Alex Norris – Dungeon World Tavern G+ Archives

A few people might remember that I was working on a Fighter variant a while ago (the Peerless Fighter/Armsmaster…

A few people might remember that I was working on a Fighter variant a while ago (the Peerless Fighter/Armsmaster Fighter). After stalling on it for a few months, I finally figured out what I wanted to do with it, so here it is.

The point of the Peerless Fighter was to come up with a Fighter variant that was more about knowing how to use your gear than about being strong or having a special sword, and that had a few more things to do outside of combat. It’s not a completely radical departure from the core Fighter, but there’s more of a focus on the Fighter as a weapon/armour master (Armor Mastery is starting and BBLG and advance, for example, that way the Fighter gets the ability to spend armor points to negate damage as a unique shtick).

Major changes compared to the previous version (if anyone remembers it) include ditching Signature Weapon for a weapon style mechanic (which makes a lot more sense re: the “best use of your gear” angle) and tweaking Armor Mastery/getting rid of the +armor moves to try to make him less tough (ran a playtest where the Fighter had 5 armor and was basically invulnerable).

I’d love some feedback on the weapon style options (since I feel they’re a bit boring), and if anyone wants to use the class in their game and let me know how Armor Mastery works out for them without the extra +armor moves, that’d be great, thanks!

I think this is possibly my new favourite move:

Well-to-Do

You can freely obtain mundane goods or services worth up to ten times your Charisma in coins without paying anything. You can also call on contacts and distant allies to acquire rare, unusual or particularly noteworthy items that would not normally be for sale, given enough time; the GM will tell you how much you need to pay for anything you want to obtain this way.

It’s from Andri Erlingsson’s upcoming Halfling playbook. It turns out 180 coins (assuming 18 Charisma) isn’t actually a huge amount – you can afford weapons and armour (no plate, though) and basically never have to pay for room or board again, but that’s pretty much it.

You can, however, buy “infinite” horses (75gp), hovels (20gp), wagons (150gp), boats (150gp) and assassinations (120gp). So if you want to pay the assassins’ guild to kill everyone who owns a logistics business then buy out all their equipment and become a combination shipping magnate/slumlord, you can do that and it’s awesome.

And obviously, just because you can buy those doesn’t mean it happens instantly or without hitches, so if you decide to do that, the GM’s just been handed infinite golden opportunities on a platter.

Okay, so I’ve been having a lot of problems with high (we’re talking 4+, here) armour in my games – at that point,…

Okay, so I’ve been having a lot of problems with high (we’re talking 4+, here) armour in my games – at that point, pretty much anything I throw at the party has to either be able to instagib the less armoured characters or needs to have a contrived reason to ignore armour entirely, in order for me to still be able to threaten the armoured characters with HP damage. The end result is that common enemies (i.e. a dude with a sword), which should still somewhat be a threat, end up being a complete non-issue, and I don’t like that.

I think I’ve finally come up with houserules that might level out the playing field a bit, but I’m not entirely sure which of these works best. Here are my three options:

Option #1: you can never have more than 3 armour. This is boring, but elegant. Any armour above 3 exists as a “buffer” – e.g. piercing subtracts from that first (so armour 4 never reduces damage by more than 3, but attacks with 1-piercing still treat it as armour 3, 2-piercing as armour 2, etc.).

Option #2: you can have as much armour as you like, but armour is a “damage threshold” – this means that you ignore any damage below your armour value, but take full damage for anything above. A character with 2 armour would ignore an enemy rolling 1 or 2 damage, but would take 3 damage if the enemy rolled a 3. Advantage: it makes high damage enemies stay scary, even for armoured characters. Disadvantage: it’s super swingy, and makes armour 1-2 pretty worthless.

Option #3: armour reduces the maximum damage that enemies can roll – in other words, if you have 4 armour and are hit with d8 damage, any roll of 5+ is treated as a 4, but anything below is treated as its face value (so on a 3, you still take 3 damage). Advantage: it’s nowhere near as swingy as #2, doesn’t obsolete armour 1-2, and my gut feeling is that it would really help normalise damage. Disadvantage: it’s a lot of extra bookkeeping, and low sort-of being good is counter-intuitive.

Out of the three, I think #3 is the one that best fits what I want, with #1 as an acceptable compromise that would solve the issue, if feel really contrived in play.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

edit: a couple of counter-points I’m adding to this OP:

1. rust monsters/oozes/etc. are a band-aid rather than a real fix – you can’t just throw one at the party every single time someone goes above 3 armour.

