A Case Against Leveling Systems

[Tott]

Nice, ive never been a fan of different coloured dice unless theyre doing completely seperate jobs but those do look pretty sweet.
I suppose it really comes down to how you want to play HQ, if you want to keep it simple then leveling heroes isnt really worth your while, but if you want HQ to be a slightly more complex RPG you need some sort of leveling system.

[benvoliothefirst]

... if someone wants to try their hand at this sort of thing, I'm willing to share the Word document I used to make it.

YES PLEASE! Those are awesome. Any suggestions/links about where to get the sticker sheets,what type work best? This is super cool! Thanks for sharing!

[Count Mohawk]

... if someone wants to try their hand at this sort of thing, I'm willing to share the Word document I used to make it.

YES PLEASE! Those are awesome. Any suggestions/links about where to get the sticker sheets,what type work best? This is super cool! Thanks for sharing!

I use 1" x 4" mailing labels, of the type depicted here. The Word document will match any label sheet which is compatible with Avery style 5161. Most people who do any sort of mailing will have a few extra sheets of these lying around somewhere, and you can print 20 dice worth of stickers per page (if your dice are standard sized, they'll be 16mm or so, which is 0.64"). Most office supply stores will carry small packets of these labels for just a few bucks; you don't have to drop $40 at a time like in the link I added.

As for cutting and applying the labels, it helps if you have a paper slicer to make the initial straight cuts, but even regular scissors will do. Don't worry if the stickers have any slight imperfections in shape after cutting; a couple hundred rolls of the dice in common use will knock off any excess edges without further trouble.

Now, if somebody were to ask if stickering regular d6es affects how they roll, I would say that they almost certainly do. That's the price of using "cheap Chinese knockoff dice", though! I don't have any empirical data to show how badly the skew is, nor the time to check it. You can get around it somewhat by varying which face goes on which numbered side per each die, I suppose.

Edit: I'm not familiar with Euro mailing label sizes, so if you live across the pond, my document might not be as much help to you - sorry!

[Anderas]

Now, if somebody were to ask if stickering regular d6es affects how they roll, I would say that they almost certainly do.

They do. I tried. The good news is, the more sides of a die are same-ish (like, for example, 3x1Skull), the more the failures equalize out and the less you see it. I tried.

[TMU]

I have a way of dealing with character deaths. After dying, the hero rolls one combat die.

Skull: Hero loses all gear and items

White shield: Hero loses all gold

Black shield: Hero loses both

[mitchiemasha]

I have a way of dealing with character deaths. After dying, the Hero loses everything!

[DullandRusty]

we do that the hero loses everything...however as long as its not a total party kill, the party can retrieve the items and help to outfit a newly rolled character. In the event of a total party kill, the party has to reroll new heroes. To get the gear back, they have to forge their way into the dungeon and kill the monster that took their gear (or find it in a guarded armory in that map). In the case of the monster, that monster has a slight boost from the heroes gear.

I should mention that we also have some self made "entry quests" to help new heroes build up some gold and some base weapons before heading back into the dungeon that just killed them.

also, if a quest wipes the party, we also do not have all the monsters killed spawn. we replace some of them at key points, but a few less as in our story world, the monster army took damage too. so while they fill in the ranks left by the slain monsters, they may not have full staffing (up to the person running the game to decide on how many of the normal monster spots are not filled)

[Anderas]

How often does it happen! I never experienced it, until now. Wrong, I experienced it once, when I tried to play ATOH with a single Barbarian with no equipment but Chainmail.

[DullandRusty]

I should also say it has only happened 2 or 3 times in our group. Mostly happens in our expanded quests where everything hits harder. Also, we have a patrol mechanic so heroes cant just lollygag and search every room or prepare by grouping every single time. Each round increases a counter that spawns a patrol (sometimes one monster, sometimes 2-3) when it reaches a threshold that is only known to the evil wizard. The patrols spawn at one of 3 pre set spawn points (the closest to a hero). This adds more enemies, but also makes them have to choose whether to group and snail pace it (which iwll likely result in more patrols) or split up but make the danger significantly greater if a patrol spawns next to a lone hero.

[mitchiemasha]

we do that the hero loses everything...however

A new joining hero gets to spend 150gc on an extra piece of equipment or a potion of healing. That was my way of dealing with them being too weak. Good idea for the armoury room of that quest.

in my opinion... it's kind of pointless them dieing if they keep everything or get it all back so easilly. We need someone to die once in a while to stop the group being OP. There's no character arc if it's "yeah, I'm invisible again" right at the start. As our characters usually end up being quite abstract from each other, learning that character from his beginnings is much more fun.