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Von Ether
Posts: 103
Joined: Wed 31 Aug 2022, 16:09

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Fri 13 Jan 2023, 21:48

. A character that has a skill level 10 will benefit more of a boon than a character that has skill level 5 and a character that has skill level of 10 will suffer more of a bane than at character that has skill level 5.
A character that has more skill can turn around an advantage better than someone with less skill than makes perfect sense to me. I disagree with Skill 5 getting less penalized from a bane, though, as the bane could cancel out the skill while a full bane would only make the 10 half as effective.

I see the phrase, "difficulty level," and this might be part of some miscommunication.

In D&D where you:
  • Set a DC
  • Add or minus a skill bonus
  • AND THEN use a boon or a bane
  • Roll a match or higher number
In DB:
  • Use the PCs skill levell
  • Use the bane/boon only when something is very hard or really easy
  • Roll a match or lower number
Overall the PC's roll is going to be fairly predictable compared to D&D. The default "difficulty level" for a PC is their skill level. It is based on BRP which uses percentile dice - a game in which you know the literal odds of your character's success from the character sheet. It doesn't matter if they are fighting a Bandit King or a city guard, their ability to cut them is the same Knife skill. It is not much different with the Year Zero engine when where a standard difficulty is to get at least one 6.

Advantage/Disadvantage is not a Difficulty Level on its own. It's for outside factors like weather, extraordinary power, or conditions. And thus a different philosophy compared to setting up a difficulty level.

Not saying more granular penalties/bonuses to set up a difficulty range is badwrongfun, just different than what we already have.
 
Von Ether
Posts: 103
Joined: Wed 31 Aug 2022, 16:09

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Mon 16 Jan 2023, 03:45

Page 99

Common Animals

This section needs some clarification. The Common Animal section has no "Non-Monster" entry though they are written in a style that implies running them as NPCs. And RAW, they are immune to spells that state "The spell has no effect on monsters."
 
artikid
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon 16 Jan 2023, 16:55

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Mon 16 Jan 2023, 16:59

Another vote for giving NPCs and Monster some kind of expanded ability score values.
The idea of default and monster specific values is solid.
Also: how do Conditions apply to Monsters? (I can see how they apply to NPCs) Do they?
I think they should.
 
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Short Fey
Posts: 398
Joined: Sat 03 Dec 2022, 14:45

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Tue 17 Jan 2023, 22:09

Some more play testing feedback.

Something i feel is rather weird to play is how Monsters are Immune to Persuasion (And being scared, not that we have a lot of that in the rules. Could that be added somewhere in the rules?) unless stated otherwise, and even then it is always with a bane. While i can understand it is to prevent the players from saying something along the lines of "Please Monster, don't kill us/could you hand over the Maguffin?" and circumvent fights that way (Which i can to some degree agree upon).

But on the other hand, it gives the impression that you can only really fight the monsters head with no chance to talk or try and convince a monster of something, even if your not aiming to persuade it of anything. It also makes it weird in the sense of if they are immune to Persuade and fear, how do bartering and Bluff work? Can you bluff a monster into something? Or are they immune to that as well?
This thought came to me when i ran the adventure and the party had the minotaur event in the forest. The minotaur will only let the party cross if they paid him, else he would attack. A partymember attempted to bluff the minotaur that a piece of treasure (worth about 4 gold) would be worth enough to cover the toll for everyone to cross. On one hand, i thought that seemed like a reasonable idea, but the rules seemed to disagree with how this was supposed to work (especially sense minotaurs are one of the monsters that can't be persuaded). Ultimately i let them roll bluff, they succeeded and they could cross.

A suggestion i would like to do then is that rather than saying "Monsters are immune to persuasion and therefor negotiation period unless stated otherwise", monsters can have a "Temperament" which reflects how open that particular monster is to negotiation (Be it persuasion, bluffing or bartering), plus a little flavor box elaborating how/why this monster is of that temperament.

So for an example there could be the following Temprament
Hostile: This monster is either unable or unwilling to negotiate, and will always attack.
Aggressive: This monster is easily provoked and will usually attack unless the players can pacify or entice it to negotiation.
Negotiatble: This monster will only attack if provoked (Intentionally or not) and is open to negotiate, but it will not agree to anything that would be disadvantageous for it

Some examples of Monsters and their temperament and how a description of it could work.

