Stars/Worlds Without Number (General Thread)

[Yora]

A method I worked out to deal with exploration speed is to dig up the old B/X rule that a party must spend 1 turn resting after every 5 turns exploring or get a -1 penalty to all attack and damage roll. Instead of having different exploration speeds based on encumbrance, encumbrance instead reduces the number of turns you can explore before having to take a break. If you reduce the turns before a break down to 3 or 1, you get roughly similar distances covered as when you reduce movement speed from 120 to 90 or 60.

This method works whether you are measuring the distance that is explored per turn, or simply say that each turn is one area. But I feel that makes it more intuitive for players why they take longer to explore with heavy gear even though they are really just taking a few steps every minute or so.

 

[kenada]

A method I worked out to deal with exploration speed is to dig up the old B/X rule that a party must spend 1 turn resting after every 5 turns exploring or get a -1 penalty to all attack and damage roll. Instead of having different exploration speeds based on encumbrance, encumbrance instead reduces the number of turns you can explore before having to take a break. If you reduce the turns before a break down to 3 or 1, you get roughly similar distances covered as when you reduce movement speed from 120 to 90 or 60.

I was leaning towards not including mandatory rest because it feels like a change from WWN, and I’m just supplementing WWN from B/X right now instead of changing it, but that’s an interesting idea.

This method works whether you are measuring the distance that is explored per turn, or simply say that each turn is one area. But I feel that makes it more intuitive for players why they take longer to explore with heavy gear even though they are really just taking a few steps every minute or so.

I like the way that works with either simplified or detailed movement. How does it interact with combat? Just use the reduced movement speeds in combat?

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However, I’m not worried too much about encumbrance. My players got burned badly by it in OSE (the barbarian didn’t bother to manage her load and was moving 10′ in combat), so they are being really mindful about it in WWN. My main concern is just how far they go in a turn since I plan to use detailed maps for most dungeons.

 

[kenada]

Question about encumbrance. Does anyone know how this is supposed to work?

Characters can push their limits by carrying more than is comfortable. An extra two Readied or four Stowed items can be carried, but this slows them down; their Move action allows them to move only 20 feet instead of 30. A further two Readied or four Stowed items can be carried beyond that, but that slows them down to 15 feet per Move action.

I can see two interpretations. Suppose your Strength attribute is 10. Normally, you can carry 5 readied items and 10 stowed items. If you carry 7 readied items, then your speed would be reduced to 20′. What happens when you also carry 11 stowed items? Nothing, because you need to bump things past the first set of extra items; or you now move 15′, because you carried a further set of items past your carrying capacity?

The latter was my initial interpretation, but I’m not sure about that now.

 

[Yora]

As I see it, either 4 stowed items or 2 readied item each count as exceeding your limit once. If you have both 4 stowed and 2 readied above your regular limit, you exceed your limit twice and get slowed to 15.
You can't have "8 extra stowed and 2 extra readied" or "4 extra stowed and 4 extra readied, because that would be exceeding your limit three times.

In all situations, the limit for readied items is half as much as for stowed items, so I think effectively 1 readied items works like 2 stowed items for the limits. I would allow players to have 2 extra stowed and 1 extra readied and still be at 20 feet.

 

[kenada]

As I see it, either 4 stowed items or 2 readied item each count as exceeding your limit once. If you have both 4 stowed and 2 readied above your regular limit, you exceed your limit twice and get slowed to 15.
You can't have "8 extra stowed and 2 extra readied" or "4 extra stowed and 4 extra readied, because that would be exceeding your limit three times.

Sounds like my initial interpretation. I think that makes sense. Maybe I’m over thinking it.

 

[Yora]

Of all the rules in Worlds Without Number, there is one that stands out to me as looking particularly dubious, and that's the Healer's Healing Touch ability. The unlimited healing potential gets countered by the wonderfully looking System Strain mechanic, but still Healing Touch looks like it's too good.

