Expanded Rules for your Playing Enjoyment

[torilen]

AS OF MAY 10, 2011 at 0920...this has been revised

I've been working on something pretty big this week, and its not ready yet. BUT...here is a portion
of it. I've tweaked the rules I put in place for swimming and climbing (under the tiles section), and I've
also worked out some expanded/new rules for searching for things.

Hope you all like them. If not...then don't use them. Just something for thought. Cheers.

Barbarian
Addition: The Barbarian may roll 3 combat dice for searches.
Wizard
Addition: The Wizard may roll 4 combat dice for searches.
Elf
Addition: The Elf may roll 4 combat dice for searches.
Dwarf
Addition: The Dwarf may roll 4 combat dice for searches.

SEARCH FOR TREASURE
Treasures, typically, are hidden and a character will need to Search in order to find them. Each character type has their own Search ability – that is, they roll a certain number of combat dice for their search. The proper number of dice must show a shield (white or black) for a treasure to be found; if there is a special, noted treasure to be found, the required number of shields will be stated in the quest notes, or should be determined by the Evil Wizard. See the “Characters” section for the number of combat dice each character rolls for Treasure Searches.
**Treasure Searches are not needed for looking within chests.
**Unless a treasure is noted in adventure notes, a character must roll at least 1 shield to draw a Treasure Card. If a character does not roll enough shields to find a noted treasure, or there is no noted treasure at all, the character still draws a Treasure Card.

SEARCH FOR SECRET DOORS
Secret doors are constructed to be just that…secret. A character will need to Search in order to find them. Each character type has their own Search ability – that is, they roll a certain number of combat dice for their search. The proper number of dice must show a shield (white or black) for a secret door to be found. If there is a Secret Door to be found, the required number of shields will be stated in the quest notes, or should be determined by the Evil Wizard. See the “Characters” section for the number of combat dice each character rolls for Secret Door Searches.
**Elves may roll one additional combat die for any Secret Door Search

SEARCH FOR TRAP
Traps, typically, are hidden and a character will need to Search in order to find them, or else risk setting the trap off and accept the resulting consequences. Each character type has their own Search ability – that is, they roll a certain number of combat dice for their search. The proper number of dice must show a shield (white or black) for a trap to be found. If there is a trap to be found, the required number of shields will be stated in the quest notes, or should be determined by the Evil Wizard. See the “Characters” section for the number of combat dice each character rolls for Trap Searches.
**Dwarves and Halflings roll one additional combat die for any Trap Search.

JUMPING
In order to make a jump, a character must have enough movement to make it across the space he wishes to jump. The character must roll a number of combat dice equal to his current Body Points, and must roll a shield (white or black) for each space over which he wishes to jump. If the character has at least 2 spaces free for a “running start”, he may jump one space for free, without needing to roll for success. A running start cannot be used on diagonal jumps. The same procedure is used for vertical jumps, as well. Medium sized characters can automatically successfully jump the first 10ft of a vertical jump; small sized characters automatically successfully jump the first 5ft of a vertical jump.

CLIMBING
In order to climb, a character must roll a number of combat dice equal to his current Body Points, and must roll a shield (white or black) on one die for every 2 spaces he wishes to climb. If a skull is rolled on any of the dice, the character is stopped halfway into the movement and falls. The character takes 1 Body Point of damage for every 2 spaces he falls; a simple 2 space fall, however, does no damage. It should be noted that, if the character is wearing certain armor, he must add combat dice to the required amount of dice to be rolled. Certain types of climbing also have their own changes to the number of dice rolled, as described below. A character cannot climb with anything in his hands, and so cannot attack. A character can only roll 2 Defense Dice while climbing.
To climb a tree – roll for every 3 spaces of climbing – it takes 3 turns to climb a tree and get settled in
To climb a steep hill with hand-holds (small trees or rocks) – no change
To climb a steep hill without hand-holds – add one additional combat die showing a shield to the required
amount
To climb a cliff side – add two additional combat dice showing a shield to the required amount

