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[Sir Knight]

With the B³ cavern to the west

(I'm usually pretty good at following your references, but what does this designation of the western area mean?)

((What were the combat bonuses of being a knight again?))

(First, to terrify me that I was supposed to have given you a bonus and I forgot.  But upon reminding myself . . . )  Since it's a common game design trap to make a combat character overpowered via bonuses, it's mostly that warriors and hunters avoid penalties.  So it's easier for you to travel safely in the dark and you won't suffer a penalty if you lose your helmet in battle (or sell it, I suppose).

I've really, really understated the role of professions in this game.  Dustan (Dustan Hache) has gotten the most use out of his, remarkably, as the doctor has somehow managed not to die this whole time and he keeps looting bandages off of dead people.  Speaking of whom, I could use an action from him and Alyssa (Rautherdir).  And Gary (Coolrune206), if available.

Back tomorrow!

[Starver]

(A tad obscure, maybe. I just wanted to avoid writing "Bug bat birds". Or, worse, "bird bug bats", "bat bird bugs", etc...  Which, for all I know, are actual different things in your world and not me misremembering at the spur of the moment... )

[randomgenericusername]

With the B³ cavern to the west

(I'm usually pretty good at following your references, but what does this designation of the western area mean?)

((What were the combat bonuses of being a knight again?))

(First, to terrify me that I was supposed to have given you a bonus and I forgot.  But upon reminding myself . . . )  Since it's a common game design trap to make a combat character overpowered via bonuses, it's mostly that warriors and hunters avoid penalties.  So it's easier for you to travel safely in the dark and you won't suffer a penalty if you lose your helmet in battle (or sell it, I suppose).

I've really, really understated the role of professions in this game.  Dustan (Dustan Hache) has gotten the most use out of his, remarkably, as the doctor has somehow managed not to die this whole time and he keeps looting bandages off of dead people.  Speaking of whom, I could use an action from him and Alyssa (Rautherdir).  And Gary (Coolrune206), if available.

Back tomorrow!

Neither are actually useful to Tohil as he's never going into the dark or removing his cult hood. Wouldn't removing "Fail terribly" from the combat table of warriors actually affect their combat effectivity?

[Dustan Hache]

Well obviously a doctor isn't any good if he can't heal people. Speaking of staying alive...
Teach that tiger a lesson it won't forget: don't mess with creatures holding sharp objects!

[Sir Knight]

(A tad obscure, maybe. I just wanted to avoid writing "Bug bat birds". Or, worse, "bird bug bats", "bat bird bugs", etc...  Which, for all I know, are actual different things in your world and not me misremembering at the spur of the moment... )

(Blah, I was thinking of designations for the cavern, not the creatures.  I can cube consonance when paying attention.)

((What were the combat bonuses of being a knight again?))

(First, to terrify me that I was supposed to have given you a bonus and I forgot.  But upon reminding myself . . . )  Since it's a common game design trap to make a combat character overpowered via bonuses, it's mostly that warriors and hunters avoid penalties.  So it's easier for you to travel safely in the dark and you won't suffer a penalty if you lose your helmet in battle (or sell it, I suppose).

I've really, really understated the role of professions in this game.  Dustan (Dustan Hache) has gotten the most use out of his, remarkably, as the doctor has somehow managed not to die this whole time and he keeps looting bandages off of dead people.  Speaking of whom, I could use an action from him and Alyssa (Rautherdir).  And Gary (Coolrune206), if available.

Back tomorrow!

Neither are actually useful to Tohil as he's never going into the dark or removing his cult hood. Wouldn't removing "Fail terribly" from the combat table of warriors actually affect their combat effectivity?

Need stats?  Recall that removing a bad result increases the chance of getting a good result, a la deck pruning in games like Magic; but here, unlike Magic, you have only 6 results on a basic die instead of dozens of results in a basic deck.

Specifically, the expected value for damage to an enemy when rolling a d6 is 2.96.  Remove the Fail terribly result and it becomes a d5, average 3.55 damage.

That is a 0.59 step in damage.  To put it into perspective, most improvements in your weapons give you around 0.2 per "level."  So, going from a basic attack with a d6 to an iron sword with a d7, your damage goes up by 0.22.  The difference between an iron sword and a workstone sword is a mere 0.17.  Raising the weapon quality on a workstone sword one level gets you another 0.25.

Therefore, a warrior who removes the Fail terribly result from every attack is effectively armed with a fine workstone sword (worth 210 opal) when wielding a basic butcher's knife.  That'd be awesome, but no; all players would choose to be warriors in order to take advantage of that.

To balance this system better, I might like to give out such a bonus for real (because it sounds awesome), but I'd have to figure out something equally awesome for all other professions to bring them up to strength.  Not happening anytime soon.

[randomgenericusername]

I'm just saying that currently being a knight sucks and this is why I wanted to change to priest before. Dustan as a medic can already do literal miracles with his healing powers.

[Dustan Hache]

I'm just saying that currently being a knight sucks and this is why I wanted to change to priest before. Dustan as a medic can already do literal miracles with his healing powers.

Only if I have bandages.

[Sir Knight]

I get the idea of wanting to do something more, but I simply don't have the "something."  It was never the intention for "character classes" to be anything more than story propellant: I tie plot events and work-related interactions to a character's past.  Implementing a change to dice rolls was an idea that grew over time.

John (ziizo) and Gary (Coolrune206) are getting no benefit whatsoever; Alyssa (Rautherdir) is in the same boat as you; Dwain (Starver) hasn't used his in awhile.  I gave "the good doctor" a talent that turned out beneficial, and if I really wanted to sell this as a commercial game, I'd need to raise everything to a quality of refinement to match.  I acknowledge this.

