Goodman Games

Got a great, fairly informal campaign going with a group of buddies. I'm really enjoying myself as DM, and my group seems to be having fun with the gonzo aspect of DCC RPG. At this point the party has progressed as follows:

Two third level warriors;
One third level cleric;
One third level wizard;
One second level elf;
Two second level halflings.
There was also a third level thief, who died last night playing the Jewels of the Carnifex.

[******CARNIFEX SPOILERS BELOW*******]

In the first large battle with the Sons of the Pious (in the root/moss/growth-filled hall where Azazel eventually calls for parlay), the wizard casts sleep, and with some help from the party's lucky halfling puts down all of the sons currently on the battlefield (though not the ones hiding in the secret passageways). The party, thinking that fight is over, takes a breath, and the thief sneaks forward into the overgrown hall to cut some throats. Everyone else, not wanting to inadvertently wake the Sons, hangs back. Now the thief--Baldrick-- is a pretty fragile, low-stamina, low-HP guy who normally doesn't get involved in melee. So it's pretty scary when, as he reaches the rearmost sleeping Son farthest away from the party, he is seen by the Justiciar who calls for the hidden Sons to attack, and goes after the thief himself. First swing of his mighty two-handed weapon crits. I roll high on the crit table and get something like "face completely smashed in; +2d12 damage". So Baldrick goes down, far away from any aid. When the battle eventually ends, he fails his recover the body check and is dead. The party is suitably bummed out, and the mood is low. My dice rolls were outrageous all evening, and they sustained some heavy damage in addition to poor Baldrick's death.

[******CARNIFEX SPOILERS END*******]

Obviously, along the way a bunch of 0-levels have died. Also a couple of 1sts. But the third level characters had just hit that threshold after close to a year of (occasionally intermittent) play. This player in particular had never had a character die, and was also pretty attached to Baldrick.

He sent me a plaintive email following the session asking if we could ret-con to permit Baldrick to burn luck on his recover the body roll, or save him in some other manner.

Any advice? Part of me thinks that it's in the spirit of DCC RPG to let the dice fall where they may, and bending the rules to save a character--even a favorite character--makes play less exciting and meaningful. But if the player feels strongly enough about this to email me post-session ...

More generally can you burn luck on a recover the body check? If you could, it would seem nearly impossible to die. Has the forum discussed this before?

Thanks all. And thanks to Harley for his consistently superb modules.

I allow thieves and halflings to burn Luck on Recover the Body rolls, because only thieves and halflings can do so in a way that is effective. I.e., if you burn Luck on a 1-to-1 basis, your DC increases at the same rate as your roll. They use their current Luck, not their maximum.

That said:

Blades Against Death, AL3: Through the Cotillion of Hours, or The Revelation of Mulmo might offer a chance to restore the fallen. Quest For It!

Yeah, why wouldn't you have let him burn Luck on the roll the body check? I allow that for all characters. Luck doesn't replenish very quickly, so it hasn't been an issue for us. And yeah that might mean that thieves/halflings end up hardly ever dying, but they'll slowly get gimped by physical stat loss to the point of retiring in such a case, and who doesn't love a nice grizzled up former PC running a bar in your town?

An adventure to rescue him from Death is a great idea, RC. Maybe that's what we'll do.

BM - The reason I'm skeptical about burning luck on recover the body checks is that one reason I got frustrated with 3.5/PF/4e was that it was nearly impossible for a character to die. The game got boring because characters were never truly in danger.

It's already pretty hard for a non-zero-level to die in combat in DCC. Even if an enemy gets you to 0 HP, a cleric can usually get to you within a round or two and heal you back you your feet. Even if you actually die, you get a shot at recovering the body. Adding luck to that roll would mean that in the highly unusual circumstances where an enemy drops you to zero, *and* a cleric isn't able to get to you for some reason (in this case within three rounds, which is a long time in combat) *and* you fail your luck roll, a thief can still virtually guarantee survival by burning luck. If the party has a halfling, then the chance of death in combat becomes infinitesimal to nonexistent.

This party has been adventuring for a year, and (being completely fair to them) has done some seemingly suicidal sh*t in terms of combat choices. People on the forum frequently talk about characters learning to run away ("unlike 4E! where encounters are level appropriate, etc etc"), but the gentle death rules in DCC already mean that there is nearly no incentive to do so. I don't see any reason to add additional buffer.

But in this case, the player didn't think to burn luck on his recover the body roll. So even if I did permit it, it would be a case of permitting a "mulligan" or ret-con as it were.

jozxyqk wrote:An adventure to rescue him from Death is a great idea, RC. Maybe that's what we'll do.

Of the three options I listed, the first is an official adventure, written by the excellent Harley Stroh and, of course, comes highly recommended.

