Goodman Games

There are very little differences between how the BETA and the full release plays. Especially for a one-shot. The full release really only expands what's in the beta. The full game plays the same. it just includes minor fixes, some clarifications, tons more spells. For example, the XP chart is simpler. Leveling 0-level survivors to 1st after their first dungeon is still recommended. So for now just keep track of "encounters", making note of how "tough" or "challenging" there were. When the full rules come out, you'll be able to convert these encounters to the new XP system without much trouble, but for a one-shot, it's not an issue. The starting occupation chart is slightly expanded, using the beta one is fine for now. Spells have been modified slightly, and for the better, but again you can use the BETA ones in the time being without much difference in the long run because things are so random any way.

Since this is a "Classic Modules" thread (and you know you're a gamer from the 80's if you call them modules) dig one up, and play it with the beta rules. The DCC RPG campaign I've been playing since the release of the Beta has been awesome. I truly love this game.

So Josph and Harley have spent the last year making minor tweaks and formatting the final product? I find that hard to believe.

Don't the final rules go to level 10?
Isn't corruption significantly toned down?
What's the action die progression over 10 levels?


I know you are trying to be helpful but it is too close to the actual release to play beta now.

The NDA-ish silence has been lifted with the release of a final draft so I can talk about I've seen. I'll only talk about the final rules in how it related to my weekly campaign. I've been running the same campaign since the release of the Beta. We started converting the campaign to the Final rules over the last two or three weeks. Conversion to the final rules have been extremely simple. We just adjusted XP to the new system (note, there wasn't any system included in the beta, I used Swords & Wizardry's XP system), we re-printed the new versions of spells for the wizard and the elf, and partied on! Seriously, that's it for PCs. Mighty Deeds are the same. The Thief skills are practically like what was released with the thief update. Same with the Cleric. Really nothing new, just clarifications and more spells and patrons, more amazing art and tips on making unique magic items and monsters. Making unique Monsters & Magic Items are the most major addition, which will help when converting monsters and traps from Classic Modules!

Basically, if you're playing the BETA, you're playing DCC RPG. The Final rules have very minor changes as far as the characters are concerned, and has more goodies for Judges to use and include. It's a huge tome, and it's really friendly to add all your old stuff from old editions of D&D.

A lot will depend on the adventure. White Plume Mountain? Beyond the Barrier Peaks? Not a problem. Those are already directly in-line with the Appendix N vibe. Jot down some conversion notes in the margins and you are good to go.

For of the more "mainstream" modules (and please don't take that wrong, these are some of my personal favorites), what really needs to get changed up is the player's awareness of the monsters. As in, "oh, another goblin?" A lot can be accomplished by both reskinning and renewing the beasties. Add in a little magical wonder and extraplanar madness and you are set.

(Along these lines, it would be totally fun to Appendix N Keep on the Borderlands ... something to add to the list.)

As for Appendix N'ing old DCCs ... that's still on my to do list. Hope to have some updates to this thread soon: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=17674

//H

What about attack die progression for warriors (and similar dice for other classes)? Did the d3 to d7 progression get stretched to 10 levels? Or does it top out at d7 at 5th? Or does it continue to progress after 5th?

Do you still need an exact 20 (with bonuses) to crit for attacks using something other than d20?

I kind of want to stay on topic. But I'll touch on some of these questions. "Minor tweaks" would be inaccurate. There are way more spells, 5 complete patrons and their spells, and lots of clarifications. Those alone fill half the book and weren't in the Beta. A lot the material are for Judges, so players might feel like they're only getting more spells. Which is true, there aren't any new, or additional, "rules" for players. Game plays the same, combat is essentially "the same" as the Beta. But for Judges, there are tons of new things, tips for running adventures, awarding treasure and creating encounters, which in turn gives players more things to do, and reasons to do things. "Formatting" is not easy, as a graphic designer, I know that presenting information, but creating tone and including appropriate art is not an easy thing to do.

