Goodman Games

I usually "randomly" pick hp's in the range of MAX to MAX - 1HD. When I'm designing an adventure I don't like to spend a lot of time using any other method that's more time consuming.

One of the things I always try to do when I put a dragon into an encounter is to design the encounter so that the dragon has a big tactical advantage, particularly if it is close to (or in) the dragon's lair. My feelings are that the dragon, an extremely intelligent monster, has had plenty of time t...

Thank you all for the kind words. PM me with your email if you'd like a .pdf of the charts, I'm happy to share.

Listen, I just gotta tell ya -- don't get between a baby dragon and it's momma. Seriously. This reminds me of how one group of players learned the lesson "The smaller the dragon, the harder the kill." Dragons, at least in my world, are solitary creatures that are fiercely independent... e...

I also want o reiterate what a great conversation this thread turned into. Lots of really good perspectives here, guys. I appreciate reading them all. Sweet. That's a nice and intuitive alteration. I'd like to see your tables, too. Maybe this would make a good CRAWL! submission!?!?!?!? Please make i...

There are some things that players and judge need to keep track of, but it's really not much extra work if the players are cooperative and trustworthy. Note also, that most of the effects have an affect on game play in some way now, instead of just being a change in appearance. I wanted there to be ...

As I mentioned in another thread, I spent a little time tweaking the corruption system for my gaming group. One of my favorite things about DCC is that it's open ended in so many ways, and you can take a great idea (like Corruption) and make some changes to make it your own. A few people expressed a...

I can organize it and post it in a separate thread, if you like. It's several printed pages of tables and I know how it all works, so I would need to write up some notes, but I'd be happy to share if people are interested. Give me a day or two.

Well, I just increase the number when a corruption would occur when the player rolls his spellcheck. So if they use 4 points of spellburn, they will suffer corruption (or possibly misfire) on a roll of 1-5 when they make their spellcheck. If they use 9 points of spellburn, they suffer corruption (or...

For me, by making the risk of corruption directly proportional to the amount of spellburn used has balanced things nicely in my group. For others, they might not like that approach or they may have players that find ways around that, too. I missed this, where did you suggest doing this? Sounds grea...

DCC is definitely a game designed around the Wizard class. Yeah, that's my favorite part about it, too. Having wizards who are meddling with unleashing great power, but at the risk of warping their sanity and bodies, and losing their eternal souls in the process is a fantastic impetus. And I don't t...

I see a lot of contrived ideas to deal with the color spraying wizard. But like the Onceler, Skyscraper (and maybe some others I'm missing) are saying, when you have to direct game design and game play time to specifically deal with just one character all the time, whether that's altering the saving...

Don't lose sight of the fact that there is another facet of balance that this color spraying wizard upsets as well. Most people like to contribute more or less equally to the success of the party, regardless of what character they are playing. Having a wizard that can pretty much always blast away t...

Here's the vampire I drew up: Vampire HD: 10d10 Init: +4 Action Dice: 1d20, 1d20 ATTK: Slam or Weapon → +11 (1d10+2) AC: 14 non-magical weapons deal -10 points damage MV: 30' F+8, R+6, W+10 -Once per round, Ability Drain Attack: First a WDC 16 save must be made. If this is successful, the character ...

I like the ideas about extending casting time with greater amounts of spellburn. I'll have to put some thought into that. I have adopted a system of increasing the chances of corruption as more points are sunk into spellburn, with each point of spellburn adding an additional 5% chance of corruption....

I usually use equal to or under an ability score on a d20 for off the cuff things (sometimes I adjust it to d16 or d24 depending on the difficulty). When I am designing the adventure, I usually write up the DC's to beat and include that in the room notes.

Welcome to the system and welcome to the forums. I'd suggest you try it first without doing any ability increases unless the party does something really extraordinary. Just try it that way - if you find that there seems to be a need, then you'll have enough experience with the system to judge for yo...

Some great background on the origins of the Cleric, guys. Thanks for the history. Finarvyn, I haven't thought about the old Chainmail rules in many years. We used to fight huge battles with hundreds and hundreds of miniatures using those rules back in the mid-70's. There is another reason why I thin...

hmmm... If I were to go strictly appendix N, I would not have classes. Just the ability to build skills as I go up in level in whatever direction I am interested in (augmented by my initial ability scores). There are many characters in the literature that do not seem to fit neatly into a character c...

I like to keep party size in the 6 to 9 character range. I have found that if you have parties with fewer than 6 characters, things tend to get very swingy, and a stretch of bad dice for the players or good dice for the monsters can easily wipe the party out. And if parties get bigger than 9 PC's, i...

This is a huge topic and one that is really very much the decision of the individual judge and their players, I think. It is difficult to grasp sometimes in my opinion, because as longtime rpg players most of us are used to the 9 alignment system from D&D. It's also generally our experience that...

Can't say they resemble Tolkien's elves much. But then again, if they did, they wouldn't even be close to being balanced with the other character classes.

4d6 is very ingrained, and it also has some logic to it. "PCs as outliers" is not unreasonable, people who felt themselves more capable than those around them, destined for something more than a life of drudgery, more than the idiocy of village life. In my view, this self-selected group w...

...As far as tweaking weapon damage, I do a little of that -- with grades of weapons (though it's a bit cumbersome). Iron drops a weapon's damage by a die type (weapon die type) so an iron longsword does 1d6. Steel is the base damage. "Fine" or "masterwork" or whatever you want ...

I agree that this is a problem and am considering the following house rule: Corruption cannot be avoided via Luck if spellburn is involved . Spellburn is dangerous blood magic. If a wizard character wants to play it safe, he should avoid spellburn (even if that means casting fewer and less spectacu...