I wrote the other two, and therefore should not comment on them too much, save to say that both are very affordable as pdfs on RPG Now. Cotillion allows for general "Quest For It" stuff, whereas both Mulmo and Blades are specifically the restoration of a fallen comrade. Both offer some pretty stiff risks, of course.

I see two issues at work here. The death of a beloved PC and the time investment on getting a character up to par with the rest of the group.

For the first issue part of the feel and structure of DCC is its lethality. This makes the game worth while and it makes the players think about what they are doing. I would let the PC Darwinism take its toll and let decisions and dice fall where they may. Questing to bring the character back to live would be the way I would go if you decide to bring the thief back. I wouldn't go the ret-con route.

Part of your players problem may also be that he doesn't want to start out at First Level again and have to climb back up the ladder. In order to address this in my game I have a Mentor Experience house rule.

"Mentor Experience” instead of all Characters receiving the same amount of XP per
encounter the following system will be used.
Highest level Characters in Group....................> Receive Base XP Amount
Characters One Level Below...........................> Receive x2 the Base XP Amount
Characters More than Two Levels Below............> Receive x3 the Base Amount of XP

This allows me to bring PCs in at First Level, but they rapidly close the level gap with the other characters. This solution may help alleviate your players concerns at the loss of a prized, but unlucky thief.

I'd argue this is completely unlike 3.5/PF/4e because you have permanent stat loss each time. Heck, you lose a stamina point every time you GO DOWN, even if you're healed that round. (Make sure you're applying that rule, btw. It's a mean one, but I like it, and it makes combat suitably dangerous.)

0 levels are squishy, and rightfully so. Honest-to-God adventurers enjoy a bit more survivability, but still, it has to make sense. If there's nobody there to roll your body over (e.g., if they had to flee, or if they fell down some unfathomable pit to their doom, drowned in the ocean, etc), all the Luck burn in the world wouldn't change the fact that the character is still dead.

As for halflings making death in combat infinitesimal to nonexistent, I'd object that this assumes poor Judge play. I mean, halflings are tasty, aren't we? (I say "we," b/c I am a Hobbit.) So sic some monsters on that halfling! Om nom nom...

As for the mulligan bit, that's up to you... might be a good lesson to the guy, though. "Sorry it's harsh, but you never said you wanted to burn luck to survive..."

I do not allow PCs to burn Luck on a "recover the body roll".

In fact, I do not even allow them to burn Luck on saves *at all* because that makes Luck into another pool of hit points (depleted by failed saves rather than successful enemy attacks). I prefer Luck to be a "Seize the Moment" resource, i.e. applicable to active rolls.

DCC looks very deadly -- and the funnel is -- but once you get to first level and have a halfing in the party (as you point out) it's anything but.

I'm not against ret-cons per se, but I would at least try to talk to the player. Failure and character death *suck* but they do make success and survival that much sweeter. It's a hard pitch -- especially when someone has just lost a beloved character -- but I'd give it a shot.

If the player really can't stomach it, I'd consider an adventure (as suggested by others) to bring the PC back to life. In that adventure, the player will run another character and *maybe* will find that he can get attached to a new character after all -- and call off the resurrection (or retire the old PC directly afterwards or make him part of a stable of PCs.)

Best wishes

Johann

Whichever way you go with this, make it part of the narrative of that character and/or the party -- *something* happened; don't just make it a re-write and nothing happened.

I think that emotional attachment to PCs is hard to handle. On the one hand, the player is really into your game. On the other, it's just a PC.

You could discuss it with your entire group to see if they allow retroactive luck burn to the PC death roll. But personally, I would judge that it's too late. Me too, sometimes, after 4 days of resting, i'm thinking "hmm, I should have thought about this sooner". In real life or in RPGs. I think retroactive actions should not be allowed except in rare immediate situations, e.g. a player thinks says "my turn's over. Oh wait, I also move to behind the tree for cover."

beermotor wrote: As for halflings making death in combat infinitesimal to nonexistent, I'd object that this assumes poor Judge play. I mean, halflings are tasty, aren't we? (I say "we," b/c I am a Hobbit.) So sic some monsters on that halfling! Om nom nom...

You suggest killing all halflings in groups where they give luck to death saves? Or just all halflings altogether, in case they get the idea... I prefer the latter. RPG genocide: who cares!

Much like spell use our artifact use attracts attention, why not the same for rampant luck use? I mean, haven't you seen that breakfast cereal commercial? "They're magically delicious!"

Much like spell use our artifact use attracts attention, why not the same for rampant luck use? I mean, haven't you seen that breakfast cereal commercial? "They're magically delicious!"

beermotor wrote:Much like spell use our artifact use attracts attention, why not the same for rampant luck use? I mean, haven't you seen that breakfast cereal commercial? "They're magically delicious!"

