Some more rules questions

[Tortog]

Here are some questions that arose during our regular campaign. As always, thanks for your insights!

1. Can the Halfling burn his Luck on the Wizard’s spell check? Seems like it to me, but wouldn’t that be much too powerful?

Yes... but I'm not a big fan of regenerative luck, so in my games all characters get a chance to regenerate some luck when they gain a new level. Luck burning in my games gets reserved only for the most dire situations... which also means that the wizards and clerics are more willing to suffer through corruptions and deity disapproval.

2. How is the Cleric supposed to reach the higher spell results?

A lot of good ideas here, but here's a couple that I'm offering up in my next book project; which is a DCC Spell and Patrons book, but will have some stuff for clerics as well.

Location: Where is the spell being cast? Is the cleric standing on ground sanctified to their deity? Are they in a temple devoted to their order; if so, is it a rural temple or the main seat of worldly power for the casting cleric's deity? I'd be willing to chuck in a few bonus points to their spell check for any of these:+2 for the sanctified ground, +3 to +5 for the rural temple, and as much as +10 for the main temple.

And then there is the congregation... I usually grant +1 to casting checks for every 5 members of the cleric's congregation actively assisting the cleric.

3. If multiple characters try to break down a door together, how do you handle it? Examples, some from Goodman’s modules, would be:
- Everyone rolls his own Str-check, ignoring all others.
- +2 to the check for each character helping on one rolled check, with a set maximum of characters that can help.
- Only characters with a positive strength modifier can help and simply add their modifier to one roll made by the strongest.
- The characters need a combined Strength score (not modifier) to automatically succeed. I think this one is from Sailors and I'm quite fond of it.

3.5 If there is a set Strength DC to break down a door in the adventure and one character wants to break the door down alone without any time pressure. Would you have him roll until he makes the roll or just decide that he manages to do so after some time has passed?

I usually default to the second one, but I set the number of folks that can help based upon the situation at hand... size of door, do they have room to apply any leverage? I tell players from the beginning that if they can find or develop innovative solutions that I'm more than happy to throw down some bonuses. It also depends on how important getting through that door is to the story. I reward creativity and if they come up with a solution that eliminates the need for a roll to break down the door I roll for random monster encounter (on top of what ever might be on the other side of the door) because of the time or noise it took to accomplish.

This has led to some awesome character interactions over the years.

4. How would you handle surprise in this situation: The characters know that multiple invisible foes are in a room. They walk into the room, weapons ready. The invisible creatures silently take position wherever they want and then attack, instantly ending their invisibility. Would they get surprise attacks before Initiative is rolled or would Initiative be rolled normally?

Tough one. For me it comes down to the details again... are they invisible drow assassins or orcs hidden by a mass invisibility spell? If the situation is that both sides know of each other and they are relatively equally matched as adversaries; then I'd let the characters keep their normal AC and just give the invisible assailants a bonus to attack and damage rolls for their first attack. Everyone rolls initiative normally, but invisible critters get a bonus and might go faster than PC's.

When reading through the book again today, I came up with some more questions that I remembered came up during our sessions. Again I'd be very interested how you would rule in these cases.

5. Concerning Grappling - When a creature is pinned, do you rule that it can do nothing besides trying to free itself from the pin? I believe the rules text is „it can’t take any significant actions“. Also, would you rule that freeing oneself from a grapple is a use of one's action die? Or does it take, for lack of a better turn, a "full-round action"?

If it's two normal creatures wrestling and one pins the other then ya, the only thing they can really do is try to free themselves, unless one is a warrior and tries to be mighty and comes up with an interesting MDoA attack. example: warrior caught up by giant constrictor snake has the life being crushed out of them, but they try to take its head off with the weapon in their one free arm... etc.

6. Ulfeonar’s Wolf Spear (from Doom of the Savage Kings, p.12) - I don’t quite understand how this is to be used. First of all: „On a successful hit…“ - does this mean that this pinning effect triggers after any successful hit, after the regular weapon damage has been applied? Or is it some kind of special attack, activated when the wielder succesfully ‚hits‘ the foe but not inflicting any damage?

6.5 Then concerning the pinning effect of the spear: Is this the same pin as described in the Grapple rules? Or would you rule that the spear’s pin only reduces the pinned creature’s AC by the spear wielder’s Strength modifier plus rendering the creature unable to move in any mundane or magical way?

Haven't read it yet ... no idea.

7. Falling damage: „For each broken bone, the character permanently loses 1 point of Strength or Agility (player’s choice).“ - I assume that this broken bone, including the ability loss, can be healed by a cleric sacrificing a die use with Healing Hands? Or would you rule that it is not possible to ever heal permanent ability loss?

The way I read it on page 96, the loss is permanent. However, on pg 278, it says that a result of 20+ on a Restore Vitality spell can restore these lost points.

8. Standing up from Prone - does it take one of your action die to do this or all of your action dice? For example, could a level 6 fighter stand up with his first action die and then make an attack with his other action die in the same round?

I figure any level warrior can stand from prone and make an attack roll in the same round, but their attack die/dice are reduced one step on the dice chain.

All others: it takes one of their action dice to stand, if they have any actions left then they can proceed normally.

9. „A wizard who sacrifices a full 20 points of ability scores in one fell swoop automatically treats his next spell check as a roll of natural 20.“ - pretty sure I saw this discussed somewhere already, but I couldn’t find it just now. The question that came up for us was, wouldn’t it be worse to spellburn 20 points than to spend merely 19? When spending 19, you would roll the d20 and add 19 points for the final spell result, with 20, you would not roll the die and merely add your regular Int + twice your caster level to a fixed result of 20.


Thanks!

Well, the rule on pg. 107 says that "...treats his next spell check..." so I've been under the assumption that all of their normal casting benefits still apply, but that they get to double count their levels. However, I could see where this could be a disadvantage though, and that's with the lucky few wizards using a d24 or a d30 on their casting check. A strict interpretation would mean these casters only get '20' + normal bonuses. I wouldn't rule that way, but it is technically possible for these wizards to get the short end of the stick if they burn 20 points. As a corollary question: would anyone let these powerful wizards spellburn 20 points to get 24+ or 30+ casting bonuses, or make the wizard burn 24, or 30 points (respectively) to get the maximum out of their casting ability?

My vote is for the latter, make'em pay more to get more...

And thank you good Sir Robilar for posting the questions. These types of threads are a great way to get us all thinking about the way we run our games.

[Sir Robilar]

Thanks for your replies, these were very insightful!