Why Legend Quest - part 3

Legend Quest is a percentile system and only uses d10s. Several reasons for this, but the top two are: most female gamers have expressed that they hated the idea of different dice for different reasons. Since we had several ladies playtesting, d10 and d% seemed the best way to go. My personal opinion has always been that using 2d6 or 3d6 made the “pluses” silly. If you need to roll a “7” or better on 2d6 and you have a +1 modifier, it is a huge modifier. If you have the same +1 but need to roll an 11 or better, the odds are completely different. The +1 doesn’t mean as much. It’s the whole bell curve thing. On a % system, +5 means +5 whether you’re at the top or the middle or the % chance. This also then goes into damage. Damage dice are not 2d10 for a bell curve from 2-20, but instead 2D or a multiplier of “2”, so the damage is a smooth line from 2-20. In the first case, you will most likely do about 11 damage. In the LQ case, you have even odds of doing 2, 10 or 20. Yes - Average damage is the same, but the results are more dramatic. Plus, with multipliers, you can do a “half” die damage for 1-5. No need for a different die. Damage also comes with bleeding. If you are hurt, you will bleed, possibly to death. Why? Because someone with one point of life left should not be able to stand toe to toe with the bad guy and be perfectly the same as if he were fully healed. In LQ, bleeding first affects your Fatigue, slowing you down and making you less likely to succeed at things. Then it affects your Life’s Blood, meaning you could die. Don’t be stupid; go see the medic and get that thing bandaged! Armor blocks damage as it is coming in. The heavier the armor, the less of that damage gets through to you. Isn’t that what it is supposed to do? It doesn’t make you harder to hit, just harder to damage. It will slow you down as well, but you can get armor skill levels to offset some or all of the negatives. This means that a knight trained from birth to wear armor is going to be vastly better in it than some joker off the street. Little more realistic? We sure think so! Lastly (for this week) - Shields. I hate nothing more than in that historic first game where shields are +1. All shields were +1 to defense. No more, no less, didn’t matter if you were a moron or Captain America. Didn’t matter if it was a hand held buckler or a Roman legionnaire’s full bodied scutum. In LQ, different sized shields give different base benefits and the shield user’s skill levels (in Shields) dictate the added benefits possible. Why? Well, now it makes more sense, and now you can have a defensive fighter. You can set your guy up to have a huge shield and really know how to use it. Then he can “tank” or whatever you want to call it for the group. When I did it I was referred to as the “damage sponge”, soaking up damage for the rest of the party, but hardly ever killing anyone. next week - part 4 - magic