Halflings: "They're Magic'ly Suspicious!"

beermotor wrote:I'd argue this is completely unlike 3.5/PF/4e because you have permanent stat loss each time. Heck, you lose a stamina point every time you GO DOWN, even if you're healed that round. (Make sure you're applying that rule, btw. It's a mean one, but I like it, and it makes combat suitably dangerous.)

I found that this was a great penalty for dying and being recovered until the cleric got the Restore Vitality spell. This spell, by my reading of it, can be used to restore the permanent ability damage incurred by the "Bleeding out" and "Recovering the body" rules. At third level falling in combat went from something the players greatly feared to being a minor inconvenience. I've been thinking about house-ruling these rules so that they lower the ability score maximum and so the damage couldn't be undone with Restore Vitality.

Am I reading "Restore Vitality" wrong?

Has anybody else experienced this problem or experimented with changing these rules?

oncelor wrote:

beermotor wrote:I'd argue this is completely unlike 3.5/PF/4e because you have permanent stat loss each time. Heck, you lose a stamina point every time you GO DOWN, even if you're healed that round. (Make sure you're applying that rule, btw. It's a mean one, but I like it, and it makes combat suitably dangerous.)

I found that this was a great penalty for dying and being recovered until the cleric got the Restore Vitality spell. This spell, by my reading of it, can be used to restore the permanent ability damage incurred by the "Bleeding out" and "Recovering the body" rules. At third level falling in combat went from something the players greatly feared to being a minor inconvenience. I've been thinking about house-ruling these rules so that they lower the ability score maximum and so the damage couldn't be undone with Restore Vitality.

Am I reading "Restore Vitality" wrong?

Has anybody else experienced this problem or experimented with changing these rules?

I read the spell.

"The cleric restores lost vitality to a creature. Typically this restores lost ability scores or broken/severed
limbs, though it can also heal."

In the spell description is says you need a spellcheck of 20+ to restore permanent drain. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm tempted to make the check higher to heal permanent drain. Maybe "drain" is different than "loss" like when you recover the body?

I think "drain" is different from "loss" ... but I think the idea of just raising the check result is probably a wise one. I haven't had anybody get to that high of a level in my game (still not quite to 3rd yet) so it hasn't cropped up. But, to be fair, that's pretty high level in DCC terms. There's an argument that you OUGHT to be pretty powerful when you're that rare, compared with the general population.

Is it broken/abusable? Not if you always remember that you're the judge and have ultimate/final say-so whether something works or it fails. Or require some nasty components (dragon blood? troll teeth?).

BM -- that's fair enough, but basically you're saying "I don't mind if it's nearly impossible for characters to die, because there is an ability-loss penalty associated with saving themselves from death." It's a pretty minor penalty too, compared with losing a character (Three or four "deaths" and you start taking a -1 on HP rolls! Oh no!).

I'm more in the Johann camp. I think its a more fun game when characters can actually *die* in combat by being hacked down by a band of trolls or run through by a knight's lance. I don't want to have to rely on extraordinary circumstances such as pitching into the maw of a volcano or a TPK where there is nobody left to recover the body.

But, as they say, different strokes... and obviously there is a large contingent that favors extremely durable PCs.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with "poor Judge play" regarding halflings. It's pretty darn rare that a character needs a luck boost to make a recover-the-body save, it's also super unpredictable when it's going to happen. How is there any way to make it at all unlikely that, in those rare circumstances, the party halfling won't be there to do a luck bump? How specifically would you prevent a halfling from doing so? Or would you instead "punish" this sort of activity afterward in a way that's more severe than when a Halfling normally uses luck?

Thanks to everyone for the great advice. What an excellent resource this is. I'll let you know what happens.

I'm curious how other people deal with differential character levels when a PC dies (the issue thoughtfully raised by Rostranor). I only started playing D&D in 2E, but my sense is that back in the day there were lots of campaigns where there was a substantial differential between players. My practice has been to just have the character roll up four new zeros and start the process again. Because of how levels require more XP to attain as you get higher, they usually don't end up that far behind. But I haven't started with a difference as great as 0/3 yet. I find Rostranor's idea intriguing.

Remember that a Luck roll need not apply to death via Critical hit damage or things other than being reduced to 0 hp. The game should still be plenty dangerous. Recovering the Body, IMHO and IME, does a good job of capturing the flavour of pulp heroes without making the game too easy.

