Dungeon Crawl Part 1

"Pirates of the CarpetBean - Part 2"

5th adventure Sunday 31 August 2011:

"Pirates of the CarpetBean - Part 2"
- see previous adventure
- They found the queen in a tower, but have to rescue her, I teach them the climbing rules (one body length = one try = need 4 or better on 1D6 otherwise fall for 1 damage roll) They like it and start using each other as ladders
- Queen thanks them: "But now we must find my treasure"
- They all sail together (Dino, Hippo, Princess, Queen), kids automatically assume that each of them will have to let an NPC ride them (coz boat small)
- They get to an island (couch) - climb again
- across the island is a defended wall with 5 pirates
- "Chaaaaaarge!" (will they never learn?)
- Hippo runs ahead, gets hit by a pirate with a bow (=distance attack)
- Nice long battle, Queen does not partake, but  distance weapons (bow & magic missile) lossen it up nicely.
- They win, but have taken quite a beating (both down to 50%)
- After victory, the queen gives them a special prize:
Leveling up:
Each kid gets to choose 1 point which they can improve by 1 (from hitpoints, movement points, number of attacks,  number of damage rolls - should not upgrade defense points because the difference is so extreme)
- Hippo chooses to go from 2 to 3 attacks
- Dino chooses 1 more movement point

Pirates of the CarpetBean - Part 1

5th adventure Sunday 31 July 2011:

"Pirates of the CarpetBean - Part 1"

- Dino & Hippo chilling at home
- The princess/fairy from previous adventure comes
- "Help help" the Pirates have kidnapped my mum and are holding her prisoner somewhere
- They accept
- The living room shaggy carpet is the sea, theyre gonna need a boat = piece of A4 paper
- They have to search the ocean, after every move with the boat they get a "warmer/colder" reading from the princess, depending on whether thy moved closer or not
- Halfway, they get ambushed by a pirate ship - yayy - fight on a boat
- Princess stays at a distance and shoot Magic Missiles. Kids don't even blink - of course she does
- First pirate that gets beaten (me)"falls off the boat into the water ", immediately (kids) "and gets eaten by a shark!!!"
Lesson: Kids make it really hard to keep the blood and gore out of this
- They win, after many many many hints they decide NOT to kill the last pirate with only 1 HP but to ask him to lead them to the Queen
- He does, they find her, end of Part 1
- Kids share one of the bananas for healing (only have one each as a permanent daily power now)
- Kids accept multipart adventure without blinking

Testimonials

27. Jul FB
Nuclearwar MUD players respond to the call!

4th adventure Sunday 24 July 2011:

"The Princess is in Another Castle"

- Dino & Hippo chilling at home
- A knight rides up (playmobil mongol horseman figure, hence his name Gengis Khan)
- "My Princess, your friend (see 1st and 2nd adventure) has been kidnapped by the bad guys, and is being held prisoner in a castle"
Note: We had changed the toy heap  from Lego to the Playmobil castle, hence change of tone/enemies

- "will you help?" "Yes!"
- All 3 together walk to the castle (have learnt to stick together/not rush ahead alone)
- Start frontal assault (5 defenders on ramparts - note that 11 defense takes a while to crack)

- Once Dino and Gengis have the first two opponents down, and the remaining 3 tied up in combat with Genghis and Hippo:
- "Hey Dino - where is the princes?" "at the back of the castle.." "Is is there a back doorway?" "Yes!" "Would you like to sneak around?" "No - wanna fight!" Damn - well, I managed to talk him round eventually
- To knock out back door, Dino just did attack rolls vs 10 defense , but upon success I let him shoot the door with the cool playmobil cannon :- ) Pic see below

- Meanwhile at the front, Gengis was taking a pounding, so I let him take a step back and use his bow instead (same attack stats for now) Setup for cool action below
- Hippo also down from 8 to 3 HP, after some prompting ate the banana for full heal. Dino was only down 1 HP but wanted to eat his too, took a bit of convincing for him to keep it (should have let him - oh well)
- After back door blown out, the 2 remaining attackers broke combat and started rushing across the inside of the castle
- Gengis tried shooting one through a suitable window (kids get line of sight concept automatically - nice) but misses
- Hippo and Gengis rush to support DIno at back door
- Dino bites through rope tying princess (took 3 attacks vs 10 defense to land one hit - perfect!)
Note: I only mentioned rope, kids immediately handed me a piece of scrap paper tape that was lying around to actually tie her up