Yes, characters go to 10. But isn't that common knowledge? Corruption is toned down a little apparently, from my perspective as the Judge, I can't really tell. The old wizard in the party (who's dead now, but lives on as a Patron in Crawl! No.1) got pretty corrupted quickly, but he was way more aggressive with his spells than the new wizard (and the elf.) So I can't really tell. I can tell that misfires happen a bit more than corruption, so I guess yes, considering misfires don't have the long term effects of Corruption. Action dice? The additional action die you get at 5th keeps going up as you'd imagine. A 10th-level warrior has 3 action dice, the third being a d14. You can extrapolate other class's from that. The warrior's Crit Die is 2d20 at 10th.

re: playing Beta, nope not too late. As I said in my last post, converting or switching from Beta to Final is really minor. It's not like the difference from the 4e RedBox to the 4e Full rules (ugh, don't get me started...) Beta characters are not stunted in anyway, they're identical for the most part, especially up to 5th-level. I haven't stared at the rules enough to notice the major differences, a +1 here and there. Where a saving throw is +2 at 5th, it's probably +4 at 10th.

Thanks for the info. Confirmation that the 5 levels didn’t get stretched to 10 levels helps a great deal on knowing what the final rules look like. I asked about the action die but I was really talking about the attack die for warriors (and similar dice for others). Based on your post I would expect it continues to progress, but adding the next die size each level would give us a d16 at 10th. That seems like too much so maybe d8 at 6th and 7th, d10 at 8th and 9th, and d12 at 10th?

If you don’t want to discuss it in the thread then let’s start a new one.

Publishing and the sharing of House-Rules is a time honored tradition of the hobby that goes back to Original D&D. There are tons of blogs and zines that exist today that share these kinds of rules for Old-school D&D. Just look up OSR. Lots of these are published in PDFs and available in print, such as Footprints, Fight-on!, Oubliette, Knock-spell, etc, and their associated blogs. 99% of these Old-school hacks are compatible with DCC RPG, just like the Old-school modules. I know this because I have been trying them since I switched from Swords & Wizardry to DCC RPG last year. Crawl! is my contribution to this tradition. There will be lots of old-school rules re-interpreted for DCC RPG, and rules and tips on converting old-school spells and treasure for DCC RPG in Crawl!

I've been using a 3d6 method in my game. I guess I should publish my version somewhere. Since leveling is gradual, it's a nice reward. Some members in my group have reached 2nd level and only a couple have had ability score bump.

Now that you mention it... In my S&W Complete Wilderlands campaign, we don't use race-as-class (just as OD&D didn't use it until Holmes Basic D&D). A lot of people asked it months ago, but the answeres as far as I remember weren't clear: is there an option mentioned for demi-humans, to enter into non race-as-class classes when reaching first level (eg. elf wizard)?
It's not a problem if there isn't (I can house rule the hell out of a game), I'm just curious.

The Deed Die for Warriors and Dwarves tops out at d10+4! So while it's not a d16, on average it's a bit higher and MDoA are automatic 7th+. Pretty awesome if you ask me.

I don't have the inside story, but a Mighty Deeds progression of d3, d4, d5, d6, d7, d8, d10, d12, d14, d16 seems logical to me.

How many monsters are in the book? Is it a much bigger selection than the Beta, and are they all unique twists on the classics (like we saw in the Beta with the wraslin' lizardmen and gem-eyed skeletons)?

Ok, last one because i think I might be crossing some lines (moderators, feel free to delete anything.): The rules were vague in the beta, and Joseph didn't specifically disallow that in his replies, but it's clear in the Final rules- Demi-humans must progress into their appropriate class. But the rules also state that occupations don't have to be determined randomly, especially if a player has a specific background in mind. One nice thing is that 0-level demi-humans will have a racial trait. That being noted, it's super easy to create a new classes for DCC.

This is why I still couldn't decide, whether I should use the game as it is for a Hyboria-like sword & sorcery setting, or convert my Wilderlandsesque sandbox setting into it and add new races, classes, occupations.

Last one, for realz this time. There are about 3x more monsters than were in the beta, but I've not paid them much attention because I'm more interested in the rules for creating unique monsters. Such as humanoids, un-dead, demons and Dragons-these rules are awesome. Although not as comprehensive as Random Esoteric Creature Generator, they're just simpler. The RECG is recommended in the Final, and I recommend it too. It's f-ing RAD (as is anything James Raggi does.) and completely usable with DCC as-is.

