Here’s the latest development from HIGH LEVEL (d12 WORLD) FREEBOOTERS!
Ability Point “burn” is great, and we use it all the time in many ways. As a stiffer challenge to high level characters, I’m also now using debilities.
As in DW, Debilities add a -1 to your rolls against a given ability. With the ability bonus scaling system I use, each debility is equivalent to two points of ability burn.
In addition, they require rest in a SETTLEMENT or the services of a TEMPLE to remove.
Multiple debilities on the same ability stack.
Here’s the section of the character sheet where players can keep track of them. (small circles, right side of modifier).
It’s working great and adding fun to our games!
Wait, remind me, are rolls 2d12 or straight 1d12?
2d12
24+ CRIT
20+ HIT
13-19 SPLIT
12– MISS
2– FLOP
When you say “high level”, do you mean that characters start with more power at level 1, or less?
Out just that it scales better to higher levels over time…?
I mean long term campaign-style play including character advancement up to (and possibly beyond) Level 10. Most DW and Freebooters games don’t last this long in my observation. We also use a geometric XP level progression, slowing down higher level advancement considerably. In fact, I think we’re setting a DW endurance record, with one group having played a weekly session since September 2016 now at character level 8 pushing 9. (Although I also use a stat-cycling method so players are rolling against their poor scores as well as their great ones).
What is the burn mechanic, as someone still fairly new to reading and posting here?
This is very interesting Maezar. Have you compiled a list of all your “house rules” and adapted playbooks somewhere?
At this point, I would be tempted to just switch back to the good ol’ d20 and use (natural) 1=Fumble, 2-9=Fail, 10-15=Partial success, 16-19=Success, 20+=Critical. Having a flat 5% chance of fumble is fun and I could use the disapproval mechanic of DCC.
Frederic Oriol, I’m actually working on a compilation called “d12 World”. I like the curves that this method produces. Check them out!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Crk33ejJPfDoQKa5OufaxXB6HZHAyz568-vLXlQSjRYnWbapnZkyfv1eD7QOa-x4JJ9m9tY3WYGPn5nzlKPyNx53ZCxvnkdhjaY=s0
Ant Wu the Burn Mechanic is part of the core of Freebooters on the Frontier/Perilous Wild. It allows ability scores to be damaged, similar to the way HP loss works. I love it and use it ALL the time, but what it does is result in Clerics needing to make a lot more rolls to heal the party after combat. When this happens, you tend to get into a scenario where the cool effects of burn (as a vicious GM 😉 are reduced, and also a) Clerics get more chances to gain XP and b) their failures result in lots of GM moves that can create “noise” with regard to keeping things moving forward.
Debilities solve ALL of these problems 🙂
Why don’t you just rule that recovering burnt or damaged abilities requires rest in a settlement/temple aid instead of adding the debility mechanism? Or remove the burn mechanic and let characters take a debility to get a +1, +2 or advantage [roll an extra d12, take the best 2] to their roll. I find that having both burn and debilities is redundant.
Because they serve very different mechanical purposes.