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TalonDemonKing posted:So this is going to sound really, really, really stupid, but I'm looking through the free PDF and I keep seeing names and looks for classes -- But I can't figure out if they're suggestions or optional, or do they really matter. If I say 'gently caress it, I'm naming my fighter 'The Swedish Chef'', There isn't anything that's going to come back and bite me in the rear end, is there? They're suggestions. Nothing in the rules is going to crash if you call yourself Jerry and say you're a Kobold Myrimidon. The classes exist to give you an idea of the specialized stuff you can do, but if you wanted you could slap a bunch of different classes together and call it a class, or even make your own class up. Problems might occur with being stronger than the base classes (i.e. the baseline the book was written on) and the point of being specialized is that you can do your own cool thing while your buddies have their own different cool things to do.
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Mar 26, 2013 01:03
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For people who have had more experience with Dungeon World combats, how often do you find yourself punching the same thing before it goes down? I'm trying to come up with a good way to handle combo attacks by giving a bonus if you keep hitting the same enemy (which would make the class more likely to focus on the big guys than the small fries) that you can choose to end for a finisher, but the more I think about it the less I'm sure this would work all that well. I don't have all that much experience with big combats though, so maybe it's less of an issue than I expect?
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Mar 26, 2013 19:29
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Yeah, I figured it was the case that fights against single targets tend to blow up pretty quickly. The class I'm trying to make it for doesn't have crazy Fighter damage, but even then a party would probably take an enemy down too fast for them to really shine. I really want to find a way to make it work, but it's harder than it looks. As for favored classes, I don't like the idea of them both because they're incapable of encompassing every possible class that would fit (unless the author really keeps up with every bit of content people generate, i.e. an impossible task), but also because it's really easy to interpret classes as anything you'd want them to be. A while ago I came up with the idea of a Ranger who uses hexes and curses instead of a bow and arrows and controls undead as their companion. This NecroRanger would totally favor Wizard and Mage and stuff, but a typical Ranger that people think of wouldn't. Unless you gave people the choice of taking a certain number of favored classes (through a set number of slots?) it just ends up kind of dumb. The ability for some of the core classes to borrow from only certain other classes all make sense just based on what the moves the other class(es) have do, where this idea of a 'primal' Shaman kind of misses that and just focuses on how the author sees the class' fluff. I'd be just as likely to make a Shaman whose spirits are actually just the electricity in machines, being able to command the 'spirits' of machinery and basically be a technomancer. It works perfectly with the class's mechanics, but that's not 'primal' in the slightest. As far as I see it, I think advanced moves that let you borrow from specific (core) classes should exist if the moves those characters have compliment the moves of the class at hand. The reason you're not just flat out giving them Multiclass Dabbler is because you think the moves from that class fit really well and make a kind of secondary specialization for the class. Multiclass Dabbler pretty much just has the level restriction to make you worse at spells anyways, the -1 level restriction doesn't do much to stop you from taking other moves because very few moves reference your level, so if you're not digging into spell lists all it does is make you be level 3 or 7 instead of 2 or 6. sentrygun fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Mar 26, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 21:15
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The way I saw it was that the Noble could easily be a squishy person guarded by a big tough knight (though you could just as easily change it depending on your stat allocation). I kind of feel like the Assistant should get a specific HP value apart from the Noble so that you can decide how bulky or squishy each of them is, but I don't think putting them at 1/3rd their HP is the answer. If you want disposable characters, make them hirelings. If you want to make a whole new special kind of sheet for them, at least make it so that they can take a hit. If the Noble+Assistant total HP pool was the problem, maybe add a way for the Noble to shift some of their HP over to their buddy? With someone who's prone to exploding in a flurry of gibs, I feel like I'd be stupid to make my assistant a frontliner instead of some utility class.
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Mar 26, 2013 21:33
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Then assuming you went with this favoured class idea, you would change the favoured class list in the same way you would have to modify or write custom moves to represent the hexes and the undead companion. I don't like the idea in the first place and wouldn't have it personally, but I wouldn't have to change anything on the sheet for the reflavored moves besides call my gear different things if I wanted to. I suppose it was a more extreme example, but my point is that while classes have their specific 'thing' they do, they're kinda vague with how they do it outside of what their gear's called on the sheet. quote:Everything starts and ends with the fiction, so "how the author sees the class' fiction" is pretty much a justification for every class having the moveset and the restrictions they have. I am fairly certain the Thief wasn't given zero multiclass moves because Sage and Adam were afraid a Thief with a Signature Weapon or the ability to Cast Spells would break the game's balance in half. I never said anything about balance. In my mind, the Thief doesn't have any multiclass moves because they kind of made Dabbler a Bard (jack of all trades) and Fighter (bonus feats in old D&D) thing, and they didn't think any of the moves from the other classes complemented the Thief well. Maybe they had different or more specific reasons for it though. I don't like the idea of handing out Dabbler to a bunch of classes because I like people having their own thing they're cool at rather than stepping on other people's feet to do their cool things too. quote:The Shaman's "spirits" are explicitly ghosts, so that interpretation isn't part of the class as-intended, much like how the NecroRanger isn't part of the Ranger's intended concept. It's a cool concept, but requires you to change the fiction behind the Shaman, and thus modify some moves, exactly like it would for any other concept in the game not wholly covered by a class. Understandable, and obviously it's just a thing players do once they get their hands on it. Again, my primary point here is that I don't think restricted multiclassing is by design a 'theme' thing, and is largely mechanical. You then have to justify fictionally why you can do this cool thing you cribbed from another class and how you do it, but then the book says you do that for every move you learn so it's kind of the norm. Ultimately, yeah, you can totally do whatever you want, whether author or player. I just find it weird to set in stone a 'favored classes' idea when it's so easily open to interpretation. Hell, looking at the book version of my Shaman purchase the whole introduction thing just kind of talks about death. You're the dude between the dead and the living, and that's your cool thing. I can call it the Technomancer and say I'm the bridge between machine and flesh, but that's just a goofy thing I made up as a player. There's definitely flavor for the inspirations you mentioned throughout the moves, but ultimately to the person who gets it and reads it this cool dude sheet says I'm a Shaman and tells me about how I do cool things with spirits and stuff. If I match that in my head with something completely different, that's because I have a different interpretation of it than the author did due to the fact that the author didn't give me an intensely detailed blueprint. This is a good thing! But yeah, that's a lot of words for me to basically say "I don't really like favored classes because I like taking classes and driving them off a cliff from where they're originally intended". I don't really like multiclassing at all and much prefer recent "take a rulebook nobody else is using" stuff, but that's just me.  gnome7 posted:Noble HP buffed to 10 + Constitution I like this a lot more. Gets around the problem of the Noble getting an unfair amount of HP to play with while still letting me play a goofy princess protected by a big bulky knight and having the princess faint when she sees the knight get injured, while granting plenty of room for bulky noble/squishy assistant and everything in between.