Really, anything useful with older editions of D&D can be easily used with DCC RPG. I can't emphasis this enough. I use the AD&D MM for classic monsters most of the time.

Thanks Harley, I've got my group on a cliff hanger with Keep on the Borderlands Appendix N'ed (I used it to have the players try out their new level ones'). But I was curious if anyone has any offers on any big modules that would be good, personally I'm a huge fan of the one dungeon module (one page dungeon), but would like to give something big a go. I mentioned "Citadel of Fire" and thought about the U1-U3 as another possible option. Just curious if anyone else has any other ideas.

Hmmm... If I had to run a DCC RPG game using only TSR products, I'd consider Appendix N'ing:

• Scourge of the Slave Lords super module (toss out some of the silly intro stuff; get the PCs abducted due to their own actions as quickly as possible)
  
• If your players are up for gonzo, both Dungeon Land and Beyond the Magic Mirror
  
• Dwellers of the Forbidden City
  
• Isle of Dread
  
• Tomb of the Lizard King (nostalgia here, but holy funnel, Batman!)

//H

Tomb of Horrors!

I want a Tome of Horrors for DCC RPG.

You can TOTALLY run Tomb of Horrors. Someone will make a tome of horrors, I know Tortog is working on something similar, but the one for S&W by Frog God Games/Necromancer games can be used as written.

The only gripe I have - and it's nothing major - is the game topping out at 10th level.

I may have to increase the xps needed to level up as I've got so much to throw at them.

A 10th-level character in DCC is considerably tougher than a 10th-level character in any edition except for 3e or 4e. I'm really curious what people have in mind to levels above 10, because at that point I've always felt it becomes unplayable (I've never been a fan of "epic" play.) At 10th level, you're talking about what is know in the OSR as Domain Levels, where daily adventuring is not typical, it's usually controlling your domain, kingdom, army, guild, tower, whatever. That's not really the focus of DCC RPG, at least not yet. There are tons of games that take those levels in consideration, ACKS comes to mind. And because of the similarities between that game, the OSR and inherently DCC RPG, there is more than enough materials available to transition your 10+ DCC characters to that kind of game. I've been playing DCC RPG consistently for almost a year now, and the highest level characters are only 2nd. I don't see them ever reaching 10th. Conan sitting on his throne, bored with life but too tired and old to do anything about it is a 10th level Conan in DCC. Heck it took 5 years for the characters in my 3.5 campaign to reach 10th.

Your post about 10th level characters being strong than pre 3.x games is very true. I have been running only old Dnd basic and 1st edition moduals, i have ran several times, converted to several systems, (such as 3.x and 4th). A fighter getting a d5 bonus to hit and damage really ups the damage output, and spells are really strong too. Right now I am running 5 characters through ravenloft and they are level three, and the adventure is supposed to be for level 5, and they are not having to much trouble with hacking their way though it. Since most published adventures are around 10th level or less, it shouldn't be to tough to convert most adventures.

Your post about taking 5 years to reach level 10 in 3.5 is different than my experince though. I played in a 3.x game of mostly dm created material and we were 17th level after three years. Same for when I ran what I call "the blue adventures" for 3.5, the blue adventures were a serious of adventures that when linked, went from leave 1-20, and it took three years of only playing one night a week and only during the school year, and we got to level 18, and I even threw in a couple of extra adventures to fill in some xp gaps between moduals.

But I think for DCCRPG 10 levels will be plenty.

Well in 30 years or so of gaming I think have seen 11th level once....

Well, if you take a look at the beta classes including the revised cleric and thief, you've pretty much got it. The zero level profession chart has been expanded. All classes use the same XP chart now, and it's been really simplified. 1-4 XP per encounter. The biggest thing I've noticed about combat is that two handed weapons roll a smaller initiative die instead of a penalty, and some weapon stats have been tweaked. I think there's more instances of die steps replacing static modifiers.

Joseph said we could talk but that doesn't mean I'm gonna retype the whole book for you guys. Just a few more days, folks. Hang in there.

Easy for you to say