Mighty Deeds, dwarves, multiple actions.

[Zenitii]

Hi all, I'm curious about your interpretations of the rules concerning mighty deeds of arms. As far as I know, warrior must declare the deed before rolling for his attack. Then he rolls the deed and the action die. If he has multiple attacks in one round, he rolls the deed die only once, and applies this result to all subsequent attacks. Question is - do you allow warrior to perform multiple deeds if he has more than one attack? If he declares the blinding attack, rolls high on d20, and rolls 4 on deed die, he blinds an enemy. Then he could declare disarming attack on his second attack, and he may be sure, that he will disarm the enemy, if he rolls well enough on d20, because he already got 4 at the beginning of the round. So for high level warrior with 3 attacks, do you allow him to perform three, potentially very strong deeds, if he rolls high enough at the beginnig on the deed die?

Another question is about dwarves - on page 52, 'sword and board', it is written that dwarf "can attempt Mighty Deeds involving the shield as well as his weapons". Do you interpret that as being able to perform one additional deed each round, or just the possibility of choosing if a dwarf wants to perform the deed either with his weapon or his shield?

[Raven_Crowking]

I read it as one Deed per round, but the Deed can be done with either sword or board, or with either attack in the case of multiple Action Dice.

[Raven_Crowking]

I read it as one Deed per round, but the Deed can be done with either sword or board, or with either attack in the case of multiple Action Dice.

[GnomeBoy]

I'll echo Raven's reply.

[oncelor]

Our house-rule is to roll the deed die with each attack and to give each attack its own opportunity for a MDoA.

[GnomeBoy]

Our house-rule is to roll the deed die with each attack and to give each attack its own opportunity for a MDoA.

How is that working out, given that as you level up to get those additional attacks, you also get a bigger Deed die, and thus have a better chance of pulling off a Deed...?

[Zenitii]

Yes, one deed per round sounds reasonable to me. Though 10-level warriors are almost demi-gods, 3 (4 for dwarves) mighty deeds after a high deed dice roll guaranteed would be probably too much. Nevertheless, I can still see some reasoning behind allowing them such a high number of deeds per round, considering wizards being able to cast three, much more powerful spells at such level. It could possibly reduce the inequaliy of power between fighting and casting classes at higher levels. Yet, wizards are mortals who bargain with higher, dangerous powers, risking corruption and their very souls, so I'll probably stick to one deed per round. Nobody said there always have to be balance and equality. Still it's just mostly a theoretical discussion, as I doubt any of my players will ever get to such level.

[Raven_Crowking]

Remember that the chances of extra attacks due to criticals go up for higher-level warriors as well.

[oncelor]

Our house-rule is to roll the deed die with each attack and to give each attack its own opportunity for a MDoA.

How is that working out, given that as you level up to get those additional attacks, you also get a bigger Deed die, and thus have a better chance of pulling off a Deed...?

I think it's not bad. Given that the spell casters regularly put all enemies within 500' to sleep or cause 50 points of damage to dozens of monsters in one attack, giving warriors two shots at MDoA certainly hasn't made them over-powered relative to other characters.

[jozxyqk]

Our house-rule is to roll the deed die with each attack and to give each attack its own opportunity for a MDoA.

How is that working out, given that as you level up to get those additional attacks, you also get a bigger Deed die, and thus have a better chance of pulling off a Deed...?

I think it's not bad. Given that the spell casters regularly put all enemies within 500' to sleep or cause 50 points of damage to dozens of monsters in one attack, giving warriors two shots at MDoA certainly hasn't made them over-powered relative to other characters.

Sure seems like it would slow the game down and be cumbersome to keep track of. I can't imagine my warrior/dwarf PCs attempting to describe, and me attempting to adjudicate two or three MDoAs *each* every single round.

[Blood Axe]

How "Mighty" is it if it becomes so common that you can do it 3 times a round.....