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Mar 26, 2013 22:02
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wrl posted:First of all asking the GM to come up with moves can be tough, especially with PbP where you may be looking to perform that move in the same post. Secondly there are some questions here, Should these moves require rolling ever? Can they/should they be as powerful as standard class moves? What if the GM doesn't give me the move I intended? They do not require rolling themselves, that's what the hold generation roll was for. Using them does not guarantee your safety. If you decide to transform into a behemoth and crash through a wall of spikes, you're gonna wreck the poo poo outta that wall of spikes but you're also going to take damage for running facefirst into a wall of spikes. When you say as powerful as standard class moves', it is a standard class move. Crazy poo poo like Shapeshift is what Dungeon World PCs are capable of. As for generating moves, it depends on the GM. The pbp I'm playing a Druid in lets me just come up with whatever as I do them, so long as it makes sense. If I transform into a sandworm, I can do sandworm things. If I try to pretend like sandworms are really good at debating ethics that's not a valid move and I'm going to have to Defy CHA just like anyone else without a valid move for that. If I ram my head into a wall to break it down or tunnel through it then that's totally happening, but it doesn't guarantee the cave we're in doesn't start collapsing. I think the big issue people seem to have with handling Shapeshifter is that, once they find out the moves are just supposed to work when you spend the hold, they get a misconception that it's like you're always rolling valid 10s and you never get a downside to what you do, which isn't the case. If anything, all it means is that the move is purely fictional and we don't have to bother rolling dice to do them so long as the Druid has hold. Whether blowing up an entire city block is useful or not depends on the story at hand.
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Mar 27, 2013 16:21
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TalonDemonKing posted:I've noticed that players have special moves, but most of these moves are tied to class and occasionally a class/race type (Dwarf fighters and drinking). Is there anything that ties moves to, say, a character? Yep, those would be the Basic and Special moves everyone gets. Outside of that, you could look into Compendium Classes as a level up choice which gives you a kind of mini-class. Otherwise, people are supposed to have their own special things to do so there's not some generic level up move pool.
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Mar 27, 2013 16:52
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djw175 posted:I'm not a class maker, but isn't the armor value of armor usually equal to its weight? It seems mean to make a low strength class drag around a pound of extra robes. Higher armor values tend to have an extra weight and the clumsy tag attached to make them particularly unwieldy, but if you've got 2 or 3 armor as a choice you're probably a big strong fighter guy and not a wizard with the choice between robes or leather armor. I also kind of like the idea of making the 0 armor choice have something special, even if it's just like a bag of books or healing potions. It's not a thing the core classes do though, so if you're trying to make them more like those then just a plain 0 armor choice is fine.
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Mar 28, 2013 02:29
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Shamblercow posted:Thank you for your help here; I made a few equipment changes that seem to make it line up better with other casters. The robe's not supposed to weigh anything because unless the player gets really creative it's not worth anything. It's an exchange to not have any weight instead of taking armor and weight.
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Mar 28, 2013 21:02
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I'm torn on the full stat numbers because they work pretty well for what they do (determine modifiers/HP and how fast those modifiers go up), but in my limited experience with showing people new to tabletop games in general it's really weird to give them a number and then tell them that one never really matters and to only worry about the one in parentheses next to it. To someone with D&D experience it just makes sense, but to new players it's just a weird number that feels like it should be more important than it actually is. It's something you get over fairly quickly once it starts to make sense, but it shouldn't have to take so long for it to make sense. I think some kind of advance boxes or something to show your progress in a stat might work to remove the number while still keeping the system the same, but that might be more trouble than it's worth.
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Apr 3, 2013 17:22
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Enlightened Shot refers to a move that doesn't exist anymore. Was it renamed, or should it just not be there?
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Apr 6, 2013 02:00
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InfiniteJesters posted:On a more serious note, I'm guessing the elemental tag from Witch's Craft doesn't count towards the amount of tags you get to choose from for Black Magic, right? Just wanted to be clear on the wording. It does count. It's one of the things you can select from, thus you have to use one of your choices to select it.
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Apr 6, 2013 05:37
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Or any of the basic/special moves in general. Having them make you better at doing them is fine, but ultimately you should be using one of those or a very specific move like Black Magic that more carefully designed to stand in place of basic moves. Also, try to avoid boring +x or +xdx bonuses. The more moves that increase your ability to do cool things the better, where boring bonuses just make you more likely to succeed without consequence. Where's the fun in that?
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Apr 7, 2013 21:13
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If multiclassing is needed to redeem a class then doesn't that mean the class isn't interesting enough to stand on its own? I'm fine with the 'Worldly' style multiclassing because that explicitly prevents you from stepping into other player's territory, but it still seems like if your class isn't interesting and significant enough to have another cool move instead of "take a cool move from another class", maybe your class isn't cool and interesting enough to warrant playing? I don't see why the Fighter couldn't have had more moves about being a big badass instead of multiclassing for any reason other than "it's kind of like extra feats in D&D". I'm kind of torn on this because on one hand you can do some pretty neat things with multiclassing to make a cool kind of variant of a class, but it really shouldn't be what defines your class. I definitely think there should be simple classes and I think the Fighter fits that pretty well, but I kind of feel like that should be the Fighter's thing. Maybe you just want to be a big buff dude who punches dragons in the face and doesn't care about getting stabbed three times in a row, and if so well hot drat you're gonna love the Fighter! That is the Fighter's cool thing, not being able to read minds on the side or summon demons or something. There might be an argument that the Fighter doesn't do his cool thing very well or that his cool thing is too basic for most players, but he does his cool thing, he does it in a way that some players definitely enjoy, and it's pretty hard to argue that he doesn't do it effectively given how ridiculously high his damage and defense is. I think the Fighter's really solid, but he covers the niche for 'extremely basic class', so when making new classes we have to branch out from there. This doesn't make the Fighter a bad class, it just makes other classes more complex. If there's any problem I have with the Fighter it's more with the Improved Fighter, turning him from "really good at fighting but still subject to the dice" to "hahah nope the enemy will never make an attack unless I roll 6- on Battle Instincts, which I will probably follow with another Battle Instincts roll once I get done with that consequence". Maybe that's just me though.
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Apr 9, 2013 19:40
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I actually really like those kinds of hazards to throw against a Fighter like that and I'll keep that in mind, but I'm not sure what you mean by turn. On a 6- something bad happens and since the move doesn't say what it is that just means 'make a hard move', but once that's over with if they're still capable of doing anything they can just roll Battle Instincts again. Since it's a hold generating move the only threat in rolling 7-9 is having to roll to generate more hold sooner. So long as they're not being crushed in the troll's grip, they can totally just deflect his club and entirely negate the whole move, not just the damage.
