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Post by erik on Sept 13, 2012 0:49:16 GMT -5
Hello, Im going to play for the first time this weekend and I have a few questions.
Should I use the 3.1 rules since they are the only set in the download section?
I would like to use the 3.5 awareness rules. You determine that the monsters are alert or ready to ambush before any hero enters the room. The construction phase happens when you are in a room by an open door. Can you choose not to go into that room since you know that the monsters are ready for you? What happens if you don't go inside? Monsters are not normally allowed to leave the room right?
What happens if only I choose to enter the room and everyone else hangs around the last room trying to open a chest? How does the turn order/initiative work?
I'm a little confused about what I can do on my turn. Can I do the following? 1 move move 2 move attack 3 move attack attack 4 spell attack 5 move attack spell 6 just move
What about monsters? What combinations can they do on their turn?
The instruction say I can only move once. I can cast 2 spells. I can attack 2 times. So during my turn do I choose one of these things. If I choose move then I get one move then my turn is over. If I choose attack I can take two swings with my weapon then my turn is over. If I choose spell then I cast two spells then my turn is over?
If that is true then it brings me back to the room entry question. If I am in the previous room and I want to enter the new room that is a move. Anyone else that follows me in has to use a move. Could you give me some examples of how this scenario works with the monsters at different awareness levels? Since you spend a turn moving into the room it seems like any monster that is not asleep would get to go next.
Can ranged weapons fire through doorways/open doors. Or can ranged weapons only hit things in the same room?
Can you use a mele weapon to attack a monster on an adjacent square if they are in a different room. In other words can you stab someone through an open door.
What's the practical way of keeping track of initiative for players and monsters?
If someone enters another room what does that do to turn order? They are the first in that room but you are the first in this room?
I've read both the 3.1 and the 3.5 instructions. Some some of my confusion might be coming from the two sets mixing in my head.
I can't wait to give the game a try. Are there any other bits of advice or FAQ type things that would help me with my first game?
Would it be possible to get the latest draft version of the rules posted?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give. And thanks for the awesome game, Erik
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Post by kalajel on Sept 14, 2012 11:54:05 GMT -5
Hi,
While I did not work on the game, I'll try to answer your questions to the best of my abilities. My answers are not official by any means, and if I'm wrong, developers can fell free to correct me...
3.1 vs. 3.5 3.1 is the current stable version with 3.5 being a playtest version, probably also a testing grounds for ideas for the upcoming 4th edition (which was announced somewhere on this forum, but I can't remember where for the life of me...). 3.1 is more complete and using anything from 3.5 will be at your own risk, although some things seem to be better explained in 3.5...
Rooms Determination The rules seems to be a bit vague as to when exactly you roll for a tile. You could rule it that it happens when the characters pass through an opened door, or when they first open the door. The monster readiness rule is another goog example of an incomplete playtest rule to use at your own risk; if the party knows the monsters are ready for them, then there is no reason for them to enter the room and get jumped by the monsters, they could always leave because not only won't monsters leave the room, but if players leave a room, monsters get removed from play... As for being the only one entering a room when everyone tries to open a chest, I guess you could use initiative as normal with other players being able to come help you out at their initiative count either when they finally opened the chest or decided to leave it be.
Actions You can take up to 2 actions during your round. While most actions can be performed twice during the round, taking up both of your actions for that round should you choose to use them twice, some actions can only per performed once. So taking your examples; 1. No; the Move action can only be performed once per round. 2. Yes. 3. No; that's 3 actions, you can only perform 2. 4. Yes. 5. No; that's 3 actions, you can only perform 2. 6. Yes, though it might be more productive to couple this action with a Change Weapon, Use Item, Open a Locked Chess or Door, Detect Trap, or Disarm Trap action, if at all possible.
Monsters are most likely under the same restrictions as player characters. As for ranged attacks through doors, I have no idea; but I have a feeling that in order to keep with the rules-light and simple spirit of the rules, the answer is no. And for entering new rooms while still clearing old ones, I'd go in order from oldest room to newest room.
Hopes this helps.
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erf_beto
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Posts: 369
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Post by erf_beto on Sept 19, 2012 15:21:59 GMT -5
Hi erik! First of all, WELCOME to the forums! I'm really sorry I couldn't respond to you sooner. I had a "busy" couple of weeks I still can't give you all answers, mostly because I've been working on version 4.0 of the rules (it's coming! Soon!) and I clearly don't remember much of the previous versions. LOL Suffice to say, some of these issues are either gone or addressed in v4. For instance, we clarified the confusion on the actions per turn: you get two Actions and you can only use each once per turn. So, you can attack and move, or move and attack, but never attack twice. I'll try to look into your other questions later. And if you have played, tell us how you handled - or would have preferred to handle - any of these issues. Cheers!
