Microlite20 : the smallest thing in gaming

[kensanata]

A round is an arbitrary term - there's no difference between one guy taking seven rounds to kill a beastie, and a 20th level guys taking one "round" to hit it seven times. Combat is faster, but that's at it should be. Don't get hung over the concept of "a round". The same dice are rolled either way. albeit with higher bonuses.

I just realized that all things are not equal, if you don't change the spells. A Bull's Strength spell will have a lot more impact when fighters get to roll and hit more often.

Go, go, go, support spells!!!

 

[Darrell]

It's interesting to see how other DMs run their games. I usually try to alternate between roleplaying/investigative sessions and sessions heading up to a fight. And unlike Darrell, I find that most of my players long for the dice at least once per session.

Oh, they roll their fair share of dice; just not (usually) for combat.

Darrell, can you shed some light on this? I fear that since your group doesn't enjoy fighting so much, you haven't sent them against hordes of critters... But if you did, I'd be interested in the result.

Well, they've been involved in one orc invasion since we've been using m20, and there was a good semblance of a 'horde' involved in that. It ran pretty much by the book, save that I do allow fighters a sort of a Cleave ability (I think it's from earlier in the thread, but don't know exactly where) when fighting against large numbers of opponents (10+). If their attack kills an opponent, and there are 'leftover' hit points in damage, I let 'em fall onto another opponent.

Let's say 'Bob the Fighter' is involved in combat with an goblin horde, and his successful attack does 12 hp of damage. The goblin he's attacking is killed after applying the first 5 hp of his attack. The remaining 7 hp are applied to another goblin; and 5 more hit points dispatch this foe...leaving 2 hp 'overage,' which are dealt to yet another goblin. Rudimentary, yes, but effective in keeping the combat moving along.

I know you weren't looking for 'new rules,' but you asked how I dealt with it.

Regards,
Darrell

 

[Larcen]

Larcen, your classless suggestions are good. I'll stick them in the Macropedia (with your permission, of course) when I'm not knee-deep in Linux configuration

Sure, go for it... as long as you realize I just threw those together in one night. Might be nice to see some kind of testing on them. At the very least some sample characters drawn up to compare them with the regular M20 system.

Fighter: Charge!
Goblin: Toss javelin
Fighter: Hit with sword (+2 to-hit due to charge)
Goblin: Back away, snarling, hide under table
Fighter: attack (-2 to hit due to cover), miss
Goblin: poke with spear, hits
Fighter: "Come outta there, runt!", attack (-2 to hit due to cover), miss
Goblin: poke with spear, hits
Fighter: "Grrrrrrrrrr", throws table out of the way, hit goblin with sword, goblin dead

That's 5 rounds against a single Goblin.

Remember that in Microlite20, you only have a single action in a round, so you can move OR attack....

How did the fighter close and attack after the goblin stepped back if he could only do one action per round?

If the fighter could only close then the goblin's tactics would make more sense. As it is, the goblin is giving up a whole attack in order to give the fighter -2 on all future attacks (until the fighter gets rid of the table). Not sure it's worth it. Depends on the numbers involved I guess.

How about we set a maximum of 4 attacks per round, regardless of bonus? Does that help alleviate everyone's concerns?

I second this as well, since I am of the camp that a lite game should not have many attacks per round. In fact, 4 is still too high I think..

The most common rolls made for us in m20 are CHA vs. MIND (or Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate vs. Sense Motive in D&D).

Yay! Another person who feels CHA is one of the more useful stats in a game with lots of NPC interaction.

 

[Darrell]

I second this as well, since I am of the camp that a lite game should not have many attacks per round. In fact, 4 is still too high I think..

I daresay I agree.

Yay! Another person who feels CHA is one of the more useful stats in a game with lots of NPC interaction.

Yep! That's why one of the primary changes I made to my microlite20 house rules was puttin' CHA back in. It's way too important in my games.

Regards,
Darrell

 

[jezter6]

Ok, while eating breakfast this morning I tried the following Ogre fight against my players. These are real player characters, except for Yasu Odong, because I don't have his character sheet here, and I had to advance Yonkyu and Yasu Odong from 2nd level to 3rd.

Kyoshi, Fighter-3, 29hp, STR 16, DEX 12, MIND 8, AC 16, Masterwork Katana+8/+3 (1d10+7)
Myung, Rogue-3, 21hp, STR 12, DEX 18, MIND 9, AC 14, Wakizashi+7/+2 (1d6+1)
Yonkyu, Cleric-3, 23hp, STR 9, DEX 18, MIND 11, AC 14, Takujo+3 (1d6), Kyuu+7/+2 (1d8), Magic+3 ("The Archer")
Yasu Odong, Mage-3, 18hp, STR 5, DEX 11, MIND 14, Tanto+1 (1d4-2), Magic+5

vs.

Ogre, 29hp, AC 16, club+8 (2d8+7).

We're assuming no surprise, no ranged combat, no ambush, and thus I rule that attacks go in order of attack bonus. Since both the ogre and Kyoshi have +8, I rule that the Ogre goes first, then the exact order of players doesn't matter for the rest of the round.