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Apr 9, 2013 20:05
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Golden Bee posted:For the Zealot, why are the weapons a fine bow and a rapier? It should be a cruel blade of some kind. You can be a Zealot for a good god. Just because you're really into your god's teachings doesn't mean you're out making sacrifices out of everything that moves. A jagged ritual blade or something might be good as an extra choice, but the current gear seems fine.
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Apr 9, 2013 22:33
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TombsGrave posted:Ladies and gents: The Slipstream Warrior! As always, thanks for the help. A couple things bother me just from a quick scan, might look over it in more detail later. Tempered and Kiln Body should just say "armor X from heat and cold". There's no 'fire' and 'cold' tags, so wording it as 'fire damage' is kind of weird. In that case, extreme heat from a desert wouldn't count as it isn't 'fire', but given what you seem to be going for it should totally work for that. Exorcist's Blade feels like it'd be kind of hard to use often enough to warrant taking it as a move. Maybe if it did more it might be more appealing, like affecting more things so it's more useful in more circumstances. The trigger should also probably be 'when you deal damage', because it later goes on to specify that you're trading damage for the effect, but it's a bit unclear as to if you have to actually succeed on a Hack & Slash/Volley to actually do the effect or not. Just needs the wording cleared up a little bit. On a similar note, You Don't Belong In This World should probably trigger on attacking if it's supposed to surpass all defenses, instead of only kicking in once you actually land an attack. Where normally some insubstantial spirit or something like that might be difficult to actually land a blow on, your special training makes you more than capable of fighting them. So long as you can actually swipe at them, you should be able to really tear into them.
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Apr 10, 2013 19:23
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Feels more like a thing that would fit a Compendium Class, but I don't think anything of the sort exists at the moment in either form. There's definitely enough to the idea to make a Compendium Class out of it, though, complete with the prereq being "be exposed to some pretty awful science things".
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Apr 11, 2013 01:46
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The Initiate fits pretty well for the Black Belt, but even then you could just use a Fighter with their fists as their Signature weapon. Other than that, Cleric, Wizard, and Bard cover the three mages just fine. The Priest and Mage exist if you don't like Vancian casting, but the original FF had Vancian casting anyways so it fits better if you just stick to the two spell list classes. Classes designed specifically to be the three mages probably wouldn't be different enough from the existing spellbooks to really make a brand new class out of.
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Apr 14, 2013 21:42
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Yeah, if you want to tweak the spells just come up with different ones or add on new ones or whatever it's pretty easy to do that. So long as they have a level attached to them they'll plug in just fine to the spellcasting moves. You might also want to throw the Red Mage a bone and give him something extra at level 1 and/or tweak Arcane Art because playing a Bard kind of sucks.
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Apr 14, 2013 22:00
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The reactions you get are going to be as good as the situation presented. Don't just throw some lame goblins at them or they'll just roll H&S until it dies. Maybe the cavern they walked into is actually the maw of a giant Mountain Turtle, and poo poo goes south when the thing decides to pick up and move while the party's inside. Pit them against pools of fire elementals that flicker every which way over a creaky wooden bridge. Just skip the formalities and pull that dragon you put at the end of the dungeon out now because fighting that thing is going to be way more fun than dealing with the goblin scouting parties. It's important to avoid throwing non-results at them or they'll get discouraged, but if you want to have an epic adventure you have to pit them against suitable adversary. When you roll a 7-9, think "what they wanted happens, but at a cost". Maybe they dropped their bag full of treasure as they made the leap across the chasm and they have to either decide it's not worth it or dive after it. Maybe the broken scaffolding smashed the troll on the head real good, but he decided to pick up the wreckage as a big club. If you can't think of something cool, it might be because the situation isn't big enough. If you're just handling simple goblins and the like, coming up with cool consequences might be difficult. Up the pressure and consequences should come more naturally, given the much larger pool of choices available.
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Apr 17, 2013 04:01
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gnome7 posted:The Improved Fighter 2.0, now with all your Battle Instincts pains relieved.  This is a lot better, especially the requirement for melee combat. It's still nice and strong and lets the Fighter get up on someone to dunk their face in the toilet, but without the whole "entirely invincible" thing. Also glad you didn't write out the '1 or 2' on Signature Weapon. I don't know when I'll play a Fighter, but when I do I demand to have Spear Fists, or even better, Bow Fists with the new addition.
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Apr 17, 2013 21:09
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Tollymain posted:Yo, can I get some feedback on my playbook I've been working on the past few days? Good, bad, utter poo poo? Things that need fixing, things that should be cut, things that simply Should Not Be? There's no default gear or load value, you're missing the little blurb that would have that at the start of your Gear list. As for the choices themselves, I'd like to see something more interesting than weight 0 on the shackles and you should probably hand out more than just one piddly potion or roll of bandages for the misc items. Shaped By Circumstance: I'm not a big fan of replacing what you use to Defy Danger, especially when there's nothing in your starting moves that really 'sets' what you use. It would seem like it's just a way to let you do more things while not having to worry about your stats being poured into your class's main thing, but then there's no 'main stat' so you could just pick whatever stats you want. There's nothing wrong with not having a main stat or sorts, but if anything that just makes it easier to assign them as you please. Also, a situational +d2 damage is kind of lame compared to the other two choices, partially because the other two are crazy broken. Aggressively Altered: This is cool. Just some neat stuff that lets you just 'do' stuff in the fiction. Yes, Master: This sounds cool, but the first part and the trigger itself feel weirdly disconnected. You've got actual commands from the race or whatever that enslaved you still affecting you when you hear them today being the flavor, but then suddenly the trigger is 'old habits die hard'. Stolen Talisman: The weapon feels kind of lame, because it basically boils down to a whole starting move just for never losing your weapon. It'll definitely come up, but it feels really weak as a core part of the class. The construct's pretty alright, simpler than a hireling but still something you can probably do neat things with. As for the sack, it's a weird, more dangerous Bag of Holding with a really awkward trigger, and 'load management' doesn't exactly make for a cool core ability to a class. Eyes of the Other: If it works no matter the Discern Realities result, just word it as a thing you can do, like how Druids can just flat out talk to animals they know. Just make it so that you're capable of seeing through your old master's ruses, simple as that. Alien Culture: I dunno, not a big fan of this. Why can you drive a hard bargain with your old captors? Don't they just want to kick you around? If anything this could be an advance, but as a core ability to the class it doesn't make sense, marks the sixth starting move the class has, and is kind of weak. Troublemaker: I feel like this could be pretty fun if it did more than just hand out a +1, but it's not bad. Self-made Man: I'm not a fan of stuff that throws rations out myself but that's just my opinion and doesn't mean much. Poison immunity almost feels too specific for me, but that heavily depends on the campaign at hand. Brother Mine: Yes. Very good, fits perfectly with the Oddysee theme. I Am Nobody's Slave: Not really sure why it replaces Yes, Master. You've still got the experience from working as a captive, even if you refuse to submit to them now. Shaped by Circumstance: Your choice at level 1 shouldn't restrict your choice at level 6+. The Gladiator's choice feels a bit small for a 6-10 advance. ...And Made Them My Own: I'd kind of rather this be changed up to 10+ and extra options on the others. It reminds me of the Mage's Spell Mastery, and I think it should be around that strong given what it does and it being a 6+ advance. The New Flesh: I think that by level 6+ you should have access to cooler, more dramatic things than "eyes on the back of your head". Being a golem/robot is a little cooler, but more for what it implies for the fiction in general than for it meaning you don't have to worry about rations or sleep much. I think my biggest issue is the starting moves. They should make a cohesive whole and be the 'core' of your class, because short of houserules the idea is that every Stolen has those moves. They're kind of a mish-mash of random things though, and there's some advanced moves like I Stole Your Demons that I feel would be better starters. Really, I'm having a hard time coming up with four distinct starting moves for Abe. I kind agree with Bee, there's a couple moves in here that would make a great Awakened Abe kind of compendium class, but the core idea might be too specific to be a whole class even if you tweaked the moves.
