is ideal for smashing the bones of these skeletal warriors. Roll your damage die again and take the higher result.” Changing the way the dice are rolled makes the effect more noticeable, and I think is simply more fun than a static modifier. Of course, the same argument applies to monster damage. If you want to be consistent in eliminating b/w[2dX], then perhaps “resistant” could be half damage and “vulnerable” could add 50% damage. Personally, I’m keeping the mechanism in my games regardless. Perhaps this is ideal for a Variant Rules chapter of the booklet?

    As for Defend, I suppose you just use Help or Saving Throw instead? I like how Defend incentivizes direct teamwork and more tactical play, as opposed to simply spamming Fight and Shoot in a race to drop enemies. Ideally, players are thinking tactically in the fiction anyway and not merely picking Moves from a sheet, but if they ARE doing that then Defend tends to get them thinking about fictional positioning in a way that most Moves don’t.

    The other reason I like Defend is that it just feels WEIRD not to have ANY +CON Moves in the game. At the same time, CON is already a strong stat. It joins STR as one of the only 2 abilities to provide a stat boost outside of Move rolls, and is a common target for ability burn. Eugh. I’ll try it your way and see how it goes.

    I will say that I think you have a distaste for Moves that provide Hold and a list of options on which to spend it. Defend, Discern Realities, and Trap Expert come to mind as examples of this; you’ve rejected or modified each of these to either eliminate Hold or the options list. After consideration, I think that format for Moves is clunky. Players tend to forget about Hold anyway, and if/when they remember it they have to scramble for a reference in order to spend that resource. As an aside, I think your “Pick Locks or Disarm Traps” Move is brilliant, and I’ve used it as a basis for custom Moves in other games.

    On the new Beasts & Booty changes, I definitely approve the modifications to the Rarities section, though you’ve eliminated my infinite loops! Haha.

15. Thanks for the comments, Kyle. I agree that rolling multiple dice is more interesting and a nice tangible illustration of an enemy’s power. I may switch back after my current draft sees sufficient play. And I need to edit vulnerable/resistant to reflect my current approach, I missed that on the last pass. The plan is as you suggest — a 150%/50% damage modifier.

    It’s true that I’ve ended up biased against hold moves precisely for the reasons you cite. Hold often ends up being forgotten or never used. “Perceive” currently still uses hold, but I might rewrite that one.

    I’m also looking for ways to make “+1 forward” modifiers easier to track.

16. Kyle, having used Defend in your FotF game quite a bit, I actually agree that it felt a little out of place, a little mini-gamey. I’d be happy using Help when another character gets attacked; the main problem is remembering that you can. I wonder if it should be called out in the Help move as an example, or something. However, I think the Fighter (or Cleric maybe?) could do with an advanced move specifically about defending.

17. is the link broken?

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