2. ditto threatening the PCs’ gear instead of dealing HP damage. It’s something you should be able to do when you want, not something you’re forced to do all the time against high armour PCs because HP damage isn’t a possibility!

Okay, this is finally on DTRPG so I can indulge in a little reposting/self-promotion. These have been finalised for…

Okay, this is finally on DTRPG so I can indulge in a little reposting/self-promotion. These have been finalised for some time, and people might have seen them before:

The Assassin is a seasoned killer-for-hire with control over shadow magic. About half the moves are about using this shadow magic (to gain access to your targets, to physically enhance yourself or even as weapons), and the other half is about being an assassin (which lets you take on paid contracts and generally get better at killing people). If you detect a certain hint of Dishonored and the Malazan Book of the Fallen’s Claws about it, that’s normal.

The City Thief is a variant of the core book Thief that ditches the poison moves and replaces them with stealth and acrobatics moves. It is unashamedly inspired by Garrett from the Thief series. This is something like 30% new material; the rest is Sage and Adam’s original work.

I’ve also written a Compendium Class version of the Assassin that has just a few of the more mundane moves, for people who want a CC about being an actual assassin, rather than a base class; plus a bunch of new items that are also unashamedly inspired by/lifted from Thief.

The Assassin: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B30fzv28XdrYYy1lOFVrZWp1cWM/edit?usp=sharing

The City Thief: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B30fzv28XdrYNjRwTXN6TzhWZ1E/edit?usp=sharing

The Assassin Compendium Class: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B30fzv28XdrYcUhET21iWnVEcDg/edit?usp=sharing

The City Thief’s new items and tags: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B30fzv28XdrYVUxabk50WTBPSVE/edit?usp=sharing

This is all CC-BY-SA.

Special thanks go to Andri Erlingsson, Jacob Randolph and others from the Something Awful forum for feedback and inspiration during the design process, and of course to Sage and Adam for Dungeon World and the original Thief class.

If you’d like to toss in some money for them, the DTRPG link is below.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/121572/The-Assassin—A-Dungeon-World-Class

#thiefweek

Sod waiting for the rest of the week, here’s the City Thief character sheet:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B30fzv28XdrYNjRwTXN6TzhWZ1E/edit?usp=sharing

And here’s the item list to go with it:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B30fzv28XdrYdjhjSThnZmhNSXM/edit?usp=sharing

(For those who don’t know, the City Thief is a Thief variant class which is about 30% custom content and 70% the core Thief. It’s meant to be a poison-less Thief variant, and one that’s slightly more urban. Also, it’s totally a ripoff of Garrett from the Thief series.)

#druidweek : lazy reposts since it’s Monday, but some people might not have seen these yet:

New Druid racial moves:

Dwarf

You are born and bred of stone. In addition to any other attunements, the Towering Mountains are always considered your land.

Orc

You are at the top of the food chain. When you change your shape into that of a predator, you deal +2 damage.

New Druid alignment moves:

Lawful

Prevent others from interfering with the natural order.

Evil

Subvert the natural order to serve your whims.

Magi max Chris Sakkas: have there been any plans to translate Grim Portents into French (or any other language) yet?

So Andri Erlingsson up and decided that DW wasn’t oldschool enough and that there should be Basic-like playbooks for…

So Andri Erlingsson up and decided that DW wasn’t oldschool enough and that there should be Basic-like playbooks for the Elf/Dwarf/Halfling.

He’s still working on the Dwarf and the Halfling, but in any case the Elf is done and linked just below.

Credits: main writing: Andri Erlingsson; proofreading, feedback and layout done by me. License: CC-BY-SA.

You can expect the next two in the next couple of weeks, then probably a bunch of related CCs (the Elf will get the Dark Elf and the Elf-Friend, we’ll figure out the rest).

Gonna take a moment to pimp Jacob Randolph’s Inverse World since they just announced that Greg Stolze is writing…

Gonna take a moment to pimp Jacob Randolph’s Inverse World since they just announced that Greg Stolze is writing fiction for it and posted a neat way of doing traps.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1552912590/inverse-world-a-dungeon-world-sourcebook/posts/480063

Bam:

My Assassin class is finally finished and playbook’d up. It’s a mix of normal being-a-hitman and shadow magic moves. The original inspiration was Dishonored, but I ended up taking it in some slightly different directions as well.

Please download it because Google Docs hates PDF fonts, and enjoy.