Time vs. Risk
Time vs. Risk
Most skills automatically succeed if the party takes a Turn to do them (searching for secret doors, disarming traps, deciphering text, detecting magic, etc), incurring an Exploration Die roll. A Skill roll can be made to perform the task quickly, not triggering an Exploration Die roll. But if a natural 1 is rolled, roll on the Calamity Table.
The Exploration Die would be something like Gus L's with a combo of encounters, light, magic, and fatigue.
The Calamity Table would be ambushes, equipment breaking or lost, etc.
Most skills automatically succeed if the party takes a Turn to do them (searching for secret doors, disarming traps, deciphering text, detecting magic, etc), incurring an Exploration Die roll. A Skill roll can be made to perform the task quickly, not triggering an Exploration Die roll. But if a natural 1 is rolled, roll on the Calamity Table.
The Exploration Die would be something like Gus L's with a combo of encounters, light, magic, and fatigue.
The Calamity Table would be ambushes, equipment breaking or lost, etc.
Well not automatically succeed - but no penalty for failure, you can repeat trying to pick the lock or decipher the inscription - it's just that your torches burn down, the creeps come creepin' and you start getting hungry. Generally I give a 3 in 6 for class skills at 1st - 3rd, 4 in 6 4th - 7th and 5 in 6 7th - 10th levels.
ReplyDeleteWhat's this part of?
ReplyDeleteNothing, just thinking.
ReplyDeleteWhat's an exploration die?
ReplyDeleteLike a random encounter check, but with things like light sources expiring and hunger added.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Johnson It's something that Brendan S and some others basically started and that several of us G+ GM's have been using for a few years now. The way I use it is:
ReplyDeleteWhen one rolls the random encounter die every turn (or more specifically every time the party moves or stops to act), each pip does something. Generally for me it's a D6 with:
1- Random Encounter.
2- Random clue (noises - etc).
3 - Torches/candles burn out.
4 - Better light (Lanterns) are half empty.
5 - Active magic fades (i.e. your unseen servant goes home after two or three of these)
6 - Party suffers exhaustion, after three they must eat/rest (with more random encounter chances) or suffer penalties.
Now sometimes random encounters are on 1-2 and such, but generally the idea is to make all in game activities have consequences. The party can dilly-dally and fiddle with a locked door or something but they will use resources up and generally risk running into nasty things. It works well instead of tracking provisions/light/spells but depends on:
a) Random encounters that are nasty and give the party little or nothing - that is OD&D style random encounters and XP=GP.
b) An actual encumbrance system - LOTFP has a decent one, but I go more restrictive: STR = significant items carried (with some items like torches bundleable).
Thanks for the explanation Gus L. That's a really cool idea.
ReplyDeleteNeato!
ReplyDeleteEdgar Johnson It works quite well in play.
ReplyDelete