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Apr 18, 2013 00:28
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Tollymain posted:I think my big problem is other than "You were taken by assholes" and "You are no longer the same person", I'm not sure which move concepts should be core to this playbook. It seemed to me that if you were going to have a weird thing stolen from your masters that it should probably be in from the start, otherwise it seems like it just appears from the aether when you take the advance. Frankly I'm probably just bad at coming up with weird and interesting magical talismans. Yeah, it's a pain when you realize you might not have as much to go on as you thought, as a bunch of scrapped classes I've been toying around with have shown me. As for the choice between two, I couldn't tell if that was a note to yourself or something about maybe moving it to advances or what. Inspiration-wise, it's more that I'm familiar with Oddworld while I have no idea what Changeling even is, or probably other things that it's referencing. It definitely gives me a big Abe's Oddysee vibe though, and that's definitely a good thing.
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Apr 18, 2013 02:13
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Isn't there a finished version of the Sharpshooter that took that out in exchange for +1/-1 to Volley rolls?
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Apr 22, 2013 01:58
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Ulta posted:Didn't see it in the OP, but someone put the core rules in HTML format. Easier to hook people than a PDF, easy reference cue for a smartphone. It's right under the Core Rules header, actually. It also has some minor differences from the final version and is missing some things, but I can't remember what off the top of my head.
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Apr 22, 2013 16:08
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At the risk of getting swept under Inverse World excitement (I, too, am excited), I'm hoping I can get some feedback on my Spirit Catcher class in progress. From catching spirits in jars like fireflies to having your goofy bird tattoo be the spirit of the grand Phoenix, the Spirit Catcher is all about catching spirits, talking to them, and letting them go. Or crushing the very life out of them, if you're a big jerk. I guess my big specific worries are "is this cool" and "does Forced Release work well/how should I tweak it", but anything about anything in there would be nice to hear. The Catcher isn't supposed to be a big combat class, but isn't d4+buff move bad at it. I figure the flavor will work fine in any campaign, whether that be the fantasy hero with the dragon tattoo, a wizened old man with a lantern full of souls, or even a technomancer who talks to the ghost in the shell. There's definitely some stuff that needs to be tweaked in there, but staring at it by myself any longer is just going to make me freak out and think the whole thing is a bad idea. Also, there's no mechanical limit to the number of spirits you can hold at any given time. I considered making it equal to your Constitution back when I wanted it to be split between WIS and CON, but both because I don't want to make a move that replaces the stat you use to H&S/Volley and because that felt weird and cumbersome I went ahead and dropped it. I don't know how much the class really needs to restrict you to a certain number of spirits held at any time, but I figure it's not really a problem since nothing can abuse having fifty souls in reserve. Soul Eater could turn them into a bunch of HP, but it'll also melt your brain.
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Apr 23, 2013 05:51
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Kellsterik posted:There's hardly any choice in the moves themselves, no pick-2 from these 4 and only one hold move when that seems fitting for a collecting-and-expending-things class. Especially Soul Eater could easily be made into a choice move, something like TombsGrave posted:Soul Eater is thematically interesting but the catch of it is more than likely going to dissuade players from learning it rather than take it and use it wisely for fear of permanent loss of control. I might have been avoiding choice lists after going overboard on them with another class I'm working on, but I don't really want to make a big deal out of hold for spirits since it either heavily restricts the number of spirits you can catch or gets into handling numbers too big to comfortably manage in a simple game like DW. Soul Eater especially is something I want to avoid making a choice move. It's not supposed to be something you do a bunch, it's supposed to be you breaking the natural order of things and greedily consuming the spirits of others instead of letting them pass on to Death's domain, and it's not a healthy thing to do often. Rolling to consume a spirit seems kind of odd, given you already rolled to catch them and possibly rolled to make them stop fighting against you. If Soul Eater seems scary and makes people not want to risk taking it, I feel like that means the positive isn't as good as it should be. I don't want it to let you learn everything a spirit knew, but maybe it should specify that it'll be relevant to your current situation if possible, or give you greater bonuses, or maybe make a chunk of the health regen be static so it's dependable as a heal. I'm afraid of it getting out of hand and ending up longwinded and confusing, but I don't want to just make shoving ten spirits down your gullet give you -X ongoing until your spirit-stomachache subsides. It should be usable often enough to be worth spending an advance on, but not often enough that you just stab a bag of rats and have fifty healing potions on hand to make you invincible. Kellsterik posted:For Slip Through The Cracks, how exactly do you strike at an enemy's spirit? By using Forceful Release? Or if not, what keeps you from striking every enemy's spirit for every attack? It's meant to be a simple +bonus move, kind of like something along the lines of "When you spill the blood of your enemies, take +X damage ongoing". Unless the thing doesn't have a spirit of any kind, you should be able to strike at it every attack, yes. It'd be kind of lame if you spent a whole advance just to get +2 against armor in a few specific cases. I think I'll reword it so that it's when you 'aim' at an enemy's spirit. Kellsterik posted:For the 'Words' method of catching, does 'calm a spirit' refer to the 7-9 result on Spiritbind? That could be reworded as something more active/evocative, "convince" or "placate" maybe. Calm is a bit tepid and indistinct. Yeah, I could probably