Putting my “initiative” based tweak to Hack and Slash through its paces.
This isn’t actual actual play, but it’s one of the ways I work through a rules change to see how it’ll play out. Despite objections that others have raised, I’m liking this quite a bit.
Even if you aren’t interested in my tweaks, you might find this a fun read. It’s a pretty extensive, brutal fight scene.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uaCkx9aJEuJwZdZPjj0qzrtbe292A5-VQogTBFrFlQQ/edit?usp=sharing
That was a fun read, indeed 🙂
Can you expand on your reason for excluding the “evade their attack” option on a 7-9? Is it just to emulate the regular Hack and Slash rule that you can only choose to evade damage on a 10+?
Like, in the ghoul fight, when the Thief had been tackled, the Wizard had a ghoul ready to chow down on his hand and the Barbarian had 6 HP left and rolled an 8 against the two ghouls on him… it would have been an interesting choice for him to choose between the initiative, the extra damage or to evade their attack. If he chose to evade the damage, he would have been leaving his team mates to fend for themselves in a pretty bad situation, but if he took the damage on 6 HP he might go down…
I for one, like action sequences to remain more hot potato in my games. I enjoy how player social dynamics and class role-play meld with the looming threat of the GM move to settle all the “fun” of initiative and mechanics of passing it. But! I think this is a pretty smart way to add a bit more depth to the decisions for hack and slash, without disrupting much else. And if players were all focused on martial classes, this seems like a way i might consider to deepen the decision making there.
The example could be way shorter though. I think you could show it to us with just a couple 7-9 narrations that go very differently due to decision making. 🙂
There is a typo. First evade has become an evadge
Mark Cleveland Massengale there’s a much shorter write-up here, examples closer to what you describe. Sorry! I should have included a link to it, first.
This document was as much for me as for anyone else. I wanted to see how it would interplay with other moves, other PCs, different tags, etc.
spoutinglore.blogspot.com – Tinkering with Hack & Slash
Adamo Leoni fixed, thanks!
Robert Rendell mostly because I want Hack & Slash to continue to be dangerous, which has always been the case. (At least, it’s always been the case when I run it.)
Giving the PCs the ability to deal damage and avoid the attack on a 7-9 tilts things even more in the PCs’ favor. As it is, giving them the choice to do the +1d6 damage on a 7-9 (at the cost of the initiative) makes this move a net “better” for PCs. Because depending on the GM and the situation, you’d often lose the initiative on a 7-9 H&S anyway.
A cautious player could continue to play reactively, evading attacks and dealing damage and ceding the initiative until he rolled a miss. But that kind of play is better represented by not getting into melee at all!