Wright.
Temprament: Hostile.

A Wright's hatred of the living is so strong it will not bother to reply even if it could. Someone foolish to try and talk to it is a lamb to the slaughter.

Manticor.
Temprament: Hostile.

A Manticor is too savage and bloodthirsty to be appeased. It will only stop it's attacks if it is too wounded to keep up the assault.

Minotaur.
Temprament: Aggressive.

A Minotaur's rage makes them easily provoked and aggressive. However if calm they are open to negotiation in their favor under the threat of violence, but are susceptible to bluffs and trickery if they think they are getting what they want.

Troll.
Temprament: Aggressive.

A hungry troll is hard to reason with as they will eat what ever they can get their hands on and won't stop until they have their fill. But once sated, trolls are quite open to negotiations and are quite reasonable, but only for so long before they get hungry again.

Ghost.
Temprament: Negotiable.

While some ghosts are aggressive and will attack on sight, most are too absorbed in their regrets and unsolved business and will only retaliate if attacked first. Ghosts are willing to negotiate information they might have in exchange for help to resolve some of their problems. But this dosn't mean that what they tell you is truthful or even helpful.

Demon.
Temprament: Negotiable.

While many demons will gleefully murder or torment mortal kin, some approach friendly and offer to negotiate and barter deals or exchange favors. Such deals however are never without costs, and are often tricks to harm, corrupt or enslave the mortal to the demon. Attempting to back out or break such a arrengment may compel the demon to attack or torment their victim.
Beware the fey!
 
artikid
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon 16 Jan 2023, 16:55

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Tue 17 Jan 2023, 23:31

I do not have an issue with Monsters not being subject to Persuasion by default.
Mostly because they are not immune to Bluffing.
Which makes sense to me: you can't reason with a monster, they are too ferocious and savage, but you can trick them.
It feels very appropriate.
 
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BarkingMadTabletop
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat 21 Jan 2023, 16:36

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Sat 21 Jan 2023, 16:44

Just wanna voice my support for NPCs and monsters to have attributes of some sort to roll against. Either just giving them a score in all six attributes or having two "special" attributes for them, as I've seen suggested, would be A-OK with me.

EDIT: I also think that some more monsters and creatures would be nice. But then, I suspect a "Bestiary" or "Monster Book" will be one of the first supplements Free League releases.
 
Von Ether
Posts: 103
Joined: Wed 31 Aug 2022, 16:09

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Sat 21 Jan 2023, 18:41

Just wanna voice my support for NPCs and monsters to have attributes of some sort to roll against. Either just giving them a score in all six attributes or having two "special" attributes for them, as I've seen suggested, would be A-OK with me.

EDIT: I also think that some more monsters and creatures would be nice. But then, I suspect a "Bestiary" or "Monster Book" will be one of the first supplements Free League releases.
There are more monsters and NPCs in the adventure book. I find it takes only slight tweaking to get a lot of mileage out of the monsters. Trolls become ogres if they don't regenerate, Adventure NPCs can be either NPC fighters, knights, or mariners with just a skill switchout and a heroic, and Demon with less hit points can be a Swamp Hag style monster.
 
Arioch1973
Posts: 61
Joined: Tue 30 Aug 2022, 16:45

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Sun 22 Jan 2023, 13:26

It gets really awkward when your players quote the rules, requiring the opponent to make STR roll, but you have no idea what its STR is, because it is not listed. The more sessions I run the more the lack of attributes for npcs and monsters become an issue.
 
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MacDhomnuill
Posts: 38
Joined: Wed 07 Dec 2022, 06:32
Location: Kansas, US

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Tue 24 Jan 2023, 17:35

I have been using hit points as a rough guide to strength, worked fine the couple times it came up. I would like to see a generic physical stat and mental stat and avoid big stat blocks for generic npcs and monsters. If an NPC is important to the game (ie going to be around more than one or two sessions) I would just stat them up like a PC anyway.
 
Banquo
Posts: 33
Joined: Wed 31 Aug 2022, 10:35

Re: Dragonbane BETA v2 Rulebook Feedback - Chapter 7 Bestiary

Thu 26 Jan 2023, 22:22

Not sure if already picked up, but someone on the discord pointed out the Minotaur is missing weapon damage in the stat block. (same with wight)
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