Thursday, October 13, 2022

A onepageRPG where d8s are the only dice

I was imagining a world with the skyline dominated by a Hellraiser II Leviathan type god-thing. 



The cool parts of this RPG:
  • The play group gets to decide what five eighths of the ability scores are called.
  • Easy target 10 system.
  • Tactical choices with the combat action costs.
  • HP is called Luck. We all know the term hit points is misleading, and luck begs to be spent.
  • Fellow players encouraged to be interested in you to get good mutual feels around the table. If you are the only guy not finding excuses to help your fellow players level up, that’s a bad look.
  • No classes, so you choose your own path to booty.

The original google doc is here, and will be updated after play-testing.

D8 Dungeoneering

By d8 Claytonians from killitwithfirerpg



In the beginning of all things, there was the d20. And the d20 was good, but it was usurped by the Dark Octahedron, and forever lost. 


To generate your mods for your Thews, Guile, Wizardry, and five other things the group brainstorms, roll a d8.

1    -2 mod        5-6    +1 mod

2    -1 mod        7    +2 mod

3-4    ±0 mod        8    +3 mod


When you want to do something, the target number is always ten or more on a 2d8 roll, but the roll will be modified by the difficulty you face and advantages you have. For example, climbing a wall might get modified by the relative smoothness of the wall and how fast you want to climb, but also should probably take your Thews into account.


Combat

To melee, roll 2d8+[Thews]+[circumstances, such as allies flanking target]-[Foes armor] and try to get 10 or better. To throw into combat, do the same thing, but the circumstances will be -1 more against you for each ally you have flanking the target. To shoot, use +Guile instead. All hits deal d8 damage to the foe’s Luck.


Combat costs

Each character has Level points to spend each round. Play starts to the DM’s left and goes clockwise, with an NPC going after each player’s move. When no one has enough points to do anything, the round ends.


  • To move costs one point per hex. You may also skirmish someone you just attacked successfully or not, moving them one hex per point you are willing to spend.

  • To attack costs one point.

  • To charge costs point per hex traveled and must end with a (free) melee attack.

  • To defend costs one point per desired penalty point to foe’s roll (you can defend out of turn when someone attacks you).

  • To take a breather and regain 1d8 Luck costs one, plus one point per adjacent foe.

  • To switch hand items costs one point.

  • To prepare an interrupt action (I shoot the next guy to come through the door!) costs one point to set up and another to cancel (I don’t shoot my friend who just came through the door!) and fails if you don’t have the points to actually carry through on the action.

  • To focus, you spend one point plus one per +1 mod you want on your next roll. 

  • To add an extra d8 before you attack or roll damage costs three points.


Starting Level and Luck

Well it sounds like being level one would be Nintendo-hard in combat, so everyone starts with Guile+d8 levels, or at least one. Luck, the game-stuff that keeps you alive, starts at Thews+1d8 or at least one. BTW Luck can be spent on any roll. Luck regenerates at a rate of LVL points per session.


Getting Better

At the beginning of the game and whenever you level up, roll a d8 to see how many Deeds of Renown you have to do before you can level up again. How do we know they are renowned? Because your fellow players will mention them in their session reports. 


When you do level, you gain one more point for combat costs and d8 more Luck.


Dying 

If you get knocked to less than 0 Luck, you will die without magical intervention at the end of ½×d8 rounds.


Crits

Rolling double 8s deals max damage and gives you d8 extra combat cost points to spend this round. If a crit knocks someone to less than 0 Luck, they are dismembered, dead on the spot.


Armor & Encumbrance

All armor mods your foe’s difficulty to hit you and takes up weight slots equal to its modifier. You can carry up to 10+Thews things (any more than that is -1 point to rolls per thing). Armor mods max out at 4, but a shield can take them to 5. 


Weapons

Two-handed weapons deal the better of two damage rolls. One handed weapons give +1 to-hit. Punches have their damage reduced by the foe’s armor rating.


Spells

One can attempt to memorize any spells they come across (found in librams). Each spell takes one hour to memorize and requires a +WIZ roll, modified negatively by spell level,  to enunciate successfully (shot and forgot either way). Retaining spells is draining, reducing the casters available weight slots by one per spell in the brain. For each point of Luck a player is willing to permanently sacrifice at character gen, they can have already found a spell of d8th level.


Foes

Baddies have an 𝓍 in d8 chance of going first each round.


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Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.

2 comments:

Picador said...

1H weapons are strictly better than 2H weapons. This is likely the case even if 2H weapons only required one action point instead of two. An attack with +1 to hit sounds better then no to hit bonus and max(2d8) damage. Two such attacks (2 action points with a 1H weapon) are vastly superior. Also… level 1 guys can’t use 2H weapons at all as written.

Claytonian said...

I will address your last point with an edit and think over the other points. Thank you