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[TheFlame52]

Title pretty much explains all. I found a particularly interesting world and I've taken 34 pages of notes on it and now I'm going to run adventures in it for my friends. I've pretty much got everything I need, but there are a few things I would like to learn.

• How many map tiles can an adventurer travel in a day? On a good day? On a bad day?
• How much food/water does an adventurer need per day?

I'll ask more questions as I think of them.

[vjmdhzgr]

I've found that something like 2.25 food and water are needed per day. I remember usually eating 2 each, but occasionally needing three. And I think when travelling full time I've managed like, 40 map tiles between sunrise and becoming tired. Someone could do some precise measurements and that would probably be better than just what I think I remember.

[TheFlame52]

2-3 food/drink per day depending on the size of the character sounds good. I managed 14 map tiles in nearly a straight line in my tests, so I think I'll go with that.

How should I do pricing of clothes? No way am I going to figure out the value of each clothing article separately and add them up, that's super complicated.

[Atomisk]

Copper for low quality materials and low quality craft, silver for high quality craftsmanship but low material value or low quality crafting with high material, and gold for everything else. Consider the size and rarity of materials/importance of the craft to the crafter, and you got some prices.

Note that weapons are usually way more expensive than clothes that's only my idea for clothes.

[Edward_Tohr]

Pretty sure there's rules for it in either the PHB or the DMG, but the gist is peasant clothes (i.e. no-quality pig tail tunics and such) are essentially free, fancy clothes (masterworks and/or silk stuff) is, like, a silver, and the really fancy stuff (high-quality silks, etc.) is five silver.

In short, the difference between threadbare rags and the fanciest of outfits is still just a rounding error to even a first-level adventurer.

Having run a few D&D campaigns in a DF world myself, the only really important thing to consider is "are my players having fun?".

If they like wilderness crawls and hunting for food, then yeah, make sure distances and food are consistent. If they instead measure treks between cities by the number of random encounters and take care of food via "Eh, Ranger has +5 to survival, he can take 10 and feed us all", then doing all this is going to be wasted effort on your part.

DF is great at creating a feasible world and generating a history where everything is tracked and has a reason. DF is not so great at anything involving an economy in any way.

Another strength DF has is that you get to build and design fortresses for your players to eventually get horribly murdered in explore. If your players are into dungeon crawls, there's no better way to create both the layout and the lore of the godsforsaken labyrinthine tombs that they want.

[TheFlame52]

Now see I'm not actually running D&D, I'm running a homebrew. It has only 5 stats plus HP/MP, but there's not going to be any magic so I'm replacing WIS with disease resistance. Everyone is going to be warriors.

I will be tracking distance/food, because my players like that. I'm probably not going to money, actually, because if you raid one bandit camp in DF you're set for life. I once collected all the coins from six bandit camps and in the end I had like 300,000☼.

As for how the adventure is going to go, I have them starting out as goblin slaves. Then they have to escape, which will mostly be fighting and running. Then afterwards they can go in any direction. I've given them a whole world to explore, several goals to pursue, and there aren't any tracks to this train.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

Best. DM. Ever. Wish I could play that.

[TheBiggerFish]

Best. DM. Ever. Wish I could play that.

This, PTW, etc.

[TheFlame52]

If people are PTWing I'll give updates on my players' progress when we start.

Right now I have 20 pages of notes and 12 pages of image-based notes. The image-based notes are mostly pictures of coin descriptions.

[TheFlame52]

How do I do stats for weapons? The way I've done it before is by just having them add attack power, but some take away other stats like defense or dexterity because they're heavy. But how do I convert DF's raw data into weapon stats?

I think I'll do whips as just a disabling weapon, not a lightsaber. No reason to follow DF 100%, especially into the strange places.

[NW_Kohaku]

You don't necessarily have to throw all magic out, just read things like Cado's Magical Journey, which has some good stuff, and then maybe borrow some rules from the World of Darkness line of games for things like "Willpower" as magic fuel if need be.

If you want really precise distances, Toady has used 2.5 meters or 3 meters as a per-map-tile distance. Local tiles are 48x48 map tiles, and there are 16x16 local tiles in a regional tile.  (One regional tile is basically 2 km across.) You can generally assume a steady, standard march can accomplish 30km/20mi a day, which is 15 regional tiles, or nearly all of a pocket-sized map. (Presuming you actually generated a map and are using that.)  If you export a map of the world from Legends Mode in the ASCII character format, each tile is a regional tile, and in the detailed view, each pixel is a local tile.

As for weapons, if you're doing D&D-style combat, you could do something 2nd Edition-ish, and have to-hit bonuses for each type of armor. 

For example, a spear might have 1d8 damage with a crit range of 18-20 (and make up an organ damage crit chart, not just double damage) and largely ignore leather or cloth armor, but take -4, -8, or -12 to attack rolls (or just adjust enemy AC by that much if we're really talking 2nd Ed) depending upon enemy armor quality compared to attacker spear quality.  (Steel spear versus copper armor might be just -4, while steel spear versus steel armor would be -12, and copper spear versus steel armor = just give up. Consider it an "armor piercing" quality of 1 per metal quality tier, that cancels out a point of armor quality each.  Armor of equal material quality to a weapon should have three more tiers of armor protection.)

An axe might be similar, but with less severe armor penalties, (-3, -6, -9, -12,) an extra "point" of armor piercing, crits only on natural 20s, and a bonus to rolls on the crit chart so they get more severe crits, including "severs".

Hammers would do something more like 1d6 subdual damage to non-skeletals, but have only -1, -2, -3, -4, etc. for weapon/armor discrepency, and two more points of armor piercing.  When an enemy is down, head shots are coup de graces for lethal damage.

