Goodman Games

First let me say that this is looking to be the best RPG I have played yet. I love the magic system. This has so many great things going, spells are not exactly limited to once per day, random effects, backlash, magic duals etc. Great stuff!

I really want to run a game, I had a few questions about the rules.

1) I'm assuming I can use monsters from any era of D&D. Is there a system for converting monster stats over to DCC?

2) How to handle experience points? Seems you have a lot of new ideas on regular old game play are there any innovations on experience?

3) Mighty Deeds seem pretty neat. I'm a little unclear on how these play out. The rules seems to say that you declare a deed then roll if you hit and the die roll is greater than 3 your deed succeeds. Seems if you hit the die roll will always be greater than 3. I feel I'm missing something. Also, in a deed do you do regular damage along with the deed effect? so is this basically a special effect tacked onto a regular attack?

4) How do criticals and fumbles work with die sizes other than D20? For example if you're attacking with a d14 do you critical hit on a 14, do you need to roll a 20 (through bonuses?) or is not possible to crit with a d14? Do you still fumble on a 1 when using a any die?

I was really happy to see Erol Otis included in the art! I bought his books, the Necronomicon and Booty and the Beasts when I was in High School, I loved these books I still have them and Dave Hargrave's Arduin books. I feel like DCC has spirit of these books but the rules make more sense. The writing is also better. The rest of the art is really great also, it really gets to the heart of D&D.

Hi nucnic,

Glad you're enjoying the game so far! Here are some quick answers to some of your questions.

nudnic wrote:1) I'm assuming I can use monsters from any era of D&D. Is there a system for converting monster stats over to DCC?

Stats from 3.5 (and its descendants, such as C&C, Pathfinder, etc.) should port over very easily, with almost no conversion required. The ascending AC system scales the same, the attack bonus and hit dice can be adjust pretty quickly on the fly, and so on. (Several people on these boards and elsewhere have actually run C&C and Pathfinder adventures using DCC RPG rules, and they generally work fine.) As far as prior editions of D&D, there is no published conversion system.

nudnic wrote:2) How to handle experience points? Seems you have a lot of new ideas on regular old game play are there any innovations on experience?

Still open to a little debate but I am leaning toward a simple per-encounter system. There's another fairly recent thread on these boards where this gets a little more examination (though I can't find it at the moment).

nudnic wrote:3) Mighty Deeds seem pretty neat. I'm a little unclear on how these play out. The rules seems to say that you declare a deed then roll if you hit and the die roll is greater than 3 your deed succeeds. Seems if you hit the die roll will always be greater than 3. I feel I'm missing something. Also, in a deed do you do regular damage along with the deed effect? so is this basically a special effect tacked onto a regular attack?

You roll two dice with a mighty deed: your normal attack roll (normally a d20 die) and then the separate die for the mighty deed (which is a d3 at level 1, then a d4 at level 2, then a d5, etc.). For the mighty deed to succeed, you have to beat the target's AC and roll 3+ on the separate deed die. So at level 1, even if an attack hits an opponent, there is only a 1 in 3 chance of the mighty deed succeeding (since the deed die has to come up a 3 on a 1d3). Make sense?

As for the damage, yes, you do regular damage, plus the special effect, and the damage based on the deed die (d3, d4, etc.).

nudnic wrote:4) How do criticals and fumbles work with die sizes other than D20? For example if you're attacking with a d14 do you critical hit on a 14, do you need to roll a 20 (through bonuses?) or is not possible to crit with a d14? Do you still fumble on a 1 when using a any die?

Generally speaking, 1 is always a fumble, so you can still fumble with a d14. But only a 20 is a crit, so if you're using a d14 you can't crit.

Hope that helps!

I've been wondering, is a crit on a d30 only a 30? Seems odd to punish a player reducing their chance to crit to a 3.3%, but 2 crit numbers increase you to 6.6%...

I had been thinking along the same lines. The same goes with fumbles. It would seem you would be more likely to fumble on D14 or D16 roll. This might be intentional to make people think about using that second attack. The lowering of the crit potential with a larger die seems awkward.

You raise points that have come up many times. In fact there are a couple threads on these forums along the same lines. I still haven't come up with a great answer to the probability concerns (i.e., "1" happens too often on a d14 or "max result" happens too rarely on a d30). But it also hasn't "broken the bank" in playtests...the difference between 3%, 5%, and 7% has never really swung a game one way or the other.

nudnic wrote:
1) I'm assuming I can use monsters from any era of D&D. Is there a system for converting monster stats over to DCC?

2) How to handle experience points? Seems you have a lot of new ideas on regular old game play are there any innovations on experience?

I have had zero problems using OD&D monsters as-is, especially the ones found in Swords & Wizardry. In fact, S&W is 3x converted into the OD&D formats, and includes ascending AC and races as classes. I've been using S&W as my go-to reference for everything since I've been using OSR modules written for LotFP, S&W and LL!

When it comes to XP, as long as you're consistent and award them equally it doesn't matter if you give 100 per HD (what's HD?) or 100 per fight, as long as everyone is getting XP evenly no one will complain. If you want them to level every 10 encounters or every 10 sessions, it really doesn't matter, and no one will know the difference.

The biggest challenge, when converting modules/adventures, is re-skinning the monsters so they're not "generic" and how to handle magic items. For monsters I've been sticking with the Un-dead. They're very S&W/Apdx N as written. Instead of giving magic items, I reward some luck and maybe a stat-bump. Tying magic items with spells (corruption & all) would work too, I haven't tried it. But you're in luck, Harley has posted an awesome example of converting an old 3e module: http://www.goodman-games.com/forums/vie ... 60&t=17674

goodmangames wrote:You raise points that have come up many times. In fact there are a couple threads on these forums along the same lines. I still haven't come up with a great answer to the probability concerns (i.e., "1" happens too often on a d14 or "max result" happens too rarely on a d30). But it also hasn't "broken the bank" in playtests...the difference between 3%, 5%, and 7% has never really swung a game one way or the other.