SWIMMING
In order to swim, a character must remove all armor, packs, and extra weapons. The only thing a character can keep on his person while swimming is a belt pack and a small weapon attached to a belt (dagger, hand axe, hammer, etc.). The character must roll a number of combat dice equal to his current Body Points. The character then rolls 1 red die for the distance covered during the swim. If a skull is rolled on any of the dice, the character is stopped halfway into the movement and begins to drown. The character will lose 1 Body Point until he can successfully roll the combat dice required without rolling any skulls, or until the character is dead.
If a character wishes to dive underwater, he first attempt to tread water. Treading water requires the Swim roll, but no red die is rolled for distance moved. The character must then roll a number of combat dice equal to his current Body Points. The number of dice showing a shield (white or black) indicates how many turns the character can stay underwater. The Evil Wizard will announce how many turns it is to where the character wishes to go (bottom of a pond, for example) and back to the surface. Typically, a character will need to spend at least 3 turns underwater – one turn down, one turn doing something (picking up an object, for instance), and one turn back to the surface. A character cannot attack while swimming, and can only roll 2 Defense Dice.

[Daedalus]

If I understand things rightly, then the Barbarian has the best chance to search, as he has the smallest chance to roll a skull failure. It therefor seems counter-intuitive to penalize the Dwarf or Halfling with more dice for trap searches. The same applies to the Elf for secret door searches. Consider rewording the rule to state that the proper number of dice must show a shield to succeed. That way more dice increase the odds of success, while superfluous skulls won't negatively affect the outcome.

[Big Bene]

In the original rules, a room/corridor can only be searched for treasure once. The player draws a treasure card, and if it shows actual treasure, this was the treasure, else, there simply was none in that room. There was no "failure" in searching.
With your rules, you need to specify if a room can be searched again after a failed attempt.

[gravaillon]

If I understand things rightly, then the Barbarian has the best chance to search, as he has the smallest chance to roll a skull failure. It therefor seems counter-intuitive to penalize the Dwarf or Halfling with more dice for trap searches. The same applies to the Elf for secret door searches. Consider rewording the rule to state that the proper number of dice must show a shield to succeed. That way more dice increase the odds of success, while superfluous skulls won't negatively affect the outcome.

He's right ! It is the same thing for your jumping rule. More a Hero has body point, less he can succesfuly jump... That is not just like that that it will be !!!! Consider also rolling at least a shield to succesfully jumping. Anyway, your rules are very interesting... Just need to test and to correct them a little...

[Ethica]

Also the roll should be made secretly by the DM, that way he can simply tell the hero that they "did not find anything". This could mean that there is nothing, or what was there was not found.

I like the finding traps or secret doors dependant on a dice roll idea, my only qualm is it could end up being really frustrating to not find a secret door then move on then having to comb the dungeon making multiple searches in each room to be sure that there is nothing there.

[torilen]

Thanks for the input all - I revised the rules. Hope they read better now.

Ethica - I understand how it could probably frustrate the players, if they missed a secret door. As I stated, these are just rules for
thought. I've said in a couple of other threads...I'm used to playing full RPG's like D&D, and so I probably bring a little more to HQ
than most would desire to add to the game. No biggie. I'm just tossing it out there, should any one want to use it, it's there.

As far as testing these out - I have no group to play with, and so I can't really test anything properly. I do take individual characters
and play around with rules and single combats, to see how things could play out.
My basic idea in creating these rules was to give the least-able character at least 50% chance to complete something.
Take searching for treasure. The Barbarian rolls 3 combat dice for searching, and only needs to roll 1 shield to be able to draw a Treasure
Card. That should be easy for him to do. If there is a special treasure to be found...perhaps he has to roll 2 shields. Still, should be fairly
easy for him to do. He has a 50% chance on each die, and 3 dice to do it with.

Granted - for things like swimming and climbing - the wizard may not have a great chance at doing one of those things...but, let's be honest.
He isn't supposed to be able to do those things really well. That's why the barbarian and dwarf are there. Right?

[torilen]

Oh yeah - ethica - good point on the evil wizard making the rolls for a treasure or secret door search. I didn't include that in my
"revision" - but that would definitely add to the suspense of things if it were implemented. Just have to make sure your evil wizard
isn't a ruthless, cruel SOB that would fib to you about the roll. And...reading through some of the other posts on this forum...there
are a few cruel people on here, man.

[Ethica]

I know. They are true evil wizards. I'm a pussy-cat Morcar who just wants to make things fun and easy.

[Ethica]

Why can't I use the word *tasty treat*?

[drathe]

You can. The board just has an automatic word filter. Each member can personally turn it off in the User Control panel for their own viewing. Board Preferences tab, Edit Display Options on the left-menu.
ucp.php?i=prefs&mode=view