use a different word for that. The goal was to make Words let you be really convincing, so you could lie to something and say you're going to carry out its task, but expel/banish/whatever it once you've gotten what you wanted out of it, or you could happily carry out their tasks if you're a nice kind of adventurer. Kellsterik posted:Thinking of Mask of the Betrayer, I think you could diversify the class and support more playstyles by adding some more advances centered on the idea of a natural or unnatural hunger, able to intimidate spirits with your reputation/aura and consume them for power. There's a seed of it currently in the Whispers of the World and Soul Eater moves, maybe you could have an advanced move like One of my 6-10 advanced moves I'm planning is literally Demon's/Dark Souls style weapon forging, so I definitely plan on making some kind of binding. I'll try to make a more notable spot for a consuming and unearthly Catcher as I finish up the 6-10 moves to pair up with stuff like Snatcher and Soul Eater, but I want to avoid doing things that the core classes can do and using monster moves is kind of the Druid's domain. TombsGrave posted:Spiritbind's 10+ is easier than a 7-9 but it also sounds more limited. Maybe it should read "On a 10+, the spirit agrees to help you for a time. On a 7-9 the spirit is unwilling; choose one: * It puts up a struggle. * It will only help you on one condition." Hm, I guess I'm torn between having spirits retain their will or having spirits be willing to help you when you catch them. I kind of prefer spirits acting as they will, but having moves that refer to spending spirits not require they be willing (Forced Release works just as well on the bloodthirsty orc as the friendly old man, and once you put it in your mouth food is food). If you snatch some goblin scout's soul, you can turn it into a hand crossbow easily, but if you try talking with him he'll probably be panicked that the humies are stomping around in the territory he was supposed to be protecting before that wolf ate him. I kind of see it like the Druid's ability to talk to animals: just because you can bark like a wolf doesn't mean they'll do a backflip for you and beg for treats. Maybe that makes catching spirits feel weak though? TombsGrave posted:You might need to clarify "Become the Hunted." Maybe "you send your spirit out to act in your stead" instead of "you may act as your incorporeal spirit;" as-is, it sounds like you turn yourself incorporeal, and "returning to your body" looks like either an error or a non-sequitur. I definitely need to clarify it, but it's kind of the other way around. The idea actually is to turn yourself incorporeal. Maybe I should use a word like 'resume' instead of 'return' to make it more understandable that you're turning yourself into your spirit and then turning yourself back when you run out of hold. Well, that's a big post, but it's good to hear that people are interested in the Catcher and this feedback will hopefully help me clean a few things up and put up some revisions later. The fact that people can match it up with crazy ideas with significantly different takes on the same base already makes this feel pretty successful, though, given how much I love doing that myself. And because I feel the need to return the favor, I'll add in some things about the Giant! Spatial Awareness is an awesome move and assigning numbers to the sizes makes this work really well, but the sizes themselves have a bit of a problem. The greater sizes make it exponentially more difficult to handle the Giant in a campaign, but the gains for increasing your size don't feel worth it. Being the Iron Giant with your tiny little buddies definitely has some potential, but being sixty feet tall is a pretty extreme restriction, and about forty feet isn't much better. Being able to attack at Near with melee sounds kind of cool, but, especially if you decide to add Hurl in, I think it'd work better both mechanically and fictionally if you just opted to chuck things at ranged enemies when exceeding melee range. It'll cause a lot of destruction, shove stuff around, be cool as hell, and still use STR and deal your damage. I'm not so sure the scale should be between troll and Godzilla. Being three, maybe four times as tall as a typical human feels like a better cap, otherwise it seems like it'd be too difficult to put real fictional challenges for the Giant aside from stuff that requires finesse. At 10x size, I can just plant my foot on the orc battalion and win. Swipes of my arms will take out entire cities, I can crush drat near anything, and I can even just sit on the big scary dragon and smash it with my weight. That sounds cool, but also really difficult to pair with your buddies the size of your finger. The Gargantuan Giant just feels too far removed from even some pretty fantastic parties with grand powers. It's really cool to be all about being a giant ancient creature and I'd love to see a class like that, but unless you're playing a Godzilla vs Megazord Inverse World crossover (do this) it might be a touch too ridiculous. Maybe I'm making a bigger deal than it needs to be, but I'm having trouble thinking up a campaign that comfortably accommodates a party of adventurers and their factory-sized friend. Everything Counts posted:I'll be starting up a DW game this week for my group and I've been poking around the two threads here for ideas and help. I noticed Gnome7's "improved/alternate" base classes in the OP and was thinking about picking them up, but I was wondering if anyone could explain them to me. (Gnome7 would be the obvious choice but anyone's commentary would be welcome.) I'm just curious as to the reasons behind them--what was broken that they are fixing? With a group that's new to DW would it be best to stick with the playbooks as presented, or will these newer versions be better? Thanks! They're basically just some minor changes to the classes based on some issues people have had with them. The Fighter is given a real move to use so he isn't just "smash things and also people, that is all I do", the Bard is tweaked because it's pretty widely panned as a disappointing class, and the Wizard is just a tiny tweak to remove one of the sillier limitations of Vancian-style casting. The core classes work just fine out of the book, but if you play them and find them lacking, Gnome's versions might have something to spruce it up and make you like them more. I do think a new party might want to start with the book's classes and work from there though, since they make for a really good base. Once you get comfortable with the system, feel free to go nuts in all the crazy stuff people have made up, but diving straight into those might be difficult.