I think fumbling more often with a d14 is logical, and it's inability to crit also plays how I'd expect it too, my only foreseeable complaint from players is the reduced chance to crit.
However, you're more likely to hit in general, so I think I could offer up that explanation. Seems like a fair trade off

I think you'd be less likely to hit with a smaller die.

goodmangames wrote:You raise points that have come up many times. In fact there are a couple threads on these forums along the same lines. I still haven't come up with a great answer to the probability concerns (i.e., "1" happens too often on a d14 or "max result" happens too rarely on a d30). But it also hasn't "broken the bank" in playtests...the difference between 3%, 5%, and 7% has never really swung a game one way or the other.

I would say something along these lines...

If you roll a 14 or 16 on a d14 or d16 (respectively) and you are successful on that attack with bonuses and all, then it's a crit.

If you roll a 20 on a d20, you hit and crit no matter what.

And if you roll a 29 or a 30 on a d30, you hit and crit no matter what.

That puts the crit on a d30 at right around 6.5%. And gimps crits on the d14 and d16. Someone rolling a d16 or d14 is likely to crit lesser opposition but is likely to not roll crits against better opposition unless they're higher level.

I think something like that could work. It's simple and easy to remember. I think that's the key. Nothing too complex.

Great solution.

smathis wrote:
I think something like that could work. It's simple and easy to remember. I think that's the key. Nothing too complex.

I already forgot it!

Who gets to attack with a d30 anyway? i'd guess a Warrior would, and they get an expanded Crit-range anyway. So only they'd worry about it.

reverenddak wrote:

smathis wrote:
I think something like that could work. It's simple and easy to remember. I think that's the key. Nothing too complex.

I already forgot it!

Who gets to attack with a d30 anyway? i'd guess a Warrior would, and they get an expanded Crit-range anyway. So only they'd worry about it.

We don't know (yet) how the attack dice expand in levels 6-10. Given that we've seen d24 already in 5th level, I don't think it's far-fetched to expect a d30 attack die from someone by 10th level.

Which reminds me about the d24... That's a tricky one. If you allow crits on 23-24, then it's the best die to have -- critting on just over 8%. But if you only allow crits on a 24, it's the worst -- critting at right around 4%.

So... I'd think it would be a die that does a bit of what the d14 and d16 do. Critting on a 24 no questions asked but maybe allowing a crit on a 20, if the attack hit with bonuses and all. Why? Because doing so at 23 is really no different from just saying it crits at 23 and 24. At least by keeping it at 20, really high level opposition (or low level characters getting a buff to roll a d24) would miss the crit.

Not as nice as the rest of the stuff. No doubt better suggestions are out there for the d24.

I like: A natural 20 is always a crit (regardless of die rolled). So is a natural 24 and a natural 30.

That means crit odds go from 5% to 8% to 10% as you get bigger dice, but I don't have a problem with a level 9 (guessing here) getting a crit on 1 in 10 attacks.

meinvt wrote:I like: A natural 20 is always a crit (regardless of die rolled). So is a natural 24 and a natural 30.

That means crit odds go from 5% to 8% to 10% as you get bigger dice, but I don't have a problem with a level 9 (guessing here) getting a crit on 1 in 10 attacks.

I dig that. It makes the higher dice better. Which fits because the better skilled fighters will be getting them. And there's no weirdness at all.

So critting on a d20 happens on a 20 (5%).

Critting on a d24 happens on a 20 and a 24 (8%).

Critting on a d30 happens on a 20, 24 and a 30 (9.9 -- hell -- 10%)

Thanks, I like that a lot. Consider it borrowed.

The beauty of it is it honors the Pavlovian training of decades of D&D gaming. I once had a player roll a d30 and get a "20". He was like "YES!!!" and then he was like "Aww! Man, I thought I had a crit..." Lol.

So I whole-heartedly approve of this. I'd be amazed if no one else reported anything similar from a natural 20 being rolled on a d24 or d30.

I think there should be a clause that says you need to hit on a 20 (when rolling a higher die type) to crit. The max number on the die always hits.

nudnic wrote:I think there should be a clause that says you need to hit on a 20 (when rolling a higher die type) to crit. The max number on the die always hits.

This is an important point. 20 is meaningless on a d24 or d30 if you don't actually hit.

Bah, I don't think that the extra 4% or 3.33% of the time a player hits and gets a crit when they wouldn't have otherwise is enough to change the play balance to the point I care.

In my opinion there is nothing that takes the joy out of a crit so much as needing to do math to "confirm" it. Same thing with the second roll in the third edition D&D system. I like a system that is:

See awesome number come up => High Fives all around.

smathis wrote:So critting on a d20 happens on a 20 (5%).

Critting on a d24 happens on a 20 and a 24 (8%).

Critting on a d30 happens on a 20, 24 and a 30 (9.9 -- hell -- 10%)

That's simple and will be fun to play. Perfect.

jmucchiello wrote:

nudnic wrote:I think there should be a clause that says you need to hit on a 20 (when rolling a higher die type) to crit. The max number on the die always hits.

This is an important point. 20 is meaningless on a d24 or d30 if you don't actually hit.

Given that AC20 is pretty high in DCCRPG, I think it's kind of a moot point. The chances of a 20 (not including any bonuses even!) missing in DCCRPG are pretty slim, I think.

But I like this system and I'll probably be using it if it comes up.