[oncelor]

Wizard's Turn: "The 15 trollish spearmen, 23 brownie slingers, 15 hob footmen, 12 pixie archers, and 4 fomorians that I summoned last round will act first and attack the dragon." <Rolls 69 separate attack and damage rolls, including three critical hit results.> "Now Notlob my focal familiar will fly over to that tree and I'll cast Fireball through him." <Rolls 1d20 for spell.> "You catch 16 draconic acolytes in the blast.." <Rolls 16 saving throws.> "The mercurial effect of that is 'Unwanted Attention' so let's see, an agent of a supernatural being now appears and interrogates you on the use of the spell. Uhm OK, fire erupts from the ground and a being appears who looks like a bat with a sword for a tail and the head of a tiger and he announces in Latin 'I am Grobulax. Who dares disturb the Lord of Fire?'" "Yeah, OK. I'll talk to him later. I get one more spell. Let me spell burn 5 points and cast Nythull's Porcupine Coat for my next spell." "Spell burn for the Elf Lord... page 344." <Rolls die.> "Oh, you've got to come up with a pun, riddle, or rhyme that delights the King of Elfland otherwise you'll have to burn 10 points." "Hmmm, a pun. I need a divination to learn about puns because finding a pun to please the King of Elfland is really in portent. Get it? I think that's also a pun on 'really'." "That's actually a play on words on 'really' and a pun on 'important.' You hear an audible groan and the King of Elfland grants you your spellburn." <Rolls 1d20 for spell.> "Let me read the effects of the result: 'The caster’s body erupts in stiff, sharp quills that provide a +5 bonus to his AC. These quills do not inhibit spellcasting, and spell checks made by the caster are unmodified. In addition, anyone that attacks the caster in melee combat must make a DC 20 Ref save immediately after his attack or suffer 1d8+CL points of damage from contact with the quills. The caster’s quill-covered hands can also be used in melee combat and are considered magical weapons for the purpose of affecting targets protected from normal attacks. The quills impart a +5 bonus to attack rolls and inflict 1d8+5 damage on a successful hit. Lastly, up to six quills can be thrown as a missile attack against a single target each round. The quills have a range of 20/40/60, impart a +5 magical bonus to attack rolls, and do 1d8+5 points of damage on a successful strike. A separate attack roll is made for each thrown quill.' Let me write all this down. OK. Next turn I'll get six attacks! And those four acolytes who are going to charge me will each have to make a saving throw or take damage."

Warrior's Turn: "I'll try and trip as many draconic acolytes as I can." <Picks up a 1d20, 1d7 deed die, 1d8 damage die. Rolls all dice at once.> "I got a deed of 7, I think that trips him." "Yes it does; with a 7 you knock down 8 draconic acolytes... you check one with your shoulder and they fall like dominoes." "Now that they're out of the way, with my second action can I charge the dragon and use my deed to jamb my dagger and wedge its mouth open?" "Sorry I don't want to slow down the game or make powerful character abilities become too common."

[Stretch]

Out of Curiosity, what spell did he use to summon up that many creatures in one round?

[Blood Axe]

Out of Curiosity, what spell did he use to summon up that many creatures in one round?

He must have The King of Elfland as a patron and used the spell- War Horn of Elfland.

[jozxyqk]