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Post by ultros64 on Sept 20, 2012 13:56:20 GMT -5
That's actually great to hear Erf. The whole "can I double attack" question had come up a couple of times in game.
4.0 sounds like it's going to be awesome.
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Post by erik on Sept 21, 2012 1:29:53 GMT -5
Hello All,
Thanks for the answers. I played my first game! The weekend before we played Descent, and I own all of the Dungeon and Dragon board games and used to play them often. I thought I'd give you some feedback.
I'm very excited about dungeon plungin and all it has to offer. Being able to create a character and develop him from quest to quest is awesome. There is a lot of great stuff in this game, and I plan on playing it again.
We did run into some rough edges, and I'm tinkering with the rules a little for our next game session. I'll go into some details about what I'm planning.
I'm writing a quick intro quest to introduce players to the rules.
I'm planning on defining a reduced set of spells and items that are available for purchase on this quest. We spent a lot of time on our first game developing characters that (because of our inexperience) were unable to cope with the quest that we selected.
Because of the dice we saw monsters for the first time 11 turns in. We spent most of the game opening doors and chests and contending with traps and (non-monster) random events. This didn't make for an overly satisfying experience. After a while we stopped checking for traps because we never succeeded. We just started bashing in doors and getting pounded by traps.
When we did first encounter monsters I died. At that point we decided to just stop playing. Maybe next time I'll just skip a turn and roll up a new character.
I'm adjusting the rules so that in one roll of the dice you can determine if the door is locked, if it opens, and if it was trapped. I'd rather the game was a little less about locksmithing and a little more about exploration, completing quests, and bashing monsters.
I'm also going to include pre-rolled rooms. So you only have to roll once to determine the room layout.
Critical failure rules are a little unclear and I'm not quite sure it added much to the game. After a while we just stopped worrying about them.
I'm not sure about how to interpret the rules, but I'm going to allow monsters to move through open doorways and enter different rooms.
I'm also going to allow firing ranged weapons through open doors.
Instead of having a set of monster laws, I'm just going to define some AI for the monsters in the quest. Similar to the AI in the D&D board game system.
Initiative was also a pain to keep track of if you had several monsters on the board. Keeping track of what your rolled for what monster and who entered the room first, or what happens if you leave the room. It felt a little too much like accounting rather than a fight. So I figure next time on the players' turn they can take their actions in any order they like. And on the monsters' turn the monster types will go in the order they are listed on the quest. The players can decide the order of the specific monsters of each type.
O yeah, one more thing. My friend always wants to be a bard. So I think I'll add some bard abilities, items, and spells. Maybe on a critical failure he breaks a string...
I know it sounds like I'm changing a lot, but not really. I'm just moving some of the specifics out of the rules and into the quests to make for a more streamlined experience that hopefully should require a lot less dice rolling and keep the players involved in the story rather than table lookups.
I'll keep you posted on my progress. And thank you for Dungeon Plungin!
Erik
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erf_beto
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Post by erf_beto on Sept 21, 2012 7:43:23 GMT -5
Sounds like you hit the notes we want with v4 too!
Most of us play our own version of the rules, be it from interpretation or different needs/wants. We'll include a section in v4 with House Rules you can adopt to make the game suit your preferences (simple things like ignoring critical failures) .
Like you, I also hate playing the excessive locksmithing game too - but that is a quest design issue: it's the tables that should have made it less often to find a locked/trapped door/chest.
In fact, most of the issues in the game can be circumvented by "better" quest tables, while the flow of the construction phase remains the same. So, even though streamlining all the construction phase is something I've wanted for a long time, we will keep the basics of construction flow almost the same as it is now, but we aim to have more varied quests, deviating from the basics, like some without traps or locks.
There's even a card based variant in BGG, which mix it up a bit, making the game a bit more varied and enjoyable overall, and I think that idea can still be improved upon.
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Post by tyzor on Jan 11, 2013 6:13:37 GMT -5
Is the 2 action restriction also in the rules 3.5? I can not find it.
So Monster can also attack 2 times, loose their weapon and must pick it up and so on?
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erf_beto
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Post by erf_beto on Feb 11, 2013 7:21:15 GMT -5
I don't remember, actually. It may be buried somewhere in the 3.5 rules. Either way, you can use these guidelines: * It takes one action to pick up dropped weapons (as with using or equiping any other item). * Monsters, like Heroes, cannot attack twice (no action can be performed twice, not even Movement or using an item - which includes drinking two potions!). sorry for the late reply :/
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