Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Optional Rules for Minidnd

This requires that you read these rules. They're really simple.

Damage Types
There are four main types of damage.

Bludgeon: Hard wacking. Clubs and fists and hammers. Also hitting the ground and crashing into stuff. Blunt attacks.
Bleed: Stuff that pierces, tears, cuts or otherwise breaks flesh. Knives and fangs and bullets and speed-of-sound teeth.
Burn: Mostly elemental/chemical/alchemical/magical damage. Lighting, fire, cold (kills cells so it "burns"), chemical damage (acid), radiation burns etc.
Bane: Eldritch and mystical bullshit. Psionics, thaumics, raw necrotic energy, soul shredding cosmic fluctuations emanated by the cosmic horror etc.

First Aid
Administering first aid takes one minute. In stressful situations it requires a savvy roll (eyeballed by the game master, but target number should generally fall between 10 and 15). This stabilizes the target (they are no longer dying on a failed death pys save) and wakes them up in the same situations. It doesn't heal anything, unless combat isn't happening in which case hp is restored. (completely)
You cannot administer first aid without the proper tools. These tools vary based on the damage type(s) taken.
Bludgeon: Splints/supports.
Bleed: Bandages/stitches.
Burn: Creams/ointments
Bane: Magical bullshit, therapy etc.

Character Advancement
The first way you advance is increasing hit dice, you do this by gaining scars.
The first time you fail a death pys save you get a wicked scar from it. You get 1 hd from this. Permanently. Sweet huh? Roll that dice! Get those hp!
After this, if you fail a death pys save and you roll a 1 on a d6 (yes you have to roll a d6 now) you get an Affliction. And 1 hit dice.
Three hit dice is your maximum.
The affliction depends on the attack, but missing hand/foot/eye is recommended. Curses/mutations might occur under certain circumstances.

Exploding Dice
On a maximum roll, subtract one and roll again. This takes care of "impossible" numbers.

Magic
Magic is done through rituals. These rituals require rolls against target numbers, or contests against opposing mystical forces/other beings. These rolls can be improved with magic circles worth 100 cp, or a (sapient) sacrifice. Each circle and sacrifice improves your roll by 1 but can only be used once. An example below.
(general warning, some of these are somewhat graphic)

Clotting Servant
The caster must acquire at least gallon of blood, a phial of potent venom and a shard of quartz carved with runes representing life and bondage. Human blood isn't required but if it is gathered from a sacrifice as above the bonus is retained. Then, they must place it within a stone basin.
The caster must chant for thirty minutes over the pool of blood, after which they allow a droplet of their own blood to fall into it, at the same time as a very potent venom.
This will cause the blood to clot, and after the caster forces the shard of quartz into the heart of the clot, it will animate as a number of blubbery coagulated blood hommunculi equal to the number of gallons of blood used, willing to serve but not all that effective. This requires a savvy contest against the mystical forces at play. The gm rolls a d20 and adds 1 for every gallon of blood used plus 1.
Blood Hommunculi Stats
Hd:1 Hp:3
Dex:5 Pys:10 Sav:5
Deals 1 damage by smacking target. A number of them can work together to deal a maximum of 6 damage.
Doesn't make death Pys saves, and immune to "dying." Will still die when hacked down to 0 pys though. Whan sav is reduced to 0 control moves to the one who damaged them, until they regain their sav.
Immune to everything a mass of clotted blood would be (bleed damage, not bludgeon, burn or bane though).

Minidnd Ruleset

Oh look, another dnd clone. That's original.
Anyways, here's the rules I use. It'll be much easier to post stuff after this.

Character Creation
Roll 3+2d6 three times and write the numbers down. This will give you a range of 5-15 and an average of 10.
Then assign the numbers to which stats you want, or randomly assign them.
The Stats are...

Dexterity: Abbreviated as Dex. This is for agility and manual dexterity. Slight of hand and dodging thrown hammers. Also shooting people.
Physique: Abbreviated as Pys. This is for physical strength and fortitude. Resisting poison and breaking down doors. Also swinging things really hard.
Savvy: Abbreviated as Sav. Social and practical skill. Charming and keeping order and enforcing your will socially. Also used to keep you sane.

Modifiers are the stat-10. So modifiers range from -5 to +5. Cool.

Next roll a 1d8. This is your HP. Your HD (hit dice, amount of dice you roll for hp) starts at 1.
After that roll a 1d6. This is how many copper pennies you have. This game runs on a copper standard. (10 cp =1 sp. 100 sp= 1 gp) So if you wanna run a different standard just replace all instances of "cp" with "gp" or whatever your standard currency is.
You also have AC, Armor Class. This is a base of 10+ dex modifier. This can be changed by armor and weird stuff though.
Other abilities at a case-by-case basis or in optional rules.
You get a weapon that deals 1d8 damage, a couple changes of clothes, rations for a week, 50 feet of rope, and a bedroll (to begin with).

Doing Things
Like any other rpg, you can do stuff anyone can do for free (except it takes up time, and maybe patience of other players).
Things that are difficult require a roll at target number or above. (sometimes its a "contest", in which you roll against an opposing force and have to beat them to achieve an affect).
Target numbers are...
5: Something easy, but still carries a not-insignificant chance of failure.
10: Somewhat difficult. 50/50 chance of failure for average human.
15: Difficult. Carries a major chance of failure.
20: Extremely Difficult. Almost impossible to do for average human.
25: Almost Impossible. Even trained professionals will nearly always fail at this.
Higher?: Downright Superhuman. Anything beyond that.

Combat
Roll a dexterity contest against the enemy when you engage directly with them.
Then roll a physique or dexterity check against the enemies armor class.
If you succeed roll for damage.
Then they take their turn.
Things not happening that directly involve others happen simultaneously.
Damage comes off your Hp. Excess damage is taken to your Pys typically.
Each time you take damage in excess of your hp you make a pys check, the target number being the opponents attack roll, in order to avoid getting knocked out and start dying.
If you are dying you will die in an hour unless you get medical attention.
At pys 0 you die outright.
At dex 0 (damage done through shocks/paralyzing things) you can't move.
At sav 0 you snap temporarily and roll 1d3. 1: Freeze. 2: Flee. 3: attack anyone in the area.
Damage types will be described in the optional rules post.
Hp damage heals after combat. Other damage takes a week to restore (or less, if using some optional rules).

Magic? Other things?
Those will come in a later post. "Optional Rules." These are just the framework. The skeleton if you will. The meat will come soon.