Getting hurt, Resting and Otherkind Dice

Clarification Time

This section is for addressing confusion or feedback about the previous posts in the series.  

Naturally, when you think you've invented a mechanic that has never been done before, the Bakers casually had a shower thought years ago that happens to be the exact thing you've come up with. I am talking about Otherkind Dice. Otherkind dice is exactly like my combat system but including partial successes and each procedure is kind of like a PbtA move. Already some of the appendix ideas are showing up. Surprise is a free 5-6 that you can use if you get the jump. There is a cursed helmet of a paladin that gives a free 5-6 or 2 dice to combat related consequences but every rest you have "2 I failed to keep my oath" as a consequence unless you kill a creature that day. 

Also there are scaling consequences. Here's an example using the goblin attack from the last post:

4 - [Success Goal] amount of players get Scared (Scared has been rewritten. Scared now gives you a wound per combat you enter) 

Success Goals (SG for short) are what I am calling the number in the consequence. If you get 2 successes and spend them on this consequence, only 2 players get scared. So that way you can mitigate by choosing two players that don't have a statuses or don't mind them. I am also considering features that allow a 3-4 result count as a success based on certain spells. Now that Clarification Time is over, now we go to:

Design Time

So last post I showed off combat. But how do you get hurt? You have wounds. You can handle up to Level wounds. You get wounds when a condition triggers. Here's a condition that happens if the party doesn't sleep.

Restless - gain a wound every night that you don't sleep. 

The idea with going all in on conditions is that there is more hard decisions. No matter what you can press on an gather treasure. But the more conditions and wounds you get the higher odds one triggers and kills you.

This solves a few problems I have with old school dungeons. I hate untelegraphed instant kills in dungeons as there is no decision making or interesting play. So in Fathach, there are no instant kills. There may be some really mean conditions, but at least you know whats coming. Secondly is the Goo Drinker vs Safe Coward duality in all OSR games. If you play B/X you might be familiar with more experienced players using 10ft and treating every new thing in the dungeon like a bomb about to explode. I find this play slow and boring. So this is a game for the Goo Drinkers, as the wounds and conditions allow you to try new things.

 


There are a lot of ways to get conditions and wounds, but how do you heal them away? You need to rest in a safe location. In a dungeon, you can rest for 10 minutes (once per adventure) and heal 1 wound at the cost of time and 1 portion of food. Outside the dungeon, you Sleep. Here's the procedure:

Sleep 

When the party falls asleep for 6 hours or more

1 we didn't heal X condition (X is something like Scared)

2 We didn't heal X condition  (The SG changes based on how many people have the condition)

1+ We didn't heal our wounds (Successes can be spent 1 to 1 to heal wounds. In a community, 1 success heals all of one party member's wounds)

1 There wasn't anyone on watch (only outside of settlements)

1 We couldn't find animals to hunt (only outside settlements)

1 We couldn't work on a downtime project (number changes based on how many projects the party has at once) 

If you are sleeping in a community, you get Level extra successes to allocate. The watch thing is for random encounters and stops surprise. The animals to hunt are for parties short on food. Downtime is various projects worth a set number of successes. You put the successes into the project every Sleep and once you have enough abracadabra you did your project. Last night I had a sleepless night and I realised the only part of sleep that matters is the before and after. Next post is the PCs and character gen. Up until this point they are nothing more than 2d6 so I will flesh them out the next post. 

Clickables 

Patchwork Paladin released another issue of her REALLY good newsletter. 

Scribbles and Horrors posts about their wild ODND campaign. 

Anxious Mimic asks do we even need HP? 

 

 

 

   

 

 

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