Wizard's Turn: "The 15 trollish spearmen, 23 brownie slingers, 15 hob footmen, 12 pixie archers, and 4 fomorians that I summoned last round will act first and attack the dragon." <Rolls 69 separate attack and damage rolls, including three critical hit results.> "Now Notlob my focal familiar will fly over to that tree and I'll cast Fireball through him." <Rolls 1d20 for spell.> "You catch 16 draconic acolytes in the blast.." <Rolls 16 saving throws.> "The mercurial effect of that is 'Unwanted Attention' so let's see, an agent of a supernatural being now appears and interrogates you on the use of the spell. Uhm OK, fire erupts from the ground and a being appears who looks like a bat with a sword for a tail and the head of a tiger and he announces in Latin 'I am Grobulax. Who dares disturb the Lord of Fire?'" "Yeah, OK. I'll talk to him later. I get one more spell. Let me spell burn 5 points and cast Nythull's Porcupine Coat for my next spell." "Spell burn for the Elf Lord... page 344." <Rolls die.> "Oh, you've got to come up with a pun, riddle, or rhyme that delights the King of Elfland otherwise you'll have to burn 10 points." "Hmmm, a pun. I need a divination to learn about puns because finding a pun to please the King of Elfland is really in portent. Get it? I think that's also a pun on 'really'." "That's actually a play on words on 'really' and a pun on 'important.' You hear an audible groan and the King of Elfland grants you your spellburn." <Rolls 1d20 for spell.> "Let me read the effects of the result: 'The caster’s body erupts in stiff, sharp quills that provide a +5 bonus to his AC. These quills do not inhibit spellcasting, and spell checks made by the caster are unmodified. In addition, anyone that attacks the caster in melee combat must make a DC 20 Ref save immediately after his attack or suffer 1d8+CL points of damage from contact with the quills. The caster’s quill-covered hands can also be used in melee combat and are considered magical weapons for the purpose of affecting targets protected from normal attacks. The quills impart a +5 bonus to attack rolls and inflict 1d8+5 damage on a successful hit. Lastly, up to six quills can be thrown as a missile attack against a single target each round. The quills have a range of 20/40/60, impart a +5 magical bonus to attack rolls, and do 1d8+5 points of damage on a successful strike. A separate attack roll is made for each thrown quill.' Let me write all this down. OK. Next turn I'll get six attacks! And those four acolytes who are going to charge me will each have to make a saving throw or take damage."

Warrior's Turn: "I'll try and trip as many draconic acolytes as I can." <Picks up a 1d20, 1d7 deed die, 1d8 damage die. Rolls all dice at once.> "I got a deed of 7, I think that trips him." "Yes it does; with a 7 you knock down 8 draconic acolytes... you check one with your shoulder and they fall like dominoes." "Now that they're out of the way, with my second action can I charge the dragon and use my deed to jamb my dagger and wedge its mouth open?" "Sorry I don't want to slow down the game or make powerful character abilities become too common."

Would you say that was a normal, run-of-the-mill round for the wizard? I wouldn't. In fact, if it happened in my game I would say it's the most extraordinarily complex and unusual round of casting I've ever seen. Heck, even a single spellburn is pretty rare in my game. That's also just about the most boring and simple MDoA I've ever seen, especially from a high level warrior. I don't think you're making a fair comparison. I was considering writing the inverse equivalent to your scenario, but don't think I'm going to spend the time. Use your imagination.

Crazy spellburns and summonings don't happen incredibly often. MDoAs, on the other hand, happen every single round. If every dwarf from level one on is trying to think of two MDoAs every round, and I'm having to adjudicate them, I know it would get old for me. To each his own though.

[Raven_Crowking]

Moreover, don't forget that the Warrior adds his level to the Init roll. It is likely that he is going first.

[oncelor]

We have played DCC straight through to eighth level and I've run a session once every week for almost the last two years. I've been making little tweaks periodically to the rules to make the game more enjoyable for our group, and this MDoA tweak, as with most of our other tweaks, has grown organically out of our playing experience. Maybe our experience is very different from that of other groups; I don't want to second-guess another Judge who finds that MDoAs bog down his game or make warriors' abilities too quotidian or too powerful. But in our campaign it just has not been this way.

The wizard round I described is not an unusual sort of round for wizards (or clerics) in our campaign. With spellburn, mercurial magic, and casting two (or three -- when hasted) spells-per-round, the spell-caster rounds tend to be very complicated and to take a long time: conjuring complicated illusions, spider webs, zig-zagging walls of force, etc. Some sort of complicated spell-burn or mercurial effects seems to happen almost every spell-caster round. By comparison, the most awesome warrior mighty deeds are tame in their effects and much, much faster to resolve than most spell effects. This is no sort of complaint -- the game is a blast -- my point is simply that it has been our experience that allowing warriors an extra MDoA attempt each round at 5th level has neither cheapened the thrill of MDoA's nor slowed down the game.