The basic Healing Touch heals 2d6 as a Main action at touch range.
Empowered Healer heals 2d6+level.
Far Healer has a range of 10 feet per level. (Which is about everyone in a fight by 3rd level.)
Swift Healer enables healing as an On Turn Action one time per level per day.

Purge Ailment and Refined Restoration are so good players will probably pick them before taking all three of the above Healing Touch improvement, but by sixth level they have five Healer Arts, and 2d6+6 healing at 60 feet range, and up to six times per day as an On Turn Action is really quite potent. A warrior who can get into a chokepoint to be attacked by only one or two enemies at a time with a healer supporting him can hold those enemies back until he maxes out his System Strain. 12 hp healed on average, 12 times, that's 144 hp worth of healing, compared to having 37 hit point. And if he reaches his limit, someone else in the party can take over and the Healer continue to pump unlimited healing. Of course, the party wpuld be in real trouble after that being almost unable to heal for the next week or two, but still...

But it's how easy magical healing deals with bringing people back who went down that actually feels strange to me. If you go down, someone has to make a moderately difficult Heal skill check. If you survive, you can get back up after 10 minutes with 1 hp. You are then frail and can't heal naturally until you get 1 week of rest or 1 hour of surgery. There's also neat rules for first aid.
I really like the sound of that system. But instead of all of that, getting Healing touch gets rid of all of that. One Healing Touch, potentially at range, and your back to full fighting ability.

I just can't see any group going anywhere without one of the PCs being a healer. Being a special half-class and the way dual-classing works, being a an expert/healer or warrior/healer really isn't that much of a sacrifice. They keep getting their hit points and can wear their regular armor, and experts still get their additional skill point each level and their regular attack bonus.
If all, or at least most parties have a healer with them, then the whole system of non-magical recovery becomes pretty much redundant.

One option I see is to say that magic healing does not automatically remove the frail condition, or that only Healing Touch does not. That would make healing potions relevant to parties with healers again.

But what are your thoughts on this?

 

[kenada]

Someone asked about healing on r/WWN a month or so ago, and Kevin Crawford replied. The gist of it is that you are expected to go into a fight at full hit points. System Strain is the balancing factor that prevents you from doing that indefinitely.

It’s different from OSR games. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Given how tough the check is to stabilize someone, having magical healing available is a no-brainer. It removes the risk of failure as well as the Frail quality.

On the other hand, if you are reckless, you will have significant downtime while you recover System Strain. However, the GM needs to make that mean something, or it becomes as much of a cost as Treat Wounds is in Pathfinder 2e (basically none).

Like I said, I don’t know. We have not really had to deal with the consequences of healing yet. The whole subsystem feels like a convoluted approach to mitigating OSR-style lethality while trying to avoid the downsides.

Having not played or run SWN, I don’t know how well it was executed (but Kevin said he wanted healing to be easy because it is in SWN).

 

[kenada]

Here is an interesting complication. According to Kevin Crawford, you only get a full night’s rest if you sleep 8 hours. That means your typical adventuring party that takes watches will not be able to recover hit points or lose System Strain from natural healing. That also suggests mages won’t be able to recover spells or Committed Effort either.

 

[TwoSix]

Here is an interesting complication. According to Kevin Crawford, you only get a full night’s rest if you sleep 8 hours. That means your typical adventuring party that takes watches will not be able to recover hit points or lose System Strain from natural healing. That also suggests mages won’t be able to recover spells or Committed Effort either.

Yea, I'd definitely house rule that. 6 hours seems sufficient, and I'd allow a watch in the middle. 4 2-hour watches is our default for D&D type games.

 

[kenada]

Yea, I'd definitely house rule that. 6 hours seems sufficient, and I'd allow a watch in the middle. 4 2-hour watches is our default for D&D type games.

I think Kevin Crawford agrees regarding the automaton. That’s how I’d do things too (because otherwise it’s a pointless benefit).

The way I did things in Pathfinder and 5e was to bookend the adventuring day with 16 hours of time the PCs can spend resting and preparing. During the night, they take watches. Since we never played enough OSE to have it come up, I’m inclined to see how it works RAW in WWN.