Please don't kill the dumb guy... question about Hit Dice

[JonHook]

Hi guys,

I'm starting to come back to fantasy gaming, and I've chosen, (wisely), to make DCC my fantasy RPG of choice. I recently read most of the rulebook as it would pertain to a player, but I also wanted to try my hand at rolling up a dragon... just to see how it would unfold.

That's when I hit the Hit Dice thing. Maybe it's because I've been playing Call of Cthulhu for 20+ years and there is not concept of Hit Dice in that game, but I am dumb-struck.

My assumption was that Hit Dice were the number and type of dice I roll to generate the monster's Hit Points, but in the Dragon Table II, it says that the dragon has X number of Hit Points per Hit Die. So, I don't actually roll the Hit Dice on a dragon?

In my experiment I rolled on Dragon Table I, and got an Average Size dragon, so I got 1d8+4 Hit Dice. I rolled a 7, so I have 11 Hit Dice. I thought I was going to roll 11d12 to get my Hit Points, a potential to get 132 Hit Points, but more likely it'd be something in the neighborhood of 70 Hit Points. But then I look on Dragon Table II, and if I'm reading it right, my dragon will only have 55 Hit Points.

I'm so confused. So please, my questions are...

1. In general, how do you use/define "Hit Dice"?
2. Specifically, how do I use Hit Dice on a dragon?

Thanks. Me dumb.

[GnomeBoy]

Dragons in DCC are an exception to the usual way Hit Dice work. Actually, the method jumps straight back to Old Fart D&D (certainly Holmes Basic, perhaps earlier).

Generally, yes, you'd roll your 11d12 (or whatever the HD are) to get the hit points for a creature.

But as you can see in Chart II, hit points are directly related to the Age of the Dragon. The number of hit points will also factor out as damage dealt by the breath weapon.

That help?

[JonHook]

Excellent. Thanks.

[maxinstuff]

This came up in another thread a while ago - I read the hp per hit die as a modifier (like stamina modifier).

So roll the HD and add x HP per hit die same as if it was a stamina modifier. This seems to produce the HP totals more like I would expect too

[GnomeBoy]

This came up in another thread a while ago - I read the hp per hit die as a modifier (like stamina modifier).

So roll the HD and add x HP per hit die same as if it was a stamina modifier. This seems to produce the HP totals more like I would expect too

However, that would make Jon's dragon have on average 126 hit points (vs. 55 by the method I suggest) -- and would mean that most likely it's breath weapon would do 126 points of damage, save for half. Which would mean, even saving for half, you're going to have a lot of characters (maybe ALL characters) dead if they get caught in just one breath attack. 10th Level Warrior hp average is 65 with no Stamina bonus. 10th Level Wizard with a +3 Stamina bonus would average 55. Maybe some folks are into that... But 55 damage, with a save for half seems more playable to me.

Maybe you're not adding your hp bonus to the breath weapon damage...?

[JonHook]

Yeah, I think I will rule it as a straight X/Hit Dice as Hit Points per Dragon Table II.

To add insult to injury, I rolled "Smoke" as my dragon's breath weapon. Whooptie-doo.

[GnomeBoy]

To add insult to injury, I rolled "Smoke" as my dragon's breath weapon. Whooptie-doo.

So the PCs are about to kill the dragon, or at least have injured it more than it thought was possible. It breathes smoke to confuse them and obscure itself. The PCs don't know that it's just smoke; the players are going to assume they need to make a Save, but you're saying "not now". They aren't going to know what to expect from that, and may scramble and stumble to get out of the cloud, assuming it is more insidious than a more typical breath weapon. Meanwhile, the dragon has a chance to escape, employ some other tactic, summon minions, etc....

Smoke is a tactic, not a nuke.

[JonHook]

To add insult to injury, I rolled "Smoke" as my dragon's breath weapon. Whooptie-doo.

So the PCs are about to kill the dragon, or at least have injured it more than it thought was possible. It breathes smoke to confuse them and obscure itself. The PCs don't know that it's just smoke; the players are going to assume they need to make a Save, but you're saying "not now". They aren't going to know what to expect from that, and may scramble and stumble to get out of the cloud, assuming it is more insidious than a more typical breath weapon. Meanwhile, the dragon has a chance to escape, employ some other tactic, summon minions, etc....

Smoke is a tactic, not a nuke.

Oooh. Good call. I like it.

[Raven_Crowking]

Also, if the dragon gets its ass kicked, it gets its ass kicked. This is a cool and swingy game where you are kicking ass one minute, and cringing in terror the next. It will even out.

[Skyscraper]

If you don't like smoke as the breath weapon, use something else. Tables are there IMO for use when you don't know what to use (which happens). Otherwise, just design your dragon as you see it. IMHO of course.

[Raven_Crowking]

+1d24 to Skyscraper's comment.