Ogre rolls 10+8, does 12 damage to Kyoshi – down to 17.
Kyoshi rolls 17+8, does 10 damage to Ogre – down to 19.
Kyoshi rolls 2+3, misses.
Myung tries to hide, rolls 4 + sub (7) + DEX bonus (4) = 15
Ogre tries to spot, rolls 3 + HD (4) = 7, fails.
Yonkyu casts Bull's Strength on Kyoshi (giving him STR 20), uses 5hp – down to 18.
Yasu Odong casts Sleep on Ogre, rolls 10 + Magic Attack Bonus (5) = 15, uses 3hp – down to 15
Ogre tries to resist, rolls 15 + HD (4) = 19, succeeds.
Ogre rolls 8+8, does 17 damage to Kyoshi – down to 0!
Myung attacks from the shadows, rolls 12+7, does 5+7 damage – down to 7.
(In an alternate universe the sneak failed and he rolled 12 and 15, doing 5 and 6 damage, bringing the ogre down to 8.)
Yonkyu sees that the ogre is badly hurt and rolls 18, does 3 damage – down to 4.
Yasu Odong casts Sleep on Ogre, rolls 9 + Magic Attack Bonus (5) = 14, uses 3hp – down to 12
Ogre tries to resist, rolls 6 + HD (4) = 10, fails, and will fall asleep next round!
Ogre rolls 15+8, does 20 damage to Myung – down to 1!
Myung rolls 9+7, does 5 damage to ogre – killing it before sleep takes effect.

Party wins!

Yonkyu casts Cure Light Wounds twice on Kyoshi & Myung, costing him 12 hp total, healing 2d8+6 for each: 15 for Kyoshi and 14 for Myung.

Status:
Kyoshi @ 15/29hp
Myung @ 15/21hp
Yonkyu @ 11/23hp
Yasu Odong @ 12/18hp
58% of max.

Conclusion:
1. Not a point landing with the party ending at 58% instead of 75%.
2. Combat was interesting I think.
3. The ogre having the initiative did not decide the fight.

With a +8, why didn't the ogre get 2 attacks?
How did you figure HPs for the PCs? they all seem unnaturally high. Even the mage with an STR 5 has 18HP (rolling max d6 for all 3 levels).

 

[kensanata]

With a +8, why didn't the ogre get 2 attacks?

The ogre gets one +8 attack because that's what it says in the MM – and I'm keeping conversion to a minimum. Now, if this was a ogre with fighter levels and all that, I'd model him as a fighter using the stats given. But as it is, this is the standard ogre. In the beginning, I used to give monsters the same kind of multi-attacks, but then Greywulf mentioned somewhere in this thread that he just used them as-is.

How did you figure HPs for the PCs? they all seem unnaturally high. Even the mage with an STR 5 has 18HP (rolling max d6 for all 3 levels).

The mage gets STR + 3d6, so the average dice roll was (18-5)/3 = 4⅓. The rogue's average dice roll was (21-12)/3 = 3. I guess you forgot to add the STR stat at first level.

 

[Land Outcast]

When fights involve swarms or hordes, however, then all these -20, -25, etc. rolls still have a chance to hit (and kill), basically simulating cleaving and related feats. Since my players enjoy rolling a 20, and since I don't want to introduce extra rules later when I send them against skeleton or goblin armies, I think I'll just stick with the current rules.

I group mooks in squads of 3-4, adding up their hp into a common pool... no need for more rolls.

 

[kensanata]

I group mooks in squads of 3-4, adding up their hp into a common pool... no need for more rolls.

When I send my players with some troops against the undead army later in this campaign, I'm planning on using the Mass Combat Made Easy option for M20. Can you provide more detail on the common pool thing? I understand dividing them into squads...

(The favorite example for mass combat all of my players know is the one dungeon in Bards Tale on the C64 with 4x99 barbarians... Those were the days, haha.)

 

[greywulf]

Kensanata, you're showing your age. And mine. I remembered Bard's Tale immediately, and fondly. Nostalgia, eh?

I've tried to sit down several times today and start to pull the playtest notes into some kind of shape, and also to collate some of this (huge!) thread into some kind of organised summary. Each time, something has distracted me. Darn. Hmmm. This is going to take longer than I expected! Ok, leave it with me. It'll get done.

How did the fighter close and attack after the goblin stepped back if he could only do one action per round?

Larcen, you're thinking like someone who uses miniatures and a board. Stop it immediately

We use imagination. It has no scale, and therefore no limits.

Oh, ok then. Let's say the Goblin sidestepped under the table into another square that's still adjacent to the Fighter. There. It still sounds too much like Boardgamery to me though.

EDIT: Trivia fact: Larcen, yours was the 983rd reply in this post. There are 983 words in the current Microlite20 Core Rules. So now this thread contains more posts than the text it's talking about. In order to the SRD to do that, there would need to be over 517,000 posts in the thread, taking up almost 13,000 pages. That's probably more pages than are in the ENWorld forum right now. If printed, those posts would circle Faerun five times. Or something.

Thought you'd like to know!

 

[Larcen]

EDIT: Trivia fact: Larcen, yours was the 983rd reply in this post. There are 983 words in the current Microlite20 Core Rules. So now this thread contains more posts than the text it's talking about. In order to the SRD to do that, there would need to be over 517,000 posts in the thread, taking up almost 13,000 pages. That's probably more pages than are in the ENWorld forum right now. If printed, those posts would circle Faerun five times. Or something.

Thought you'd like to know!

Cool! Do I win a free copy of Microlite20?