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Apr 23, 2013 20:18
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CitizenKeen posted:INT/WIS DD When you use your brain to solve a problem with booklearnin', roll +INT. When you use your brain to solve a problem with practical experience, roll +WIS. Say you want to try taking control of the Kobold Engineer's rocket platform, you could apply your knowledge of mechanics (INT), try to copy how you saw him do it (WIS), or punch it because that always works with technology (STR). If it has a magical interfacing system, maybe you could talk with it (CHA). Maybe you need to handle an army storming through town. You could outwit them (WIS, experience with military), distract them (DEX or CHA), or you could take out a support beam on a nearby building to close their path through the alleys (STR). It all comes down to how you want to handle a problem because in the end you're Defying the same Danger, just in different ways. Separating INT and WIS into booklearning and practical experience might help to make it easier to understand, though. 4 base health is an iffy thing. Health can vanish pretty quickly in Dungeon World, but there's no frontline/backline to put the low base HP and CON characters in to prevent them from being hit. The only practical way to avoid getting in danger is to not do anything and that's boring, don't do that. It doesn't help that people like to stat up their mages with really low CON, so they can get taken out really fast. I had a Warlock in a game I was running who had piddly HP and no armor, and she could take about two hits before being ready to crumple, even with 6 base HP. 2HP might not make a huge deal, but it feels like 4 base HP should be reserved for the twiggy and squishy full on mages, though some classes made bumped that up to 6 anyways and it's probably opinion whether that's good or not. Ultimately your CON is a much bigger decider of your actual HP pool, but the 6 point difference between mages and fighters is still a pretty big deal. As for d4 damage, it just kinda sucks to be worthless at hitting things. Unless you've got another way to hit things like an attack spell or a H&S/Volley replacement like Black Magic, it sucks to be stuck with the lowest damage, and not just because it's one average damage less than a d6. When you know you've got the lowest possible damage, you'll probably never use it. A d4 is incredibly unsatisfying to roll. Being the absolute worst at something isn't fun, it's better knowing that there's at least something worse than you at something. Being a flat out healbot is terrible, though thankfully impossible due to the basic moves. The only classes that have d4 damage have ways to make that better, and they only have d4 damage to push them towards doing those things instead. d4 damage on a class that deals damage with their damage die would suck. As for problem classes, the Druid is probably the biggest offender, but it's also probably the most fun class in the book and you should learn how it works instead of banning it. New players also might have trouble with the Thief because they might expect Stealth as a move and feel cheated when you tell them it's just Defy Danger +DEX like anyone else (the distinction is how easy it is to trigger it, as an armored fighter cannot sneak around and do backflips), but otherwise the hardest it gets would probably be explaining when Backstab is an option. Everything else is varying degrees of easy to grasp, given the game being designed for that, and at worst you might just get people who end up not liking the class they chose. CitizenKeen posted:Hacking and Slashing Arms Off The player didn't only trigger H&S though. They're trying to straight up use brute force and tear that thing's arm off, and that sounds like Defy Danger STR to me. You'd still deal your damage on a success because you just tore that fucker open, but the consequences can be different. Maybe you only got it through part-way and your weapon's now stuck in his shoulder. Maybe you took out a chunk of his armor instead. Maybe you got his arm, but now you've got his dagger in your own arm. Maybe you rolled a 6- and just done goofed. Alternately, the weapon the character is using has the messy tag, in which case this would be H&S and you'd use the messy tag to rip open the orc's arm with the swing. But, if you're just trying to get more out of an attack than damage and applying your tags, you should use a move that does this (i.e. Called Shot) or Defy Danger. If it's in place of a +STR H&S roll anyways it's not like you're getting a negative to it. And for class names, just name them whatever. There's probably someone somewhere who's brewed up a Warlock that isn't anything like Mikan's. I don't think anyone's going to care all that much, especically if you're not trying to sell the class.
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Apr 26, 2013 16:57
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That sounds like a lot of work when you could just Multiclass, or better yet, just reflavor the class. Does someone want to be an Arcane Archer? Give them the Ranger or Marksman or what have you and ask them about how each move works. Is your bow a cool spell you've etched into a scroll that, when activated, turns into a wicked sweet greatbow made of cool magic crystal? Maybe you don't have a bow at all and you just cast hexes that you've written into a tome and pull out rune by rune to use, tweaked with special power when you want to use a Called Shot. Maybe you tie scrolls to your arrows to shoot and trigger their effects. Maybe you're straight outta Gauntlet and throw swords at everything. Go hog wild! Alternately, just let them spend an advance on Cast a Spell and now they can cast magic complete with a trigger. It's that easy; so easy that you can allow every class to multiclass as if they had Multiclass Dabbler in their 2-5 and 6-10 advances if you want and you won't break any kind of balance. Multiclassing is a mess in most systems, but all it means in Dungeon World is deciding to take something else. So long as you don't take either of the spell lists there's absolutely nothing changing how the move you pick works, and it's not too hard to handle the spell list level exception. The point of a class is to give you a handful of mechanical triggers and a baseline for how you do the cool things you do. Mixing and matching them up like puzzle pieces sounds terrible: you'll split up what makes each class distinct and cool! If a class doesn't feel cool enough for a player, either it's not the class for them or the class isn't as cool as other classes and needs tweaking itself. Multiclassing gives you a chance to dip into other classes and grab a cool thing, but it can get iffy if you grab another player's cool thing because now you've got all your cool stuff AND you step on their toes, and nobody wants to be overshadowed like that. This is why I'm not a big fan of multiclassing myself, but I can just talk with the other players to make sure we all keep our distinct cool things. Ultimately, what I think is most important is how you describe the cool things you do. If a player keeps doing a cool thing a certain way, write them a move for that and encourage them to do that cool thing because it's fun to do. Don't cobble a bunch of half-ideas together and try to make them work, get a full idea and go overboard with it. You don't have to be a Wood Elf Ranger with his plain wolf companion, you can be a Necromancer who summons skeletons to his aid and uses his 'quiver' full of hexes to nail targets and seeking rituals to track down his prey. You're still a Ranger and use the mechanics exactly the same way between the two, but they're very different flavor-wise and even have different potential for triggering moves just because of the fiction behind the character!
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Apr 26, 2013 19:03
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I was initially trying to make the Spirit Catcher split between WIS and CON in the starting moves and was considering CHA in the advances until I stepped back and realized either I replace H&S and Volley with a WIS check (no) or just swapped every move over to WIS and let people actually have a stat choice. You don't have to make your main stat your best one, but that should be the player's choice. If you're already calling for two stats in the starting moves, especially if they don't overlap with basic moves you'll use often, you're putting some pretty ridiculous restraints on the player. Your choice in assigning your stats should be up to you based on what kind of basic moves you want to use and what kind of role you want to play. The starting moves of your class should compliment that, not drag you into using WIS on a Fighter to make sure one of your main moves is accurate. When a class is stuck with three different abilities it primarily uses, that's either all of your positive bonuses down the drain before you can make any cool choices or 0's and -1's on stuff your class tends to use just because you want to make your stats fit the character you want to play. The Fighter focuses on STR and that's how the class is designed, so that's fine. From there, it should be your choice on if you want to use Precise tags and backflips to be a dextrous fighter, or pack on the CON to be a big brick wall, or maybe even buff your INT because you're actually a magician with a magic sword and a spell that lets you bend bars and break gates. People tend to want the thing their character is good at to have a good number attached to it, and that should be perfectly fine. MAD isn't such a big problem in Dungeon World between the way stats work and the numbers only being between -1 to +3, but that doesn't mean it's not a problem.
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Apr 26, 2013 21:01
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Rusty Kettle posted:However, page 30 says something like 'boon like a cleric' in an example, which I guess has something to do with 'Divine guidance'? I assumed boons for the fae and paladin were special to them, but I thought maybe I missed a generic definition somewhere in the pdf. That bit on Page 30 is just giving an in-character explanation for someone learning the Divine Guidance move, despite being a Wizard in class.