At the climax of People of the Pit, a dead PC was left behind as the edge of the pit crumbled. I allowed the PCs to make checks to try to descend the pit and recover the body; they decided to burn Luck in order to find the body. This done, the player made - and failed - his Luck check. Although the Lucky Halfling could have kept him alive, the player was too unwilling to allow his own Luck to go down far enough to do so. Alas for the dwarf, who now lies with his ancestors!

jozxyqk wrote:I'm not sure what you're getting at with "poor Judge play" regarding halflings. It's pretty darn rare that a character needs a luck boost to make a recover-the-body save, it's also super unpredictable when it's going to happen. How is there any way to make it at all unlikely that, in those rare circumstances, the party halfling won't be there to do a luck bump? How specifically would you prevent a halfling from doing so? Or would you instead "punish" this sort of activity afterward in a way that's more severe than when a Halfling normally uses luck?

I bet he's trying to say that if there aren't enough dangers such that the Luck isn't at least sometimes used up in other tasks before you get to those death saves, you're not pushing hard enough.

Not that you have to push hard all the time. But the more Luck-spends that are prefaced with that question -- "what if I need this for something else right after this?" -- the better.

GnomeBoy wrote:

jozxyqk wrote:I'm not sure what you're getting at with "poor Judge play" regarding halflings. It's pretty darn rare that a character needs a luck boost to make a recover-the-body save, it's also super unpredictable when it's going to happen. How is there any way to make it at all unlikely that, in those rare circumstances, the party halfling won't be there to do a luck bump? How specifically would you prevent a halfling from doing so? Or would you instead "punish" this sort of activity afterward in a way that's more severe than when a Halfling normally uses luck?

I bet he's trying to say that if there aren't enough dangers such that the Luck isn't at least sometimes used up in other tasks before you get to those death saves, you're not pushing hard enough.

Not that you have to push hard all the time. But the more Luck-spends that are prefaced with that question -- "what if I need this for something else right after this?" -- the better.

That makes sense -- good interpretation (although it looked to me like he was saying that DMs should be specifically trying to kill halflings for some reason).

I guess it just comes down to the fact that I see character death in DCC being very rare as it is, and mainly limited to situations where a PC falls into a vast abyss, or gets petrified or something. My PCs are brave, verging on foolhardy, and deaths are still extremely rare. For me, it seems too nerfy to limit character combat death to situations where a PC is reduced to 0-HP *and* a cleric can't get there in a couple of rounds *and* he fails his recover-the-body check *and* he's out of luck himself *and* it so happens the party halfling has either already burned his luck away or is unwilling to do so.

I've never seen such a situation in a year or so of play. I wonder how many other people have.

jozxyqk wrote:... a cleric can't get there in a couple of rounds *and* he fails his recover-the-body check *and* he's out of luck himself *and* it so happens the party halfling has either already burned his luck away or is unwilling to do so.

I've never seen such a situation in a year or so of play. I wonder how many other people have.

I'll go still further and ask how many groups have both a halfling and a cleric? Given the randomization of character creation, not every group is going to have both, and some may have neither...

Having both just may be an imminently survivable circumstance.

GnomeBoy gets me. <3 U MANNNNNN

I just meant that if your players are breaking the game, you have to remember that you're letting them. I don't have any problem telling my players "look, your interpretation of the rules is reasonable but it's broken and therefore I say no."

And don't forget to role play! If Holy Father Pedro and Wee Man the Mighty have become some sort of nigh unstoppable duo, Bad Guys and Bad Guy Factions should take notice. Tempt them with evil (but powerful) artifacts. Or show them that you're OLD SCHOOL... sic some Grimtooth's Traps on em.

beermotor wrote: I just meant that if your players are breaking the game, you have to remember that you're letting them. I don't have any problem telling my players "look, your interpretation of the rules is reasonable but it's broken and therefore I say no."

Uh -- that's what exactly I do. In the OP I suggested that I would not allow luck burns for recover the body rolls. You replied "why not?" This whole discussion is about whether that's a good idea. I don't think it's "breaking" the game. It's not like it's a common occurrence that PCs fail recover the body checks in the first place. It just creates a style of play where it will be extremely rare for a PC to die in combat. If that works for you, more power to you.

Wait ... I mean, "if that works for you, you're a deviant and a social leper who has no place running a DCC game! My rules interpretation is the True Word and will not suffer contradiction!"

Gnomeboy: Another good question. I would think it's pretty uncommon for a group to not have a cleric, but we didn't have a Halfling for a while -- still don't have a dwarf. But my guess is it is pretty common for an average size group (4ish players, 2ish PCs per player) to have both.

jozxyqk wrote:But my guess is it is pretty common for an average size group (4ish players, 2ish PCs per player) to have both.

Hunh. I'm not picturing most people playing with multiple characters.

As the game was developing, it really seemed to me that the idea was, that after the Funnel, you chose one character with which to go forward...

But it does seem to be a thing, that people are keeping all survivors going forward until they die in play... Was the game designed this way? Or is it a 'house-rule' that may throw functionality into a different spectrum?

I might break that question out into a new thread...