Fine, masterwork, artifact weapons are like +1/+2/+... weapons in D&D, bonus attack/THAC0, and armor works the same for bonus defense/AC.  Masterworks are +5, and artifacts are +10, although they still abide by quality rules, so an artifact wood spear is still crap against armor.

Most other weapons are basically variations on that theme.  A crossbow takes those extra turns to work, but is like a ranged spear with extra armor piercing power. Straight swords can either be used in spear or axe-style attacks (in terms of how potent armor is against it, and the types of crits you can roll) but with less damage and either a 19-20 crit or a half as good bonus to crits as an axe.  Pikes are spears with a d10 damage die, but a -2 initiative roll, and a -1 attack roll for weight.  Etc.

[TheFlame52]

I didn't throw out magic, but there's not enough magic to merit a whole stat for it. It's a skill instead, albeit one that takes forever to master. Also, magic is ridiculously OP to match it's rarity. Just read my notes.


A Secret Keeper is a powerful individual, capable of bending the very world to their will. There are many sought-after Secrets, such as Fire, Death, or Lightning. There are some less useful Secrets, such as Fortresses, Caverns, or Light. Then there are some that few seek at all, like Generosity, Deformity, or Duty. Most Secrets do not grant special powers at all, instead granting incredible skill in a specific field, imbuing the Keeper with a particular virtue or vice, or shaping the Keeper’s life in a particular way.

Secrets ultimately come from gods, who sometimes grant their most loyal followers a Secret related to their role in the pantheon. Due to this most Keepers are human or dwarven. However, one can also be told a Secret by a Keeper. The original Keeper then forgets the Secret, passing it on to a new Keeper. Secrets are often passed down through families, originating from some distant priestly ancestor.

Secrets must be whispered in the ear of the receiver, and anyone listening in hears nothing. Secrets may also be written, after which they are forgotten by the original Keeper. The reader receives the Secret and the written Secret vanishes. Secrets can also be discovered through exhaustive research, though the only person to ever find a Secret in such a way was a Keeper of the Secret of Scholarship.

Some rare Keepers have more than one Secret, and these are exponentially more powerful than ordinary Keepers. Secrets combine. The Secret of Life grants healing powers and immortality (but not eternal youth), the Secret of Death grants death curses, killing spells, etc., but both together grant the power of necromancy. Two Secrets with overlapping areas, such as Agriculture and Plants, give a Keeper greater power over the overlapping area than two Keepers working together.


Okay, that all sounds good. Spears have armor piercing, axes are good at disabling, longer weapons have more reach, swords have a bit of everything, bigger weapons do more damage but are slower. Bows and crossbows would pretty much be like axes and great axes, in that one is bigger and slower. I'll probably make up the actual numbers associated during the first game when I see how things work.

As for mechanics I was going to have HP but also disabling shots, debuffs like nausea and stunned, and lots of dice modifiers. Well fed? +1 to all rolls! Hungry? -1! Stunned? -5! Also I've statted out a lot of fun poisons for my players to suffer from and likewise inflict on their enemies.

[NW_Kohaku]

Okay, that all sounds good. Spears have armor piercing, axes are good at disabling, longer weapons have more reach, swords have a bit of everything, bigger weapons do more damage but are slower. Bows and crossbows would pretty much be like axes and great axes, in that one is bigger and slower. I'll probably make up the actual numbers associated during the first game when I see how things work.

As for mechanics I was going to have HP but also disabling shots, debuffs like nausea and stunned, and lots of dice modifiers. Well fed? +1 to all rolls! Hungry? -1! Stunned? -5! Also I've statted out a lot of fun poisons for my players to suffer from and likewise inflict on their enemies.

Actually, spears very specifically have less capacity to pierce armor.  They're great on less-armored fleshy things, and get tons of crits (which are your disabling shots - your critical chart would be things like "bruises the lung - you have trouble breathing, suffer -3 to all rolls") IF they get through, but spears are the worst weapons against armor. 

Maces and hammers are the "armor piercing" weapon, and weapon of choice for skeletons or other non-organ-bearing creatures. 

To make a chart,

Code: [Select]

Weapon | Damage | Armor Piercing | Armor Penalty | Crit Chance | Crit Severity
-------+--------+----------------+---------------+-------------+---------------
Spear  |   1d10 |   1 + material |         4 per |         15% |       +15
Axe    |   1d12 |   2 + material |         3 per |          5% |       +50
Sword  |        |                |               |             |       
(swing)|    1d8 |   2 + material |         3 per |          5% |       +35
(stab) |    1d6 |   1 + material |         4 per |         10% |       +10
Hammer |   1d6s |   4 + material |         1 per |          5% |         0Material quality would be something like:
Silver/Gold/Wood/Bone/Cloth = 1
Copper = 2
Iron/Bronze = 3
Steel = 4
Adamantine = 5

Code: [Select]

Armor Type | Armor Bonus
-----------+-------------
Plate/full | 3 + material
Chain/half | 1 + material/2
Clothing   | 1
Formula would be:
If Attack Bonus + 1d20 >= Defense Bonus + Armor Penalty * (Armor Bonus - Armor Piercing, minimum 0)

[TheFlame52]

Thanks, will use.

EDIT: I've converted the values to use our system and added attack hit chance. Also, I think I'll base crit chance off the amount of damage you do and the body part affected.

0+ flesh wound
30+ arm disabled
45+ arm permanently disabled
60+ (edge) arm severed

[milo christiansen]

Once you get it all figured out and run a few games with it, how about collating all your notes into a set of proper rules and posting them to DFFD or something? A set of proper "DF PnP" rules would be really cool.