So . . . yeah.  I can apologize for not meeting expectations, but I've also never tried to meet such.

[Rautherdir]

((As a suggestion, a warrior background could gain the ability to optionally focus on wrath or temperance for an attack, modifying their combat table; wrath changing the first fail result to fail terribly and the last succeed result to a succeed greatly; temperance on the other hand changing the last fail terribly result to a fail and the first succeed greatly result to a succeed) (not that I would want that for my character, the hunter bonus is perfectly fine for me))

Keep going, try not to draw attention to myself. Find out what is going on to the north.

[Coolrune206]

Gary looks around to see if there are any further opponents to engage; if so, he leaps towards them with a fearsome "WAAAAAGH" and strikes a heavy downward blow. If not, he grabs one of the carcasses and sets to removing the paws; he was gonna have himself a new set of gloves and boots.

[Sir Knight]

((As a suggestion, a warrior background could gain the ability to optionally focus on wrath or temperance for an attack, modifying their combat table; wrath changing the first fail result to fail terribly and the last succeed result to a succeed greatly; temperance on the other hand changing the last fail terribly result to a fail and the first succeed greatly result to a succeed) (not that I would want that for my character, the hunter bonus is perfectly fine for me))

Interesting yet perilous.  First, when changing Succeed into Succeed greatly, the results from a d6 now average 3.79 damage per roll, which is even higher than before.  I for one would always take the "terrible" risk for that sort of benefit!

Second, modifying the Fail side is particularly tricky.  There are ways to remove bad results; in fact, our warrior-of-the-sun is currently wielding a weapon without a Fail result!

It is for reasons like this that I make self-imposed restrictions in how I develop new stuff.  As soon as I decide that one of the precious, precious 6 results is assigned for something (like with this roaring axe removing Fail), I make sure that it overlaps as little as possible with other game mechanics.  So a few weapons can remove Fail; a few abilities, also, can remove Fail by succeeding, like how your hunter removes Fail by succeeding when in the dark.

So I'd rather come up with something that fits into those patterns than branch outward.  For a warrior . . . remove Fail by succeeding on attack rolls?  No, way too powerful.  And so I'm stuck.

But I have all players now, so I'll update as I can!  I think I might need some more input.  I'll post if so.

[Dustan Hache]

Why not give warriors a flat +1 to their damage rolls on succeed greatlys/overshoots?

[Sir Knight]

Why not give warriors a flat +1 to their damage rolls on succeed greatlys/overshoots?

Hmm.  I don't know, those two flat +1 bonuses to enemy-directed damage (an overshoot, or roll of 6, can also do self- or ally-directed damage) raises the average to 3.21.  But the fact that you referenced overshooting gets me thinking again.

Spoiler: Rambling inside, with a proposed change (click to show/hide)

I don't want to make a warrior universally better at playing this game.  Typically, professions have at best removed the overshooting result (Fail by succeeding) from the roll, including your healing rolls, Alyssa (Rautherdir)'s moving in the dark rolls, and the late Bob (magmaholic)'s mason rolls.  This is to imply that a professional in this area is less likely to make mistakes.  But for a warrior . . . argh!  Sure, professional warriors should make fewer mistakes, but dungeon crawls are mostly based on combat!

Well, how about changing that around?  What if they still could roll a 6, but dealt less self- or ally-damage?

For every Fail by succeeding you roll, I follow-up by flipping a virtual coin and having you do one of these:

A:  Do 1d6+1 damage to an ally
B:  Do 1d6+1 damage to the enemy, but also 1d6+1 to self

If you're fighting unarmed, or throwing rocks barehanded, I'll weaken those 1d6+1 rolls to 1d4-1, as such weak attacks rarely do more.  But I've almost never invoked that rule.  So how about a warrior gets to change the default to:

A:  Do 1d4-1 damage to an ally
B:  Do 1d6+1 damage to the enemy, but also 1d4-1 to self

There's something else to mention about that.  You'll see 1d4-1 show up on Fail terribly results: you can deal 1d4-1 damage to yourself sometimes.  If you'll compare, this makes it sound like failing is safer than overshooting, but there's the special rule that an adjusted roll of 0 on your Fail terribly damage means that you trip and become prone.  This can kill you really quickly.  So, for this modification to Fail by succeeding, I wouldn't use the special prone-falling rule and leave the 1d4-1 as simple damage.

Perhaps?  It means that warriors take just as long to kill enemies as everybody else does, but are less likely to kill their allies.  This math means dealing almost half ally-damage per overshoot.

(I also have a secret reason for preferring this solution.  It's secret.)

If I made this change, I'd go back to Tohil (randomgenericusername)'s Fail by succeeding in this update and reroll the self-damage.  I wouldn't reroll any further back as you survived this long without the help.

And Alyssa would retain the benefits of removing "Fail by succeeding" from moving in the dark and avoiding unarmed/"missing helmet while underground" penalties, but Tohil wouldn't get either of them.  (I forgot about the "unarmed" one when I spoke before.  I likewise imagine that's not as valued.)

[randomgenericusername]

I think this would be a good change, but I'm probably biased because it benefits me. If this change takes effect, I wouldn't mind not rerolling the damage and staying with low HP because the medic can probably just heal the damge.

[Sir Knight]

Well, it's a big fight and you'd want to get some use of the change.  I'll make the modification.

If anyone else has any input, I'd gladly receive it.  Done a lot of writing; I'll be back tomorrow so I don't rush it and make mistakes.