- Dino spontaneously says "princess should ride on my back" (nice!), but this slows his movement down to 3 = to give the opponents a chance to catch up
- as the Chief opponent passes under the trapdoor with a sitting rock on it above back gate (cool playmobil castle thing), Gengis shoots the handle (2nd attempt) and succeeds in tripping the door - awesome!
- Hippo reaches same level as fleeing DIno, and after only a little prompting decides to "turn sideways to protect Dino and Princess" (yessss! awesome)
- Gengis asks Dino for his banana to heal "No, it's mine!!", after some haggling and intervention of big sister, he grudgingly gives a hlaf :) (hadnt thought of that option)
- Using Hippo as cover, they keep retreating, Gengis takes out 2nd-to-last guy with arrow
- As a reward for playing the Dino so well (not much combat while going round the back), I let DIno take an actual shot at the remaining leader (no roll, actual aim with cannon) - takes him down on 2nd attempt, couldn't have choreographed it better if i tried
- Even though there were no more opponents, they would have voluntarily walked all the way home (at least 6 turns) by sticking to the max movement rule - I said "it's OK, you just get home and heal - jubilations all round"

Duration: at least 45 minutes, amazing, 3-year old exhibiting slight loss of interest in last 10 minutes, successfully compensated by physically shooting cannon
Note: I let the kids do some of the actual rolls for Genghis, it helped shorten the waiting for them, must remember that (will probably only do for allied NPCs, otherwise too schizophrenic)

Balance/Stats

Attack:
Statistics for 3D6:
Source: Source with more details
In a nutshell for these rules (I NEED TO DOUBLE CHECK THESE)

- If defense points = 12  then the chance of hitting (=13 or above) is 25% (one in four)
- If defense points = 11, then the chance of hitting (= 12 or above) is 37.5% (about one in three)
- If defense points = 10, then the chance of hitting (=11 or above) is 50% (one in two)

- If defense points = 9, then the chance of hitting (= 10 or above) is 62.5% (about two in three)
- If defense points = 8  then the chance of hitting (=9 or above) is 75% (three in four)

Damage:
Very easy -
Hit points (average) per successful attack roll (above) = 0.5*number of damage rolls
So "Hippo" with 2 damage rolls = average of 1 HP per successful attack roll
So "Dino"  with 3 damage rolls = average of 1.5 HP per successful attack roll

Damage per round:
= Number of attacks*Attack probability * Damage probability

For an opponent with defense 10:
So "Hippo" with 3 attack and 2 damage rolls = (3*0.5*1.0) = 1.5 damage per round
So "Dino" with 2 attack and 3 damage rolls = (2*0.5*1.5) = 1.5 damage per round

For an attacker with defense 8:
So "Hippo" with 3 attack and 2 damage rolls = (3*0.75*1.0) = 2.25 damage per round
So "Dino" with 2 attack and 3 damage rolls = (2*0.75*1.5) = 2.25 damage per round

Character Creation

See also Character Sheet
There are 5 standard stats:
Movement "Boot" Icon - Maximum number of steps per round, see Movement
Life/Hit points "Heart" Icon - Current number of Life points, see Combat
Attack "Sword" Icon - Number of attack rolls per round, see Combat
Defense "Shield" Icon - Attack roll must be higher than this to hit, see Combat
Damage "Fist" Icon - Number of damage dice per successful attack, see Combat


Stats are shown visually on the character sheet:
- Number of boxes = value for this stat (do in pen)

- Exception: Defense Points is as actual number because too high (can be up to 17)

- Cross off HPs when damaged in pencil, erase when healed

Generating stats for a new char:

- Stats are a mostly driven by of the size of the toy (always choose the longest size, any direction, stretching allowed)

- You may need to adjust a bit to avoid too large differences between two players

- Rules below are still work in progress, may need to be tweaked once I run the numbers

Movement "Boot" Icon - Maximum number of steps per round, see Movement

Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 4 steps
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 5-6 steps
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 7-8 steps

Possible modifiers: a horse or T-Rex  could get +1/+2, a hippo or a brontosaurus -1/-2


Life/Hit points "Heart" Icon - Current number of Life points, see Combat


Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 4 HP
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 5-6 HP
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 7-8 HP

Possible modifiers: a big fat creature gets a bit more, also feel free to grow this over time (maybe 1 every two or three adventures)

Attack "Sword" Icon - Number of attack rolls per round, see Combat

Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 1
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 2
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 3

Note: values above 3 may slow down the play too much = too many rolls
Possible modifiers: fierce creatures, weapons, teeth, tails = +1

Defense "Shield" Icon - Attack roll must be higher than this to hit, see Combat

Note: small creatures are harder to hit = higher value, makes up for other handicaps
Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 12-13
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 10-11
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 8-9
See also Stats/Balance

Possible modifiers: Shields, armor, helmets

Damage "Fist" Icon - Number of damage dice per successful attack, see Combat

Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 1
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 2
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 3

Possible modifiers: fierce creatures, weapons, teeth, tails, extra legs = +1,+2

Note: Higher values do not slow down play, more dice not more rolls, however anything above 4 sounds rough