As for making MDoA's mundane, we find that warriors often hope for powerful effects with both their MDoA's to pull of truly spectacular results. For instance, just last session Delwyn tried to shoot an enemy frog-priest in the throat to silence the creature's foul chanting. He rolled an MDoA of 10 with the first attack, which I ruled muted the priest permanently. For his second roll he was excited and announced he wanted to "hit it in the throat again!" When he rolled an 11, I ruled that the priest's throat splattered against the wall and the priest was slain instantly (it had like 100 h.p.'s left at the time). If Delwyn had rolled a 10 for the second MDoA, I probably would have said that there was no effect. In this case because his two MDoAs taken together were in the 98th percentile of possible rolls, I decided to allow the second MDoA to do something that I'd never allow any single MDoA to do. This was a very fun gaming moment.

I tend to rule generously on the effects of higher level MDoA's (say on rolls of 6+) compared to the rules-as-written, but even considering this extra-generosity, I still don't think warriors are overpowered compared to the spell-casters. I feel that allowing higher MDoA rolls to have much more dramatic results preserves the coolness of MDoAs at higher level.

So I agree that it's not very special for an 8th level warrior to be able to roll two 3 or 4's on his MDoA and thus trip two man-sized opponents. But at 8th level, tripping a single man-sized opponent twice is no longer a very exciting thing for a warrior to do, and so I feel that by this level it's OK if this sort of MDoA effect becomes commonplace. In our campaign I rule that rolling an MDoA of 10 can trip 20 man-sized opponents. That's a mighty deed worthy of an 8th level warrior, and this kind of thing does not come up too often that the warrior who charges a horde of foes can rely on it happening. I do also rule that tougher monsters -- supernatural creatures, extra-strong creatures, or highly trained creatures -- are not as susceptible to MDoA results as the rules-as-written might seem to indicate. So a warrior rolling an MDoA of 10 might trip 20 man-sized grunts, but he might need a 7 just to attempt to trip one man-sized demonic creature or even to try to trip a renowned pirate king or powerful vampire.

Again, I don't want to second-guess other Judges who may have had other experiences in their campaigns. If your experience is that MDoAs slow down the game too much to allow a second attempt at 5th level, or that most spells don't slow down the game in comparison to MDoA effects, I don't mean to call your experiences into question. But this just has not been the case in our campaign.


As a digression, we have found that high-level thieves have their own strange sort of offensive power: it involves burning luck to guarantee that they will hide to get a sneak attack, then burn luck to guarantee that they'll hit, then burn luck to guarantee that their critical maxes-out table II: "Strike through heart! Fort save DC 28 or die instantly!" If I had time to rework the rules for higher level characters, I think I would try to find a way to make high-level thieves a little more interesting in combat. I'm not worried that thieves are underpowered or anything like that, it's just that high level thieves seem to have fewer and fewer effective combat choices whereas all the other characters seem to get more and more interesting combat choices with higher levels. At lower level I give thieves more latitude in doing role-playing combat maneuvers than other characters (and they can burn luck to pull off these kinds of crazy stunts), such as "I jump on the troll's back where he can't reach me with his club." I think this sort of thing makes thieves interesting at lower levels, but it doesn't seem to scale to higher levels very well, when super-powerful magic, hordes of creatures, and creatures immune to critical hits become more commonplace, at which point it seems like the thieves are either doing this "heart killer" trick or are otherwise not doing much at all. I try to overcome this somewhat by handing out more magic items for thieves to use, but I tend to like low-magic campaigns, so I don't much like this as a general solution.

[jozxyqk]

Oncelor: That sounds like a much more complicated game that I like. I guess I'm probably not interested in high level play -- at least to the extent it looks like that. My PCs are just cresting level 4 and we've been playing for almost two years as well. I guess they die quite a bit, and we definitely don't play weekly either. We'll probably retire them around level 5 and start a new crew/funnel.

[aesdana]

I find real high level play very interesting : thnaks for your feedbak oncelor.

Your arguments are pretty solid and I will reconsider my own instinctive position (not allowing multiple MDoAs).