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Apr 27, 2013 17:25
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Depends, who or what does the Cleric worship? What kind of intervention would they provide to one of their flock? Would Sehanine give you a +1 to H&S for bravely charging into battle? No, she'd probably provide the cover of nightfall to hide your sneaking. The Grand Earthmover might shift the ground about. The Master of Invention might spark the old and forgotten machine city back to life. It all depends on how big the action is, how significantly you're fulfilling your deity's precepts, and what you're trying to do in the first place. In other words, it's all in the fiction, but it can offer a strictly mechanical benefit if you want it to.
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Apr 27, 2013 22:13
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The more I think about it the more I figure that there's not much of a reason for a notably large Giant to be excluded from things. The old Gargantuan was straight up overkill and really where the problem was, but a big cave troll works just fine. The 'dungeons' you're going to are just as abstracted as any other place you visit, it's not a huge leap for a GM to just say "yeah you can fit in". Maybe there's a tight space that you have to smash open or squeeze through because you're a giant, but if there's a distinctly man-sized dungeon that the Giant is just stuck out of maybe that's not a thing your group should encounter. It's not like making it big enough to accommodate the troll is going to ruin everyone else's immersion, and the Giant isn't incapable of joining in the conversation from outside the village chief's hut. I don't really like the Talisman because, at least from what I remember last time I looked at the Giant, that leaves them with "can use their ancient magics" and I guess "can eat rocks". The Giant's thing is, understandably, being a Giant, so a move that lets them follow the rest of the party into the kobold cave with the caveat that you aren't allowed to be a Giant feels kinda lovely, though suddenly becoming a giant again inside the cave could be cool. Also, if I had to choose between the two I'd totally pick "can literally lift mountains" over "can be stuck with basic moves". If the campaign is really gonna revolve around going through small tunnels and the like but a player really wants to use the Giant, I think an extra page about "The Giant in Small Spaces" could help. Maybe the Giant could be someone with big badass power armor, but they're bulky as poo poo and keep knocking stuff over and falling down stairs. Maybe they could just straight up be a golem. Hell, maybe they're Hercules. All of these options could totally work with the Giant's moveset while shifting the size down and keeping the "way too big and strong, knocks everything over on accident" downside that makes the Giant fun.
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Apr 29, 2013 16:27
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Androc posted:Also, sorry to sort of keep harping on it, but I would really appreciate some feedback on the cursed knight before I start finalizing and formatting it. Rip and Tear is kind of awful. It wagers Urge gain for a benefit which is a fine base idea, but the benefit is just forceful or messy, not even both. The benefit doesn't outweigh the negative at all, so I'd much rather just use Hack and Slash and never have to worry about Urge until I start getting advanced moves that generate it. Scatter Before Me makes it a lot better, but it almost feels like a tax to make risking Urge gain worthwhile. I don't exactly understand why Charisma is Knight's secondary stat. It otherwise applies when trying to talk up people or trying to manipulate people with leverage, but the Cursed Knight doesn't really seem to be the charming sort of person and the latter seems like it should be a thing you can do Force Choke style. The holy paladin seems like a charismatic and nice fellow, but the antipaladin only ever had charisma as a main stat because it was weirdly associated with the divine in D&D. That's probably a thing the Cursed Knight shouldn't have. Bloodthirst seems annoying to track because its presence forces days to be considered, is a thing you have to specially mark on your sheet, and in a Cursed Knight's usual circumstances might not ever be a problem. It could be interesting to force the Knight into a blood frenzy when he's cooped up long enough, but -1 HP/day that all comes back as soon as you stab a chicken isn't a very threatening way to scare the Knight into going on a rampage. As an option it seems like an excellent out from having to suffer the more notable effects in the other downsides, and that's not a good thing. I don't really like Quell the Spark. 1d8 health is unreliable and low so the hit effect feels lame and if you miss you get a bunch of Urge dumped on you and something else bad happens. It's fine having scary and dangerous negatives, but the positives have to be worth the risk and 1d8 HP is not worth the risk. There are some cases where taking the risk is worthwhile or even not significant enough to call it a risk (which is fine, not everything has to be super dangerous to use), but a big issue I'm seeing throughout the Knight is risks that aren't worth taking. Gaining Urge is easy and losing it is hard, but having max Urge is rarely worth it and risking Urge gain isn't often worth it either. A class that holds as much risk as the Cursed Knight probably shouldn't be about as useful or less useful as other classes. I'm also not a big fan of all the replacement moves. I understand that they're being used to give one choice out of several within advances, but this both limits the number of choices you can actually make and ends up creating things like Rip and Tear's advances where you effectively need them to make the Urge risk worth taking.
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Apr 29, 2013 17:36
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CitizenKeen posted:Is there any other option than the traditional blank character sheet write-in-your-own-moves option, with three pages of spells/moves stapled behind it? Make a base class for them to represent their core 'thing', let them go nuts and describe their character however they want, add benefits to these things by making them gear if you want, and if it's really so crazy that they want to do a million things and demand solid moves for each thing, just have them tell you what they learn on an advance. Cut out the whole second page full of advances, scribble the gear on the back of the first sheet and scribble all your advances on a second sheet. You could even cut out XP if you wanted to go whole hog with it, making it so that characters just learn new moves when they learn them instead of taking until a new level to do so. That last bit breaks a pretty big part of classes in Dungeon World, but it's an option if your players don't need XP to feel better about 6- rolls. Advances give you the opportunity to expand on your class and make sort of sub-classes to build up a big complete thing, but that doesn't seem to be what your group cares about. Don't force them into it, just play the game you all enjoy. If you want to be a sharpshooting golemancer bank investor with robot eyes, just go for it Dredmor style. Your players seem like they want to be creative, you could just go ahead and tell them "write me the moves you want, that's your class". Maybe put some moves that are too powerful in check, but otherwise this seems to fit what you want while still being in a *World shell. This ends up as "traditional blank character sheet write-in-your-own-moves", but you won't have three or four classes stapled to the back and if your players don't go crazy and change their moves every session you can even Inkscape up sheets just for them. In the end it's just what each of your players wants to do in move form. You can make a system for handling hacking classes together, but I feel like at that point you're trying to take "game where you really can just write your own moves and make your own class and the book even has a whole chapter in the back talking about how to do this" and bend that all backwards until it snaps into a couple pieces that you can then arrange as you want. Maybe it's just that I don't like the idea, but for a group of players who seem to love making poo poo up and going crazy I don't see why you need to hand them puzzle pieces instead of letting them draw their own picture. Classes are definitely important for the game, but if you have the capacity to just make poo poo up and your group's cool with that there shouldn't be any problem with it. A modular thing could be nice for groups that aren't so comfortable with just diving in and going nuts, though. Androc posted:I want to make sure I'm understanding the second part correctly: you're saying that the replacement moves seem mandatory just for the class to function on a basic level? Yeah, there's definitely a worry about the Knight going crazy-go-nuts and becoming an unstoppable nuclear missile tank. I almost feel like making the risk proportional to the power you get could be a good way to fix this, though I'd have to see in practice to tell if it's really such a big issue. Same with Rip and Tear, it sounds better and now just depends on how it feels in-game. As for stat, I feel like CON's the best fit if you don't want to use STR. It's all about being strong enough to not be overcome by your darkness. Bloodthirst's change is a lot better, and Quell the Spark is more reliable and worth using. I feel like someone like the Cursed Knight should be able to just gobble down souls like no thing, so having the benefit be solid while the threat is eating a poison mushroom seems fine to me, but the actual value might depend on how it ends up in-game. As for feeling the replacement moves are mandatory, yes. They make my core things more interesting and useful by flat out replacing them. Rip and Tear matching its risk better makes me feel less like I need to grab its advances to make the move worth it, but the advances are still a flat out improved version of my old move which is effectively my class's bread and butter move. Break Free's advances feel a bit better in this regard because Ride the Wave just adds a new thing to the move and feels like it could be worded as an advance all on its own if you weren't trying to prevent people from taking both Break Free advances, though re-reading Bonds of Silver I notice that it has no 10+ line at all, not even to say "you're fine nothing happens".
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Apr 29, 2013 19:31
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CitizenKeen posted:They're the kind of people who would take a core Fighter, give him a 17 Int, suffer through the first level and then take multi-class spellcasting, because the fighter has enough other awesome moves to make it a great combat wizard (+4 Armor and so forth), and then at level 6 they take druid shapechange. They'd also be bad at reading because there's only one multiclass slot for the Fighter in 2-5 so all they could take was a spellbook, not Ritual too. The Bard has two in 2-5, but that means making their base class the Bard and min-maxers would hate that poo poo. By level 6 there's a ton of other poo poo they could be taking instead of the highly narrative Shapeshift skill.
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Apr 29, 2013 19:48
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CitizenKeen posted:Apologies, I was just pulling an example out of my rear end. I'm aware that a Fighter-base who multiclasses into Wizard doesn't get Ritual (if they take the spellcasting). I was just pointing out that they're the kind of people who will write a four page fluff backstory to justify taking moves from any class. Now, if a player writes four pages of fluff they should be able to do pretty much whatever they want, but with an emphasis on pretty much. I’m concerned that making DW classless could get dangerous and tricky from a balance perspective. It shouldn't be tricky from a balance perspective, all you have to do is, well, approach it. Work with your players to make the moves, and ideally have some experience with Dungeon World itself before diving straight in. When I first touched Dungeon World I was using Shapeshifter hold to give me +whatever to damage on Hack and Slash rolls and thought d6 damage was really lame. Then I slammed my head against a wall with sandworm hold and realized "this is Dungeon World, gently caress yes". Dungeon World isn't a game that rewards you for stacking the best mechanics on top of each other, it's a game where you roll 6- and jump into the giant flame whale's mouth to get your sword back. It actually does crunch really badly and most fights might very well be you swinging around on a giant stone golem until you trick it into smashing through the wall to the treasure room for you. There's very few bonuses to be had and a box for a negative to each stat on the sheet, everything else is just the story you're telling. That said, everyone should have a distinct 'thing' that's theirs to do. That's why classes are important, because they are those 'things'. It can be difficult to separate everyone into having their own distinct things to do if they just make their own characters up, but I feel like getting together and making your characters as a group both solves this problem and is a really good thing to do anyways.
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Apr 29, 2013 20:31
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If I feel like Backstab could probably use a reliable numbers option or something so you didn't have the possibility of rolling 2 damage, but generally if you get the drop on something and deal d8+d6 damage to them, chances are pretty good they're dead, and d8 might even have a fair shot at gibbing them. If they're not dead, either you rolled like poo poo (a problem with it using damage rolls) or they were strong enough to endure the attack. Personally I'm not fond of it being binary "you sneak up on and stab the guard in the throat, he dies" or "what no you can't use this move". Backstab isn't just for flat out assassination (though with its sheer damage output, it can do this), it's also for dirty tricks, ganging up on a target, and even just kicking dirt in some poor chump's face while he's down. It has nothing to do with hitting a vital spot and everything to do with dirty fighting and swinging below the belt. A separate assassination move is fine and I figure there's some good way to do it, especially for a class geared heavily around being sneaky. Thing is, the Thief has a grand total of one sneaky move and that's Disguise. There's a ton of room to take up the side of a sneakier dagger-fiend, but it's not what the Thief is. The Thief is the jerk who takes people's purses and runs away, stabs them in the back when they look the wrong way down the alley and shoves a boot through their knee, or just acts like a clown and doesn't take stuff seriously. If there's a problem with Backstab, it's that it's not entirely reliable. But that's what it is! You're risking a 6- in exchange for a bonus or two, and they're pretty solid bonuses. It's a gamble, and that's both totally okay and fits extremely well with the Thief. Backstab's one of my favorite moves in the core books, and the only thing I feel the Thief needs is a few more interesting advances to replace flops like Strong Arm, True Aim.
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Apr 30, 2013 23:41
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CuddlyZombie posted:As a potential DM, anything I should definitely check out besides the DM guide linked in the OP? There's so many links and extra classes and all that stuff and I'm not sure how deep I can dig and not get overwhelmed. Starting out, I'd heavily suggest sticking to the core book, or limiting your trip into crazy custom classes to Gnome's Alternate Playbooks which provide different versions of the Wizard, Cleric and Paladin, with the two spellcasters having their Vancian-style casting gutted. Once you play a bit and get an idea of what to expect you can better understand classes people have made, where diving straight into them might leave you confused. If you have a Druid player, you might want to check out Lemon's Shapeshifting FAQ, as it's a fairly difficult to understand right away. CuddlyZombie posted:I'm wondering why there are so many third-party classes already, some of them being so specific! Are the classes in Dungeon world a lot less flexible/reskin-unfriendly than classes in, say, D&D 4e? It's just so easy to make them. There's even a chapter in the back all about making your own classes, which basically says "you've probably noticed that every class is a few moves based on a theme. You can do this too!", and people definitely picked up on that. The classes in Dungeon World are excellent at being reskinned, with my go-to example being a Ranger reskinned to a Necromancer. You use hexes instead of a bow and arrows, you can make them specific to do a Called Shot, and you control some undead as your companion. Still works exactly the same as the Ranger mechanically, but is extremely heavily reskinned. 4e was easy to reskin, but making a whole class was a ridiculous undertaking. Here it's ~4 starting moves, ~3 alignments, ~3 racials, some gear, and two sets of ten advanced moves, all of which fits very nicely on two pages.
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May 1, 2013 01:23
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